Per capita CO2 emissions from primary energy consumption decreased in every state from 2005 to 2023, according to recently released data in our State Energy Data System. Total energy-related CO2 emissions in the United States fell 20% over that time, and the population grew by 14%, leading to a 30% decrease in per capita CO2 emissions.
If California generates 68% of its electricity from renewables, while Texas wisely limits the unreliables to 33%… How can the TX/CA ratio be 1.4? The ratio is of MWh. 33% of 49,339 thousand MWh is a bigger number than 68% of 17,301 thousand MWh.
I couldn’t make this schist up even if I was trying…
Gov. Abbot still beat Newsom in disaster relief despite Texas Democrats stalling, hiding out
‘The gears of government to improve the response to this disaster are being slowed down and denied because Democrats are not showing up and doing their job,’ said Governor Abbott.
Despite Democratic lawmakers fleeing and holding up vital relief efforts, Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott’s flood relief was faster than California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom’s response to the L.A. wildfires.
This weekend, Abbott helped to present more than 60 of the families most impacted by the catastrophic floods in the Texas Hill Country with $25,000 relief checks, which the governor called an initial “down payment” on the relief still incoming.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Abbott explained the funds were a result of Texas partnering with country music legend George Strait and other private groups to ensure that funds raised by the star went straight to those who suffered the worst damage.
[…]
Strait’s concert closely resembles a similar star-studded benefit concert, titled “FireAid,” in California that raised more than $100 million for victims of the wildfires in Los Angeles.
FireAid billed itself as “a benefit concert for wildfire victims.” Aside from music by the likes of Lady Gaga, Jelly Roll, Katy Perry and Olivia Rodrigo, the five-hour show featured multiple stories from victims of the Altadena and Palisades fire who had lost their homes.
Fox News Digital reported in July that six months later, victims in the city’s most impacted neighborhoods still had not received any direct funds raised by the concert.
The catastrophic wildfires begano on January 7, 2025. The FireAid concert was held on January 30, 2025. As of today, victims have not directly received “a dime”…
$100M in LA wildfire aid is being doled out to fund pet clinics, DEI projects and fungus planting— but not a dime directly to victims
The massive, much-ballyhooed FireAid event — which drew heavy-hitter supporters such as former Veep Kamala Harris and her hubby, Doug Emhoff — has doled out the dough to 197 charities, many of which are focused on a variety of niche, woke and DEI causes not directly related to helping fire victims.
The catastrophic Hill Country floods began on July 4, 2025…
On July 27, Strait hosted an intimate donor dinner and benefit concert in Boerne, with local first responders receiving complimentary tickets.
“In literally 10 days, we put together a fundraiser in Boerne, Texas, and we raised, to date, over $7 million,” Tom Cusick said.
Strait and Vaqueros del Mar were joined by William Beckmann, Ray Benson, Wade Bowen, Dean Dillon, Riley Green, Randy Houser, Jamey Johnson, Kyle Park and Hudson Westbrook at the benefit concert.
[…]
“We’ve come a long way,” recipient Miles Murayama said.
Murayama walked KSAT through his neighborhood in Hunt, Texas, about one week after the flood. One month later, he received a check from the funds raised at the benefit concert, and he said his neighborhood looks completely different.
“It looks like a normal neighborhood,” Murayama said. “It’s all cleaned up. The streets are cleaned up.”
“We feel very blessed,” Martha Murayama said.
“The destruction and loss in our community from the recent floods is hard to wrap your head around,” Strait said in a July 11 news release. “Our hearts and prayers are with you all.”
Newsom is more concerned about trying to look Presidential to make his 2028 run. Fortunately for all Americans, he cannot get away from his long history of incompetence and thin skinned reactions to any type of criticism. What galls me is just how lefty partisan any news coverage of him is in virtually every California news outlet. God I cannot wait to retire and get the hell out of CA.
Would ANYONE REALLY vote for The United States of California? Newsome would most assuredly try to institute California style regulations on the National Level if elected.
In the short term, probably the Phoenix area since my wife’s work takes her there a lot and she’s not as keen to retire as myself. Longer term… still a question. I’ve looked at both Florida and Texas, which are on the short list. I’m not going to live where it’s cold. Recently I was in Arkansas and saw some really beautiful country between Texarkana and Hot Springs. Economically, it’s a good fit, but there are other considerations.
