Groveton’s Virginia

QF: Virginia and CO2 March 17, 2010

Overview: This blog posting is a Quick Fact (QF) entry.  It provides a basic fact or two without much opinion or commentary.  In this case, Virginia has a mixed electrical generation profile which produces electricity with fewer pounds of CO2 / KwH than the national average.  However, Virginians consume more electricity per capita than the national average.  In combination, these two factors conspire to have Virginians creating more CO2 per capita from electrical generation than the national average.  You might have thought this would have kept down the snow this winter.

Power to the people.  All states generate electricity with different mixes of input fuel.  A particular state’s mix is based on history, location, political atmosphere and other factors.  Virginia’s major input fuels are coal (45%), nuclear (35%), gas (10%), oil (5%), other (5%).  Each input fuel generates an average number of pounds of CO2 per kWh.  The weighted average for Virginia is 1.196 lbs of CO2 / kWh.  The national average is 1.329 lbs of CO2 / kWh.

Energy gluttons.  States have populations with different per capita energy use profiles.  Factors such as weather, economic activity and affluence all impact the number of kWh used per year in the state.  Virginians, on average, consume 14,390 kWh per person per year.  The national average is 12,347 kWh per person per year.

The Gassy Dominion:

Virginia: 1.196 lbs of CO2 / kWh * 14,390 kWh / person / year = 17,210.44 pounds of CO2 per person per year.

National average: 1.329 ibs of CO2 / kWh * 12,347 kWh / person / year = 16,409.16 pounds of CO2 per person per year.

All I need is the air that I breathe.  An average person generates 2.3 lbs of CO2 per day by breathing.  That’s 839.5 pound per year.  The average Virginian generates 20.5 times as much CO2 through his or her consumption of electricity than they do by breathing.

2005 – a very good year.  2005 is also the most recent year for which I could find data on this topic.  Therefore, all figures and related calculations are based on 2005 data.