Why Does Wyoming Emit 57 Times as Much CO2 per Capita as California?

Diversity is not always a good thing. States are in very different places when it comes to the carbon intensity of electricity generation.

California has been working hard to become a more sustainable place, from an energy and emissions perspective. Compared to the baseline of 2000, population has risen 15%, electricity production has held steady, and emissions are down 15%. We have a very long way to go, but are diligently chipping away at the sustainability problem. Look across the country, however, and it is quite a different picture. A remarkable map shows each state's per capita emissions just for electrical power production.

Map of the US showing per capita CO2 emissions from electricity generation alone.

It turns out that most states emit multiple, some many multiple, times the atmospheric and climate pollution of states like California. It is clear that there is very weak regulation on the federal level, and that we have hardly progressed from the laissez-faire mine and drill policies of the last century. Aside from hydropower concentrations in the Northeast (Vermont, Maine) and Northwest (Washington, Idaho), no state has lower emissions than California, and as noted in the title, Wyoming puts out a whopping 57 times more carbon per person per year solely in the electrical sector.

Part of the problem is simple chemistry. Coal was the traditionally cheapest source of energy, but has high carbon emissions (not to mention sulfur, nitrogen, ash, and other noxious pollutants and waste). Its general formula is CH, with a roughly 1:1 ratio of carbon and hydrogen. In contrast, methane is CH4, with four hydrogens per carbon. Each of those bonds (whether carbon-carbon or carbon-hydrogen) yields the same amount of energy. So per unit of energy released, methane emits roughly half the CO2. On top of that come the costs of scrubbing out the sulfur dioxide and nitrogen compounds that have been the target of decades of policy against acid rain, which further decrease the efficiency of coal. Imagine on top of that the huge (about 1/3 of total yield) energy cost of scrubbing out the CO2 from coal smokestack emissions, compressing, and sequestering it underground, and one can appreciate what a pipe dream this "solution" is, to keep coal combustion a viable energy source.

Coal combustion is not, indeed, viable at all, if one gives any thought to the atmosphere or the rest of the environment. And it isn't even economically viable any more against renewable wind and solar energy. But there is so much sunk investment in the power plants and mines, that change is hard to motivate. In addition, there are the hidden costs of wind and solar, being the batteries, grids, and other backup power sources needed to cover their intermittent nature. Those are real concerns. But one of the biggest issues is simply the nature of regulation in various states. California has set up complex rules to make utilities sensitive to the cleanlines of their power mix, and their cost structure. Other states have simpler regulatory systems that give utilities markups for all capital expenditures and investments, allowing them to pass through such white elephants as wildly over-budget nuclear power plants. And also continue paying for coal that is costing more than renewable, competitive sources of energy.

More broadly, we need to keep raising the costs of pollution on a wide, federal basis, to a level that forces recalcitrant states to advance global climate goals with clean energy. The US still gets almost a quarter of its power from coal. Much of this is generated and exported from Wyoming, either as electricity or as coal trains. This needs to stop. Many of the most emitting states lie in the midwest and Rockies, which have outstanding wind energy resources. The energy is there for the taking, but it has become a political issue, with red states now dedicated to thumbing their noses at the libtard environmentalists, even if it means spiting their own faces in terms of total electricity costs, pervasive pollution, and appalling jobs.

Trends of fuel sources for electricity generation in the US. Coal has decreased steadily, but still comprises roughly a quarter of generation.

While renewable energy has made astonishing strides in efficiency and cost, it is clear (as we have learned in California) that carrots alone will not make the energy transition happen and save the environment. The government predicts, under current and foreseeable policies, that emissions from the electricity power sector will remain the same out to 2050. That is unacceptable. Sticks have to be used as well, to internalize the enormous and ever-growing costs of atmospheric pollution onto the sources of that pollution- the diverse and sometimes egregiously dirty fuels that feed our insatiable appetite for power.

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