There is something very important, or potentially very important, that is missing from this 50 state review.
That something is generation of electricity in solid-waste-bio waste 21st century incineration systems.
The Times resolutely avoids even mentioning this technology, which was last given decent treatment in 2010 by Elisabeth Rosenthal.
West Palm Beach Florida is the first locality in the USA to employ 21st century technology in a plant designed by Babcock & Wilcox, in Denmark. The Times seems unaware of this achievement, carried out because WPB was running out of landfill space.
The Times is equally unaware of the most striking of all solid-waste incinerator projects, the Babcock & Wilcox plant called CopenHill because it has a ski slope as its roof. The CopenHill plant is also important for showing that incinerators can be architecturally eye catching.
B & W has also shown this to be true in my city, Linkoeping SE, where two gigantic glass houses are homes to the most advanced solid-waste incineration systems in the world and to a system for converting domestic food waste to Biogas.
It is simply inexcusable of the Times not to inform its readers of this technology.
You can see photographs at
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
26
The article does a little disservice to Hawaii by not drilling into the individual islands. Far from being heavily petroleum dependent, Kauai gets half it’s power from solar with targets of 3/4 in the not too distant future. An informative and entertaining article: https://www.wired.com/story/tesla-is-turning-kauai-into-a-renewable-energy-paradise/
8
Florida's lack of solar generated energy is shocking
36
Here with TVA we are moving from Coal. We have nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, and natural gas. Hopefully we will be removing old coal fired generation that does not have traditional pollution controls and replacing it with mostly natural gas and some nuclear. Elimination of coal is not possible in the hear (some decades) term no matter what fantasy others might believe.
1
I had been reliably told that South Carolina uses coal to generate 50% of its electric power. I'm glad the number is smaller, but as long as we depend on coal for a significant portion of our power, I have to ask whether it makes sense to use more power for such things as electric vehicles. Also, why does SC not use more solar and wind energy. It's antiquated laws allowing power companies to hold back solar and wind power make no sense at all in a sunny state with reasonable winds, especially offshore..
4
What the California graph doesn't show is an additional 8% of customer based solar (and growing) that isn't counted in official records. It is considered a reduction in demand, an complete misrepresentation of it's impact on the grid. Customer based solar and storage, aka distributed energy resources, are alos playing an increasingly important roles in stabilizing the grid, reducing the need for massively expensive transmission and distribution hard assets, saving ratepayers money and making the grid safer (less wires needed, less wildfire risk) and more resilient.
4
@Rick, behind-the-meter (home) solar is included in the graph. See: https://www.energy.ca.gov/almanac/electricity_data/total_system_power.html
3
We need nuclear power to mate with renewable power if we're ever going to control our emissions. It can be done safely. We know a lot more than we did 50 years ago and we have a lot more experience. The waste issue is a political issue. Technically, it's solvable.
19
'The Commons' should not be exploited for profit and possessed by shareholders invested not in the future but in the dystopian belief that maximization of profits, no matter the cost, even if it's our literal extinction, is some sort of pinnacle of achievement...how truly short-sighted unless...
Montana Power sold the hydro-electric system to Pennsylvania Power and Light. And, in the process of 'efficiencies, 'free-markets', and associated nonsense, they also liquidated (via several mechanisms) the pensions of the employees. Some folks, friends of mine, were 'bought out' for pennies on the dollar after decades of dedicated service.
The distribution system for the power was also sold.
Montana citizens now pay, adjusted for inflation, a huge increase in electric utilities and most agree the service is far worse across the board.
Coal is a major profit center in Montana...
6
Our hydro is always under attack by environmentalists because the dams hurt salmon and they're always, probably reasonably, skeptical of tech fixes of the dams. Democrats could help themselves in the west if they would just say that the big dams on the Columbia and Snake are safe. It's a huge source of carbon free power and the technical fixes of the dams, while not recreating a natural river, do mitigate the bad effects on anadromous fish. If we fail to stop global warming then huge changes to all ecosystems are coming. Do we really want to take out these dams to try to save an ecosystem that's doomed anyway? Making the rivers like they used to be is impossible. In my view, we should make the best of what we have and keep to carbon free power.
