Talk Elections

I thought it would be interesting to see what the makeup of each state's electricity profile would be. The most current figures I could find were for 2010 and I decided to just look at the predominant sources (coal, natural gas, nuclear, all renewables). No surprises really except for Hawaii and D.C. mainly using petroleum for electricity. Thought they'd be gassing it up. Anyway, the figures!

2010 Coal generation % list (http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/unitedstates/index.cfm):
West Virginia - 96.7%
Kentucky - 92.7%
Indiana - 89.7%
Wyoming - 89.3%
Ohio - 82.1%
North Dakota - 81.9%
Missouri - 81.3%
Utah - 80.6%
Iowa - 71.8%
New Mexico - 70.7%
Colorado - 68.1%
Kansas - 67.8%
Nebraska - 63.8%
Wisconsin - 62.5%
Montana - 62.4%
Alabama - 62.3%
Michigan - 58.8%
North Carolina - 55.9%
Maryland - 54.3%
Georgia - 53.3%
Tennessee - 53.0%
Minnesota - 52.3%
Pennsylvania - 48.0%
Illinois - 46.5%
Arkansas - 46.2%
Delaware - 45.6%
Oklahoma - 43.6%
Arizona - 39.1%
Texas - 36.5%
South Carolina - 36.2%
Virginia - 34.9%
South Dakota - 32.8%
Florida - 26.1%
Lousiana - 23.3%
Nevada - 19.9%
Massachusetts - 19.4%
Mississippi - 16.1%
Hawaii - 14.3%
New Hampshire - 13.9%
New York - 9.9%
New Jersey - 9.8%
Alaska - 9.2%
Washington - 8.2%
Connecticut - 7.8%
Oregon - 7.5%
California - 1.1%
Idaho - 0.7%
Maine - 0.5%
Rhode Island - 0.0%
Vermont - 0.0%

D.C. - 0.0%
United States - 44.8%

2010 Coal generation % map:
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2010 Natural gas generation % list (http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/unitedstates/index.cfm):
Rhode Island - 98.0%
Nevada - 67.4%
Massachusetts - 59.8%
Florida - 56.1%
Alaska - 55.5%
Mississippi - 54.4%
California - 52.7%
Delaware - 50.9%
Lousiana - 49.9%
Maine - 49.2%
Oklahoma - 47.0%
Texas - 45.4%
New Jersey - 37.9%
New York - 35.7%
Connecticut - 35.1%
Oregon - 28.4%
Arizona - 26.6%
Alabama - 25.8%
New Hampshire - 24.2%
New Mexico - 23.5%
Virginia - 23.3%
Colorado - 21.8%
Arkansas - 20.4%
Georgia - 17.4%
Utah - 15.3%
Pennsylvania - 14.7%
Idaho - 14.0%
Michigan - 11.0%
South Carolina - 10.5%
Washington - 10.0%
Wisconsin - 8.5%
Minnesota - 8.1%
Maryland - 6.6%
North Carolina - 6.6%
Indiana - 5.2%
Missouri - 5.1%
Ohio - 5.0%
Kansas - 4.8%
Illinois - 2.8%
Tennessee - 2.8%
Iowa - 2.3%
Kentucky - 1.9%
South Dakota - 1.3%
Nebraska - 1.0%
Wyoming - 1.0%
Montana - 0.2%
West Virginia - 0.2%
North Dakota - 0.1%
Vermont - 0.1%
Hawaii - 0.0%

D.C. - 0.0%
United States - 23.9%

2010 Natural gas generation % map:
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2010 Nuclear generation % list (http://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/unitedstates/index.cfm):
Vermont - 72.2%
Connecticut - 50.2%
New Jersey - 49.9%
South Carolina - 49.9%
New Hampshire - 49.2%
Illinois - 47.8%
Virginia - 36.4%
Pennsylvania - 33.9%
Tennessee - 33.7%
Maryland - 32.1%
North Carolina - 31.7%
New York - 30.6%
Nebraska - 30.2%
Arizona - 27.9%
Michigan - 26.6%
Minnesota - 25.1%
Alabama - 24.9%
Arkansas - 24.6%
Georgia - 24.4%
Wisconsin - 20.7%
Kansas - 19.9%
Louisiana - 18.1%
Mississippi - 17.7%
California - 15.8%
Massachusetts - 13.8%
Ohio - 11.0%
Florida - 10.4%
Texas - 10.0%
Missouri - 9.7%
Washington - 8.9%
Iowa - 7.7%
Alaska - 0.0%
Colorado - 0.0%
Delaware - 0.0%
Hawaii - 0.0%
Idaho - 0.0%
Indiana - 0.0%
Kentucky - 0.0%
Maine - 0.0%
Montana - 0.0%
Nevada - 0.0%
New Mexico - 0.0%
North Dakota - 0.0%
Oklahoma - 0.0%
Oregon - 0.0%
Rhode Island - 0.0%
South Dakota - 0.0%
Utah - 0.0%
West Virginia - 0.0%
Wyoming - 0.0%

