Monday, August 01, 2022

A picture of our fossil fuel problem

Philip Bump, Washington Post data visualization master, has done himself proud with this chart. If the hope of mitigating climate change consists of replacing coal and other fossil fuels with clean electricity, here's the current story.

Click to enlarge. There's so much worth thinking about. The West Coast is doing pretty well at getting off coal -- but California still uses a lot of natural gas which is also a CO2 problem. All of New England is also doing well. And then there are the coal-addicted states in the middle.

Bump opines:

What probably stands out here is how little green there is: relatively little wind and solar in the mix. Still lots of fossil fuels being burned. You'll also notice that D.C. has a lot of electricity generated from what the EIA calls “other biomass.” My assumption is that the District has somehow managed to convert human discomfort at high humidity into a form of electricity.

Erudite Partner, who grew up in DC, points out that the capitol is still an outlier in using a lot of heating oil.

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