Environmentalists of course try to credit green-energy for the decline but being that these unreliable, diffuse, low power-density, and high resource intensity options continue to be a tiny fraction of our overall energy budget, kinda' doubtful, I'd say. A much more logical explanation would be two-fold; a) the country's increased use of natural gas (natural gas having a much better hydrogen to carbon ratio than coal or even oil) and b) the reality that a fair amount of the industrial sector has gone overseas to China and other low-cost areas (the upshot of that of course being that CO2 emissions world-wide aren't being reduced but simply moved).................................................................................................Of course the entire narrative hinges upon whether you believe that carbon dioxide is a pollutant or one of the critical building-blocks of life AND whether you think that this relatively small component of our atmosphere is the primary cause of climate change. Me, I'm not even remotely concerned about atmospheric carbon levels because I've seen no compelling evidence that they determine the earth's temperature but, hey, if they scare you, continue with natural gas and add additional nuclear and hydro-electric options as they're the only things (beside fossil fuels) that can scale-up and keep us out of poverty.
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