2
It's important to continue to take out the early 20th century dams in our state as we've already started to do. I have no idea where you live but if you haven't gone to the Olympic Peninsula to see what a difference removing the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams has made to the ecosystem, including salmon restoration and the health of our coastline...it's remarkable.
There are four dams on the Lower Snake River which also need to be removed to help restore salmon populations and enhance our two state's Washington and Idaho) ecosystem health. Removing them will help ensure that salmon can spawn there and travel to the Salish Sea, to help feed our beloved Orcas.
5
The California entry hides the truth about the state's climate policy. The state's sloppiness broke half of the most valuable carbon free electricity generation source (that source is . . . nuclear, . . . hugely more valuable than solar and wind and hydro, because nuclear runs all the time; wind rarely runs at the hours of peak need). If that wasn't bad enough, the state is shutting down the other half of its nuclear power plants. The climate be damned if that state's majority fails to be as brave as the French. A fraud.
5
We are underpinned by a web of fault lines. Nuclear is not a wise choice in our part of the country. Take it from someone who actually lives here. Or take it from the Japanese, another population who must accommodate major seismic events. Fortunately, California has enormous solar potential.
8
Agreed, the earthquake risk and tsunami risk of California make nuclear power something that deserves scrutiny. It got that scrutiny. Diablo Canyon nuclear plant was proposed to be closed by the utility, and approved to be closed by the Commission, due to its cost, irrespective of earthquakes and tsunamis. The Obama administration and many previous ones never deemed Diablo Canyon unsafe. The solar potential you mention is already going in, and it is being built with materials that are obtained in unsafe ways. Birth defects and cancers are occurring in China, and species are driven to extinction in China, due to solar power. California is running from a risk that is not there, and happily causing the misery of living things half-way around the world. If California is going to go with solar/wind/batteries, it should pay the high price to get the materials without causing the suffering it now causes.
4
@Flaminia, seismicity of the land under the San Onofre and Diablo Canyon power plants has been scrutined more than any parcels of land in history. In comprehensive, quantitative risk assessments, they show the possibility of an accident at either plant presenting a risk to the public at less than one every ten thousand years.
If we don't take dramatic steps to reduce global warming, it's likely Homo Sapiens won't survive the next five hundred years.
2
Vermont has moved to 100% renewables. It can be done! What's the hold-up?
1
Nuclear is 76% of Vermont's generation. I don't think you understand what the term renewable means. Nuclear power consumes Uranium. Uranium is not a renewable resource. Nuclear power is not renewable.
5
While West Virginia exercises their sovereign right to burn coal, their emissions waft over New England, acidifying water and dropping mercury into everything. If there was ever a case for the exercise of federal authority this is it, but the religion of the right is willful and aggressive ignorance in favor of profits and "state's rights" and they have a convenient partner at the head of the executive, dismantling every protection they can think of.
19
Great interactive. NY Times is always stellar with these. Such ample information displayed in a unique, creative, and knowledgeable manner. I would be interested to see perhaps more interactive options at a micro level within the graphs! If not this, perhaps in future interactives. This page is definitely saved for me!
5
Isn’t it grand that Florida - the Sunshine state - gets almost zero percent of its electricity from solar? That’s Rick Scott leadership for you. He’s a climate change denier to boot.
25
on the subject of electric power generation and nuclear power which generates 80 percent of France's electrical power..
"Is nuclear energy the key to saving the planet?
A new generation of environmentalists is learning to stop worrying and love atomic power."
https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.21/nuclear-energy-a-new-generation-of-environmentalists-is-learning-to-stop-worrying-and-love-nuclear-power
5
West Virginia burning all that coal and it blows right into Virginia.
