While coal crept closer to natural gas in total US electricity generation share in 2017, gas will widen the gap between the fuels this year and though 2019 on expected lower prices and new capacity, the US Energy Information Administration said Tuesday. In its monthly Short-Term Energy Outlook, and its first report looking ahead to 2019, the EIA predicts gas’ generation share will increase to 33.1% this year, up from 31.7% in 2017, and rise again to 34.3% in 2019. At the same time, coal’s generation share will fall to 29.6% this year, down from 31.7% in 2017, and dip further to 28.1% in 2019. The EIA said gas’ generation shared slipped 2.1% in 2017 primarily because of a 16% year-over-year increase in average delivered fuel cost to $3.33/MMBtu. But the agency predicts delivered costs to slightly decline this year. The Henry Hub gas price, which averaged $2.99/MMBtu in […]