D.C. - 0.0%
United States - 19.6%

2010 Nuclear generation % map:
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2010 Renewable generation % list (http://www.eia.gov/renewable/state/):
Idaho - 84.6%
Washington - 72.4%
South Dakota - 65.8%
Oregon - 64.0%
Maine - 46.8%
Montana - 35.1%
California - 28.0%
Vermont - 27.6%
New York - 22.1%
Alaska - 21.5%
Iowa - 17.9%
North Dakota - 17.7%
Minnesota - 13.9%
Nevada - 12.6%
New Hampshire - 12.2%
Tennessee - 11.1%
Colorado - 10.1%
Oklahoma - 9.6%
Wyoming - 8.9%
Arkansas - 8.7%
Hawaii - 7.5%
Alabama - 7.3%
Arizona - 7.3%
Kansas - 7.1%
Wisconsin - 7.1%
Texas - 7.0%
New Mexico - 5.7%
Massachusetts - 5.3%
North Carolina - 5.3%
Maryland - 5.1%
Virginia - 5.1%
Nebraska - 4.9%
Georgia - 4.7%
South Carolina - 4.1%
Michigan - 3.7%
Louisiana - 3.5%
Utah - 3.5%
Connecticut - 3.4%
Kentucky - 3.1%
Indiana - 3.0%
Pennsylvania - 2.9%
West Virginia - 2.9%
Mississippi - 2.8%
Missouri - 2.7%
Delaware - 2.5%
Illinois - 2.6%
Florida - 2.0%
Rhode Island - 1.9%
New Jersey - 1.3%
Ohio - 0.8%

D.C. - 0.0%
United States - 10.4%

2010 Renewable generation % map:
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Nice maps. One has to be a bit careful interpreting the numbers. For instance, IL shows up on the nuclear list in 6th place at 47.8%. However, IL is a large state with a lot of generating capacity, and leads the nation with about 12% of total US production. Also IL is divided between regions of the grid, and electricity in the north doesn't rely on production in the south. Electricity in Chicagoland is about 70% nuclear, comparable to VT.

I don't think 2011 numbers are out yet but I was reading about wind power to get some background on the expiring PTC and how that matters in the Presidential campaign in specific states (Iowa, Colorado, etc) and I figured the wind power capacity/usage data and maps would fit in this thread.

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http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/pdfs/2011_annual_wind_market_report.pdf

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2012 is going to be an active year too with about 8-12 GW of new wind power installed. Kansas alone is projected to double its capacity this year and near Iowa levels of usage in 2013.

CA is an interesting item there. They were so far ahead in 1999, yet have merely doubled since then, while most states grew by far larger margins.

California has NIMBYism keeping it from building the transmission lines need to take more advantage of wind power.

Another thing is that a lot of the wind power development in the Pacific Northwest has been in contract with California utilities. For example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherds_Flat_Wind_Farm


I think there's even a 2-3 GW wind project in Wyoming where the developer is hoping to export to California: http://www.powercompanyofwyoming.com/

A lot of these projects could go under in the future as the California Governor is trying to build more transmission lines for in-state wind and solar projects. I couldn't find maps like the ones above for solar, but just looking at the stats you can see that California is going to get a lot of solar in the next 10 years: http://www.seia.org/research-resources/major-solar-projects-list

Cool maps. How would I be able to find information on Hydroelectric power generation nationwide without the other sources of renewable energy.

The link above (http://www.eia.gov/renewable/state/) breaks down the renewables by type with total capacity/generation numbers and percentages for each state and for the national total:

* http://www.eia.gov/renewable/state/unitedstates/index.cfm
* http://www.eia.gov/renewable/state/oregon/index.cfm

Thanks!

The current trend among states is a reduction in coal and an increase in natural gas + renewables. I'm surprised how fast coal is declining though.

http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=7290


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http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=6550


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http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=5750


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Arizona definitely stands out with such low non-hydro renewable in 2011. Probably because it's a major nuclear user compared to the rest of the Southwest but I expect it will go up. They've got plenty of solar potential :P

Much of the decline in coal can also be attributed to new EPA rules on emissions.  It's been written up quite a bit in the local news hear in Ohio.  That's no surprise though given the concentration of both coal plants and coal mining in our state.

Another thing that is driving renewable energy development in states besides the cost reductions and technical potential is renewable portfolio standards (RPS). They're basically state mandates that utilities purchase a certain percentage of their electricity from renewables by a certain date. There was a proposed federal RPS but that died in the Cap & Trade bill and then there was talk of a Clean Energy Standard (basically an RPS that included nuclear, natural gas and 'clean coal') but even that seems dead now.