Thanks, West Virginia.
3
Virginia where 51% of generation is coal? I suggest you worry about your own state. I live in Maine where we are downwind of Virginia. Virtually none of our electricity is generated with coal. Thanks Virginia.
2
What happens to trump's revival of "beautiful coal"? Is it a broken "campaign promise"?
I do have a suggestion. Burn those lumps of coal in his Fifth Ave trump Tower unit 24/7.
4
THANK YOU FOR THIS!
Surprised to see the "Sunbelt" states with so little solar, but they aren't rich and coal though poisonous is dirt cheap. Too bad.
4
I found this article extremely interesting, and not only because power generation is an important issue for all. The article clearly show the differences across states and regions. Please apply this type of reporting to other issues. It might help us to understand one another a little better.
4
Keep in mind hydro is a bad environmental choice. It killed off the millions of salmon the Pacific Northwest. The dams heat up the water in the giant lakes which kill the salmon. The "fish ladders" create bottlenecks for the fish and allow predators (mostly humans in boats) to ambush fish in pools below the dams. The lack of silt and water flow has killed off millions of acres of productive wetlands.
In OR and WA, the Eastern parts of both states are near desert and a small part of this can produce enough wind and solar power for the states' power needs now and in the future. Adding solar panels to the roof of every home and business in addition to the large utility level solar/battery bank power plants provides clean, sustainable power.
The dams can come down and the river flows restored. Global warming, logging corporations, pollution, development all threaten the salmon but the free flowing Columbia, Snake and various tributaries should be able to restore the salmon ecology.
7
Reduce the use of coal as solar and wind power increases then reduce the use of gas. When these polluting sources of electracity are greatly reduced then we can start dismantling dams.
1
I'm sure that those nice, fatty salmon will make excellent fuel to replace the electricity you heat your espresso machine with.
Maybe someday, yes, that would be nice, but totally misguided at this time.
Fascinating, but locally very disappointing. I was of course unhappy to see that my state -- with 300 days/yr of often unmitigated sunshine obtains only 5% from solar, while neighboring AZ gets only 6, just matching that figure from MA, where I lived for 15+ years, and which sees lots of gray cloudy skies. If MA can get 6 and Nevada, similarly solar-endowed as here in NM can get 12, then it's clear that this is far more a question of political initiative in responding to climate change than it is of local climate. We must do better!!
18
these are fascinating charts. Thanks for their creation. not sure they graphically need to swap position to maintain order of overall production by year...might be clearer and easy to assess if positions remained constant as they grew or dwindled?
7
Nuclear plants around the world are direct copies of Rickover designed plants for nuclear subs. You have the ocean for cooling and radiation is not an issue as few people live in the ocean.
In Idaho is a large experimental reactor which was being used to burn nuclear fuel taken from bombs and it is reduced to tame material by removing the neutrons and they are what electricity is composed of. Obama cancelled this project because the pay out was longer than 4 - 8 years. That is vastly than corporations who have a 4 month period in their decision cycle.
Hopefully our new president - Nancy Pelose, after trump is impeached, will restart the Idaho program.
10
Electricity is electrons, not neutrons.
3
In the benighted state of NC where I live, there used to be a robust solar energy production industry thanks to state tax credits, 2d in the country at one time just a few years ago. The tax cuts were passed in ancient times when NC government was the most progressive in the Sputh
Then, a couple of years ago, Governor Pat “I’m not a scientist”McCrory together with the “Bathroom Birther” Tea Party legislature decided to go with the Koch Brothers Imperative, aided by deafening silence from Duke Energy, stopped supporting renewable energy and took away the tax credits.
The greed of the fossil fuel industry is insatiable and presents a clear and present danger to all living things.
40
If you included the Virgin Islands in your report, their main source is petroleum. They have some of the highest energy costs in the US.
1
Why don't the Virgin Islands use wind and solar power?
