But some of the trends now seem locked in for the year: wind and solar are likely to be in a dead heat with coal, and all carbon-emissions-free sources combined will account for roughly 40 percent of US electricity production.

Weather can also play a role, as unusually high demand for heating in the winter months could potentially require that older fossil fuel plants be brought online.

This is in keeping with a general trend of flat-to-declining electricity use as greater efficiency is offsetting factors like population growth and expanding electrification.

Its output has been boosted by a new, 1.1 Gigawatt reactor that come online this year (a second at the same site, Vogtle in Georgia, is set to start commercial production at any moment).

But that's likely to be the end of new nuclear capacity for this decade; the challenge will be keeping existing plants open despite their age and high costs.

The explosive growth of natural gas in the US has been a big environmental win, since it creates the least particulate pollution of all the fossil fuels, as well as the lowest carbon emissions per unit of electricity.

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