Wyoming
leads in CO2 per person; top coal mining state is a reluctant
enforcer of emissions
28
February, 2014
CHEYENNE,
Wyoming — Turns out the worst state for carbon dioxide emissions
per person isn't smoggy California or bustling New York, but a place
famous for its big, clear skies: Wyoming.
But
regulating greenhouse gases is a touchy subject in the
least-populated state, which just recently received U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency approval to do so.
Wyoming
also is the top coal-mining state by far, producing almost 40 percent
of the nation's coal. Burning coal to generate electricity produces
large amounts of CO2 — in Wyoming, across the U.S., and in the Far
Eastern countries where state officials have sought to open up new
coal markets.
Gov.
Matt Mead made such a trip to Taiwan and South Korea last year.
Meanwhile, he's called EPA efforts to curtail greenhouse emissions a
"war on coal" and said at a recent forum he's skeptical
about man-made climate change.
"What
he also says is we do have a responsibility to always do things
better," Mead spokesman Renny MacKay said Thursday. "The
coal industry has to be profitable if it's going to invest in the
research and development of new technologies."
MacKay
highlighted the state's efforts to make its coal cleaner: $50 million
allocated toward new coal-burning technology at the University of
Wyoming and plans by the state to support a proposed $10 million X
Prize to develop economically feasible carbon-capture technology at
an operational coal-fired power plant.
He
said the EPA shouldn't impose rules that cripple coal-fired
electricity by requiring still-unattainable greenhouse reductions,
but, instead, should gradually implement rules as new technologies to
cut carbon emissions become available.
The
stakes for Wyoming are high. Minerals taxes on coal provided $1
billion to the state and local governments in 2012 and coal mining
supports some 6,900 jobs in the state.
Last
year, Wyoming's coal production fell 3 percent amid more stringent
environmental regulations and inexpensive natural gas, a cleaner fuel
source in growing use by electric utilities.
Meanwhile,
per person, Wyoming faces an outsized challenge to regulate
greenhouse gases on a shorter timeframe than breakthrough
technologies are likely to allow.
In
2011, Wyoming emitted 64 million metric tons of carbon dioxide,
according to figures released Wednesday by the U.S. Energy
Information Administration.
Spread
out over the smallest population of any state — about 568,000
people lived in Wyoming in 2011 — that works out to more than 112
metric tons of carbon dioxide per person, or more than six times the
national average.
Burning
coal — nearly all of it to make electricity — accounted for 69.2
percent of Wyoming's CO2 emissions, twice the U.S. average.
Only
West Virginia (80.9 percent) and North Dakota (69.4 percent) had more
of their CO2 emissions come from coal.
Wyoming
residents aren't solely responsible for all of those emissions.
Wyoming exports to other states about 68 percent more electricity
than it consumes in state.
"Certainly
other states, to put it mildly, they have blood on their hands as
well," Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians said Thursday.
The
group has two active lawsuits opposing coal mining in Wyoming on
climate-change grounds.
In
December, Wyoming became one of the last several states to get EPA
approval to regulate greenhouse gases. For over a year and a half,
the EPA regulated greenhouse emissions in Wyoming while the state
regulated other types of air emissions, a "dual permitting"
process that resulted from a 1999 state law that said Wyoming
wouldn't enact any regulation reducing greenhouse gases.
The
Legislature repealed the law over the last two years.
State
regulators say they're still waiting to see many details of how the
EPA intends to regulate greenhouse emissions, including possible new
rules for existing power plants, said Steve Dietrich, head of the
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality's Air Quality Division.
Other
states with high per-capita CO2 emissions included North Dakota, at
about 78 metric tons per person, followed by Alaska (53) and West
Virginia (52).
Vermont,
California and Connecticut had the fewest emissions per person, all
with just above 9 metric tons per capita.
Posts