1
These charts make clear what should be more widely known: A pragmatic, solutions-based approach to climate change should focus heavily on nuclear, hydroelectric, and natural gas in the short term.
Although investment in solar and wind technology can be money well spent, neither power source is ready to provide more than a small proportion of our energy needs.
Attachment to coal as a source of blue-collar employment can prevent such short-term, effective solutions, but so can environmentalist opposition to fracking and nuclear power. For better or for worse, international treaties and climate change reports seem largely irrelevant, except perhaps for their symbolic importance.
5
Sustainable power can be achieved without consumer lifestyle sacrifices and crushing investments.
In 2019 our city's municipal power company will have about 60% of our electricity from geothermal, and the rest will be 100% renewables of solar, wind, hydro.
We pay a bit under $0.12/kWh for base use and about $0.20/kWh for upper tier including taxes and fees. Even with an electric plug-in car our costs are under $50 a month. Without the car our electricity bill was $24 a month. Our electrical use was so low it wasn't economically viable to install solar.
3
Exclusion of imported energy makes these charts misleading as they imply that they are comprehensive. Take California or Maine for example: their green credentials look impressive until you read the caption and find out that a big percentage of energy is imported, some generated by coal. While I applaud the sweeping nature of this project and what it shows about the overall energy trends, I'm disappointed that it has a major data visualization of flaw.
24
The title is "how does your state MAKE electricity" so I wouldn't say it is misleading. But yes, a fuller picture would be a comparative chart in how a state uses different sources.
3
This is a fascinating article that really emphasizes the power that states have used to provide incentives and regulations to drive change. I too am interested in follow up stories that get at total consumption (versus the percentages), per capita use of energy and how policy efforts at energy conservation compare. thank you.
3
How is electricity generated in one state but transferred to and used in a second state taken into account?
10
Apparently it isn't.
1
Or to put it another way, why did the blackout of 2003 affect the the entire northeastern United States and the Province of Ontario Canada?
2
I live near Madison WI and my energy supplier is Alliant Energy. This is not an advertisement for them BTW. They have a program called Second Nature. And through that program I pay a premium so that the energy I consume (or a set percentage of it) comes for renewable sources. I honestly forget what percentage I have that set at. I know it isn't 100, but it is at least 50. But I wish more people would participate and I wish other companies would offer similar options. My energy needs are pretty small compared to most households, but the only way to realize change is to actively pursue it. In the past couple of years I have also had an energy audit and completed several energy saving projects (mostly adding insulation, my house is already pretty tight and unenthusiastically having to purchase a new furnace). The government at the federal and state level have incentives as well as subsidies for those who qualify. There are programs out there, they aren't difficult or onerous to participate in and they don't all cost an arm and a leg. I just don't understand the people who just don't care?
7
For several years our electric co-op had a program that allowed members to purchase units of wind energy in $5 units. We signed up for 5 units a month and did so for several years. Then one day, just like that, the program disappeared. I never heard what happened, but it was a good thing while it lasted.
1
Consumer beware!!! These programs for which utility customers pay a premium so that their energy source is “renewable” or “sustainable” or “clean” are SCAMS. There is only one electrical grid. All the electricity produced from whatever source goes into that grid. If you choose to pay extra but your neighbor doesn’t, there isn’t a separate ‘clean electricity’ feeder in the street that feeds your house, while your neighbor is still hooked up to the ‘dirty electricity’ feeder. When you read the fine print, what it amounts to is that you are paying extra for your middleman to merely “ask” the real utility like Con Edison, to provide you with ‘clean energy’, a totally meaningless and dishonest proposition. You are paying for Virtue Signaling, nothing else.
7
What happened is that your and many others were scammed. And no, being scammed by fake clean energy schemes is not a good thing. Maybe you could call your State AG to find out what really happened.
1
I would really like to see the same article, but instead of "generated electricity" use "consumed electricity." It would be enlightening to see what kind of energy is imported into states that have greater energy needs, but still try to produce energy from renewable sources.
