"Blame Coal: Texas Leads Carbon Emissions" Texas spews 1 1/2 TRILLION POUNDS of Carbon Dioxide

[in_cog_ni_to]

YEARLY! This is a very long article, but truly worth a read and so, so sad.


Blame Coal: Texas Leads Carbon Emissions
By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

2 hours ago

WASHINGTON - America may spew more greenhouse gases than any other country, but some states are astonishingly more prolific polluters than others _ and it's not always the ones you might expect. The Associated Press analyzed state-by-state emissions of carbon dioxide from 2003, the latest U.S. Energy Department numbers available. The review shows startling differences in states' contribution to climate change.

The biggest reason? The burning of high-carbon coal to produce cheap electricity.

_Wyoming's coal-fired power plants produce more carbon dioxide in just eight hours than the power generators of more populous Vermont do in a year.

_Texas, the leader in emitting this greenhouse gas, cranks out more than the next two biggest producers combined, California and Pennsylvania, which together have twice Texas' population.

_In sparsely populated Alaska, the carbon dioxide produced per person by all the flying and driving is six times the per capita amount generated by travelers in New York state.<snip>

<snip>
Texas, where coal barely edges out cleaner natural gas as the top power source, belches almost 1 1/2 trillion pounds of carbon dioxide yearly. That's more than every nation in the world except six: the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India and Germany.

http://www.comcast.net/news/index.jsp?cat=GENERAL&fn=/2007/06/02/679159.html

[MadHound]

1. And what is doubly sad is that Texas could supply all of its electrical needs with wind

It is one of the top states in terms of harvestable wind energy. They could build wind farms out in the middle of nowhere, and do away with coal. But nooooo.