3 ms·
I don't think those figures are right - 5.3T/7.5T would mean 70% of CO2 in the US is caused by coal-fired power plants. According to the EPA data for 2019 [1],
by garblegarble 5y ago
I don't think those figures are right - 5.3T/7.5T would mean 70% of CO2 in the US is caused by coal-fired power plants. According to the EPA data for 2019 [1], power generation accounted for 25% of greenhouse gas emissions, and 62% of that was fossil fuels ("mostly coal and natural gas") - so that means fossil fuels for electricity accounted for 16% of the greenhouse gas emissions. The EPA report shows transportation as the largest source, at 29%
Their figures also suggest CO2 emissions were 20T pp in the US in 2019! (6558MT of CO2, 328.2M population)
1: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago> The EPA report shows transportation as the largest source, at 29% The reason I'm so struck by the coal-fired electricity production numbers are that this seems VASTLY easier to fix than the transportation numbers. Even if the latter would have more impact, I think we're still a long way from being able to dramatically affect that, whereas ramping up renewable electricity generation and ramping down fossil fuels seems like a (relatively) simple challenge.
- garblegarble 5y agoYeah, add it to the long list of things we're just not doing :-( nuclear could have made a significant dent in CO2 from base load generation, but we didn't fund work into safer nuclear generation so we're stuck with fairly limited options for base load now
- PaulDavisThe1st 5y agoJust edited it. I missed the 1 from the 17. My source was http://www.ecocivilization.info/three-tons-carbon-dioxide-per-person-per-year.html http://www.ecocivilization.info/three-tons-carbon-dioxide-pe... which I think is from about 2017 (and has several citations at the end).