19
Love the graphics!
What was most interesting was that many states use resources that are readily available, with one exception. States with coal use that. States benefiting from mountain snow melt into rushing rivers use hydroelectric power. States in that massive wind tunnel in the middle of the country are increasingly making use of wind power.
The one exception is solar power in the sunniest states. We'll hope that is changing.
9
The low cost of wind and solar should be coupled with new hydroelectric projects. Combining pumped hydro with wind and solar should make huge amounts of hydroelectric that was once only marginal based on the river or stream size of the site more economical and will moderate the intermittent nature of wind and solar alone. It would require federal infrastructure spending and the use of eminent domain which would be more easily accomplished at the federal level.
Of course, what we should do and what we will do are very different things.
Also, instead of seeing gas as the transition energy to the future green grid, perhaps we should be viewing nuclear as such.
1
The most important question is: "How Much Has Per Capita Fossil Fuel Consumption Changed Since 2001?" Write that story.
9
This is interesting, but imo, it was a different crossover that was the biggest development of 2018.
As of 2018, unsubsidized wind and solar are the cheapest generation sources. In an absolutely stunning development this year, new wind and solar builds can sometimes be even cheaper per kw than the operating costs of already built coal and nuke plants.
The shift in the generation mix that's coming will be tectonic the power grid is about to be remade over the next decade.
For the latest levelized cost of energy report from the industry leading source, google "Lazard LCOE 2018"
12
Excellent; you beat me to it. And yet ... the GOP and the dinosaur utilities are still fighting solar and wind -- both distributed and PURPA-required -- like they're an existential threat.
Of course they're only that to the most narrow-minded fools on the planet.
@Jim Richmond, in what alternative universe are wind and solar unsubsidized?
"The largest beneficiaries of federal energy incentives have been oil and renewables, receiving well over half of all incentives provided since 1950...Since 2007, federal spending on renewables research has been nearly twice as large as federal research spending on either coal or nuclear. Over the past six years, 2011 through 2016, renewable energy received more than three times as much federal incentives as oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear combined, and 27 times as much federal incentives as did nuclear energy."
http://www.misi-net.com/publications/EnergyIncentives-0517.pdf
2
The field won't be level until the price of fossil energy includes the cost of removing in from the atmosphere. Renewables become more attractive when there is a cost for fouling our nest. When will we get serious about carbon neutrality?
10
Carbon Tax Now.
While the total percentages of production have gotten cleaner, the amounts of electricity used have probably dramatically risen over that same period of time, increasing dirty output’s relative production of carbon dioxide. Likewise, natural gas while cleaner still pollutes. It’s easy to fool ourselves with our pie charts and graphs, but not nature.
2
In Oregon we have hydroelectric dams.
This is a terrific summary. I'm glad to know the overall breakdown as well as the individual states. I'll use this for our travel plans e.g. NO to Florida, YES to Maine, California.
3
I'm sure FL will notice the loss of revenue from you and will know why.
Get a grip. It's not like CA and ME don't have there own issues that you might lift your nose at.
The graphics are interesting but inexact. Obviously the most critical issue is "the U.S. as a whole" (which neglects imports from Canada, but still) and in that graph coal is the dominant source at the beginning of the period (2001) and at the end (2017). But the overlay says "natural gas has edged out coal" (in bold) which isn't what you see in the graph. It is to be remarked that a number of small states have dramatic shifts in their energy mix in short period of times. With small user bases, shifting just one big power plant changes the profile of the whole state.
5
I remember flying into Albuquerque a few years ago, a flat brown expanse; and mused about how great it would be to get solar panels on every commercial and residential building in that city, as well as solar roofs over every parking lot. They have absolutely nothing to loose. I was there for 8 months for work and would ask people about it. It was incredible, no one there even talked about solar power as a possibility, it was as if they didn't even know what it was.