Most of these mandates don't count large scale hydro as renewable because of environmental impacts and because most of them are already built. Republicans here were arguing that Oregon's hydropower should count towards the goal with Democrats saying the RPS should encourage new projects and that if the (new) 25% by 2025 mandate was implemented, the state would get over 3/4 of its power from renewables by that time.

http://www.dsireusa.org/documents/summarymaps/RPS_map.pdf

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California, Colorado, and Hawaii have some of the largest mandates. I think Hawaii's will be the most successful considering most renewable projects there can be well below grid parity due to the state's high electricity prices: http://www.eia.gov/state/state-energy-rankings.cfm?keyid=18&orderid=1

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Connecticut stood out to me as well. They have a relatively aggressive RPS but from the stats above, you can see the state has no wind power installed and a small amount of solar. Sure enough, there was an article confirming the issue: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/State-lags-in-renewable-energy-goals-3450364.php



Delaware and Rhode Island seem to be in a similar situation but maybe they can resort to offshore wind?

LNG carriers are a relatively recent phenomenon. with the first small carrier setting sale only in 1959.  Hawaii never built the infrastructure for the domestic use of natural gas and thus never needed to build what would be needed to import gas for electricity generation.  Thus Hawaii has a chicken and egg problem when it comes to natural gas.  HEI (the primary electric utility) would need to not only build new generating plants, but also an LNG terminal.  Indeed, three LNG terminals if they were to build gas generators on Hawai'i and Maui as well as Oahu. (Kaui'i is served by a co-op.)

You'd think the existing high prices would be incentive enough to move to cheaper technologies but maybe the transportation costs of importing the fuel is really that expensive? Sometimes I forget how far away Hawaii actually is (2,500+ miles from the West Coast). I wonder if switching to natural gas would be cheaper considering that.

Imagine Hawaii's Senators petitioning for a highway to connect them to the continental US. That would be the supreme transportation earmark.

Keep in mind that Hawaii has not one but four separate electricity grids: Oahu, Hawai'i, Maui, and Kaui'i.  A typically sized gas generator plant (~100MW) would be overkill for any of them except Oahu.  The nearest LNG source is Alaska, not the West Coast.  (Alaska's LNG heads mainly to Japan.)  The West Coast has no facilities to export or import LNG, tho there are some proposals for terminals to be built in Oregon. (Originally import terminals, but with the success of shale gas, they've been reworked as export terminals, but so far they haven't been approved.)

Yeah most of the import terminal deals here fell through and now there are both natural gas and coal export terminals in the works. There hasn't been as much opposition to those compared to the coal ones so I expect they're more likely to be approved.

Even the coal ones, I think one or two might get built and the controversy is that the last coal power plant in the state is being shut down in 2020 and utilities here are barred from entering into new contracts purchasing power with a specific amount of emissions per MWh of electricity generated due to the  emission performance standard (http://www.epa.gov/chp/state-policy/obr_factsheet.html) adopted (it effectively banned new coal purchases though the existing contracts were grandfathered in I think) so the state would theoretically be coal-free only to start exporting the stuff.

The coal industry has been saying it should be treated as a market commodity and be allowed through and I don't see how the terminals are going to be stopped as at least with the natural gas exports, you could point to rising domestic prices as a reason to block them.

Somewhat relevant/interesting fact: with Bingaman's (D-NM) retirement, Wyden (D-OR) is in line to be the new Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee if Democrats hold the Senate and Murkowski (R-AK) if Republicans win it. They've been doing energy tours in each other's states: http://www.alaskajournal.com/Alaska-Journal-of-Commerce/September-Issue-2-2012/Sens-Murkowski-Wyden-tout-bipartisanship-on-energy/

http://grist.org/climate-energy/yes-coal-is-dying-but-no-epa-is-not-the-main-culprit/



Somehow I see this turning into bad news for West Virginia Democrats because of the state's coal production: http://www.eia.gov/state/state-energy-rankings.cfm?keyid=30&orderid=1

Looking back, I probably should have added this largest single source for electricity in 2010 state map to those above:

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Color 1 (Red) = Coal
Color 2 (Blue) = Natural gas
Color 3 (Green) = Nuclear
Color 4 (Yellow) = Renewables
Hawaii and DC left blank for petroleum

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Also relevant to the coal element of this thread I think: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obamas-energy-policy-forces-coal-state-democrats-to-embrace-divergent-election-year-strategy/2012/10/12/3afd82f8-148b-11e2-9a39-1f5a7f6fe945_story.html

What's with Dixie - is that just political or is it related to hurricanes?
And what the hell is wrong with Nevada? There'd be so much room there.

It's more the rest of the year that's the problem - the south just isn't that windy.

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Yeah solar and geothermal has been a bigger deal in Nevada so far though the state did get its first wind farm this year.

http://www.windpowermonthly.com/news/1144736/Pattern-completes-Nevadas-first-wind-project/