29
Kudos to whomever put together the graphic. Clear, uncluttered use of color and shape with just the right amount of identifying numbers. Not easy to do as there are a lot of variables.
15
Interesting but missing data. As noted, some states are generating and exporting electricity. A comparison with which sources are consumed by type in each state would be useful. https://www.eia.gov/state/seds/seds-data-complete.php?sid=US. One other note is a data error. Minnesota reached its renewable requirement of 25% last year which is 7 years before the deadline of 2025. Given that, they are upping their target to 50% and a much earlier adoption date.
4
These trends typify the thinking in legislative and state exec offices across the land -- environmental myopia and subservience to energy lobbyists.
3
Though measuring the electricity each state produces is an insignificant metric as it relates to global warming, it's one states often use to speciously bolster their green credentials.
A state's consumption profile - the only one which matters for climate - tells a different story. We see California importing a full third of its electricity, much from unspecified sources, and Vermont importing gas-fired electricity from Canada. And in every state where carbon-free nuclear plants have been retired, without exception, they've been replaced by burning "natural gas" - aka, methane - adding tens of millions of tons of CO2 emissions to the nation's total.
Renewables advocates crow about single-digit gains in solar and wind electricity, failing to acknowledge it requires burning gas when the sun doesn't shine or the wind doesn't blow. They celebrate greater reliance on "free" renewable energy, failing to acknowledge U.S. residential electricity prices, in the last decade, have risen faster than at any point in the country's history.
And the nation they had hoped to use as an example, Germany, has instead become a cautionary tale. After billions of euros spent subsidizing solar panels and wind turbines, the country's consumption of coal is on the rise, along with imports of nuclear electricity from neighboring France.
"Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change" - Climate scientists James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira, and Tom Wigley
20
Fortunately technology and smart design are already figuring out how to balance the increasing share of wind and solar on the grid to assure a reliable supply. The real story is storage using batteries (and other mechanisms such as pumped hydro storage), local siting of medium scale solar generation, and demand management, which can minimize and time shift peak load--all integrated by smart control systems. Local smart grids not only integrate all these, but provide resilience against disruption of long distance transmission by disasters or sabotage.
8
@cvbroome, technology and smart design have been trying to overcome intermittency - the fatal flaw of solar and wind for half a century - and we're no closer than we were in 1968.
It has nothing to do with smart design or technology, but with fundamental laws of physics. Electricity must be generated as its used, not used as its generated. Unlike the visions of "demand management" advocates, customers will never be willing to be dependent on the whims of the sun and wind for electricity, and will burn fossil fuels instead. That's no longer an acceptable option.
That the problem might be solved by big batteries is a non-starter. The largest battery facility in the U.S., which cost California ratepayers $740 million, would be capable of powering our state's grid for less than three seconds. Again - electricity must be generated as its used. Ask a physicist, or better yet, heed Germany's example.
In 1979 Jimmy Carter predicted 20% of U.S. energy would come from the sun by the year 2000. He was wrong (if adoption of solar proceeds as it has since then, we won't realize Carter's goal for another 850 years). No more time to waste on misguided, alt-science dreams - it was alt-science, after all, which got us into this mess.
4
there are other voices identifying nuclear power as the only option to forestalling the worst consequences of burning carbon to generate electricity...
Is nuclear energy the key to saving the planet? A new generation of environmentalists is learning to stop worrying and love atomic power.
https://www.hcn.org/issues/50.21/nuclear-energy-a-new-generation-of-environmentalists-is-learning-to-stop-worrying-and-love-nuclear-power
2
With a truly modern grid, the wind energy generated in Iowa could be used in Arizona. We should build a high-voltage direct current grid so that excess power from variable resources is available to other regions that have shortfalls. The energy mix that a particular state produces becomes unimportant if the electricity can be transmitted to wherever it can be most efficiently used. And this will speed the adoption of renewables.
12
Why DC and not the existing AC grid? DC cannot be transformed and there will be transmission loss over long distances. This controversy was argued by Edison (DC) and Westinghouse (AC) and it was settled a long time ago. Edison lost.
1
You obviously know nothing about AC vs. DC for power transmission and utility. The high voltage grid you envision already exists.............running AC. You "C,", alternating current can be made into high voltage, low current electricity. It is the current (amps) that makes it hard to transmit a lot of. Much bigger wires would be needed, think of your car battery cables needing lots of amps to start the car, but skinny wires everywhere else.
When the way-too-high voltage AC gets to the delivery area, transformers passively reduce the voltage and increase the current available.
Your dream is here.
@Jus' Me, NYT - yes, alternating current can be made into high voltage, but it's not as efficient as DC over long distances. And no, bigger cables are required to transmit AC current, not DC:
"When completed in 1970 the combined AC and DC transmission system was estimated to save consumers in Los Angeles approximately US $600,000 per day by use of cheaper electric power from dams on the Columbia River...
One advantage of direct current over AC is that DC current penetrates the entire conductor as opposed to AC current which only penetrates to the skin depth. For the same conductor size the effective resistance is greater with AC than DC, hence more power is lost as heat."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie
1
What about nuclear? Not a comment about the slow increase of nuclear power and the fact that, although technically not a renewable source, it produces zero emissions and is also much safer and cleaner than decades ago.
4
And yet, in the U.S., no nuke developer will lift a finger unless the public takes on the liability risk. When the nuke promoters start paying insurance premiums for the risk they now foist on society as a whole, only then will it be sane to talk about building up nuclear.
@John D., the myth nuclear power plant owners don't have liability insurance seems to predate the invention of nuclear energy itself:
"Currently, owners of nuclear power plants pay an annual premium for $450 million in private insurance for offsite liability coverage for each reactor site."
https://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/fact-sheets/nuclear-insurance.html
So it's sane to talk about building up nuclear, right?
We should all hope that decision-makers at growing companies like Google, Facebook, Apple, Tesla (and the old school companies like Procter and Gamble, 3M, Catepillar) look at charts like these to decide the places they'll invest in. And that they say right off the bat that the only places they'll invest is states where a sharp trend away from coal is happening. That might be the only thing that will motivate states like West Virginia to save themselves.
4
This is fascinating - I wonder if there's a simple way to clearly compare different states by size or demand - these percentage graphs are fascinating but I would guess that if you compare the actual usage it would add more detail to the discussion.
19
You're correct to ask about total demand--and the role played by energy efficiency. California has switched to a majority renewables supply mix-- but also has seen a dramatic drop in projected need for electricity--for example in 2017 our balancing authority CAISO cancelled 2.7 BILLION dollars of planned long distance transmission lines for importing energy due to increased energy efficiency and local "distributed energy resources" --local solar, load shifting, and storage.
12
Thanks, that was a great article. Love the graphs. It will be interesting to see the next decade... post Trump disaster.
2
Natural gas is used increasingly because fracking has produced so much natural gas and driven down prices. There is a huge amount of coal in the ground. Most likely, the day will come when natural gas production declines, prices increase, and natural gas is replaced by coal.
3
Huh? On what planet?
1
Kansas has no shortage of wind.
"In 2009, the Kansas Legislature passed a renewable energy standard requiring utilities to get an increasing amount of electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources – up to 20 percent by 2020. But Gov. Sam Brownback and state legislators softened the measure in 2015, making the goal voluntary, after conservative groups with ties to the industrial conglomerate Koch Industries lobbied against the stricter standard."
The Kochs, always there to stop any kind of positive progress.
49
The Koch brothers first attention is to their bottom line.
2
The Koch bottom line covers a lot of territory. A light rail project in Nashville was killed because it affected the Koch bottom line.
What about energy cost per state? Price for abandoning fossil fuels?
6
What about the cost of not abandoning fossil fuels? We need to get over the idea that cost of energy is the bottom line.
13