Almost everything the left does is nonsensical and political. The key is reality eventually wins, and society has to undo the damage that they have done. This nonsensical war on CO2 has put us at a huge disadvantage to China and the AI War. AI needs energy, and those server farms won’t be powered by Wind and Solar. If China wins this economic war, it will because of the climate change fraud. https://app.screencast.com/vZJnv6XSBOMS1
But David, on a “per capita” basis of greenhouse emissions, Australia and Canada rate waayy above China, which emitts ~ a 3rd of the whole world’s total.
Yet AU and CN are the “altar boys” of ‘net zero’ worship.
Numbers – buggers of things to get in the right perspective sometimes.
But yes we do have to laugh at the gymnastics that alarmists will try to put the numbers through.
Hmmm…Canada per capita….My house in Canada has the furnace “On” eleven months of the year….our beachside winter home in Mexico doesn’t even have resistance heating coils in the AC….In Canada I own two 4WD vehicles to get to the grocery store 10 miles away, a snowplow on my 23 HP lawn tractor to clear the driveway, and a 100 HP tractor with 84” bucket to clear the really big drifts if I have to…In Mexico the grocery store is within bicycle distance. Comparing Canada’s per cap fuel consumption to anywhere but Russian gulags is ridiculous.
The RGGI states in the NE (some) are high on that list and will brag about that, but it must be ignoring how much power from hydrocarbons is being imported into their borders. Virginia beating out California is hilarious.
OT: Is anyone else having problems with email subscriptions lately? I’ve resubscribed 3 times this week and I’m still not getting emails about new posts.
The first time I did it after the reversion of the site, I got a few emails that day. Then nothing for a day. Subscribed again, never saw an email other than the confirmation ones.
nyeevknoit
September 18, 2025 8:37 am
Nice charts and content…but is there a chart showing California’s imported electricity (and cost) vs their total electric energy consumption?
The pipeline and the amount of imported oil/gas for California would be helpful, too.
The large difference in price of electricity to consumers should get everyone voting for change.
In 2024, California was the fourth-largest total electricity producer in the nation. It is also the nation’s third-largest electricity consumer and imports the second-largest amount of electricity of any state.
When I first saw your “Supply and Distribution ” table, I noticed the total energy difference between Ca. and Tx. That told me the CO2 reductions on a tons basis were much greater in Texas, even if the per capital percentages were the same. Then you pointed out that fact just below the chart. Excellent.
Per capita energy-related CO2 emissions have been declining in the U.S. for a couple decades, but most of that decrease is unrelated to the agenda of the global warming alarmists. It’s due to technological improvements. When left to their own ingenuity without nanny-state meddling from the petty tyrants in government, humans continually improve. It’s in our nature. In a free market economy, those improvements result in efficiencies that lower the cost of things and use less resources and energy to produce or use them. Natural gas power plants that emit less CO2 replaced coal plants due to improvements to fracking technology. Light bulbs use less energy thanks to improvement to LED technology. More fuel efficient hybrid engines have reduced fuel consumption. Building large-scale installations of wind and solar and increasing the number of all-electric vehicles has had little effect on reducing CO2 emissions compared to other technological improvements.
Regarding lights and engines, etc.:
All my house lights are LED. F150 Truck has a gas engine and gets about 2X the mileage of a similar vehicle built 50 years ago. House heating and cooling is more efficient and because of more and better siding, windows, and insulation that equipment doesn’t have to work as hard. New homes or remodels have 5.5 inches of insulation (2x6s) rather than 3.5 inches (2X4s).
mleskovarsocalrrcom
September 18, 2025 8:50 am
If the ROW reduced CO2 emissions as much as the USA they would be closer to their NetZero nirvana. I say get off our case until you catch up, not that we’ll change anything if you do, but then the focus will be proper for your scam.
So much discussion in this CO2 topic is distorted by the assumption that CO2 is bad. Activists rigged estimates of the “social cost of carbon”.
Geoff S
As for explaining the basic cause for the decrease in per capita CO2 emissions across all states in the US, this is presented in the article’s quote from EIA: “CO2 emissions across the country primarily declined because less coal was burned in the electric power sector.”
While true, that statement fails to provide the full perspective.
Here are some of the specifics:
— Coal generates approximately 2,180 pounds of CO2 per MWh electric, or 0.998 metric tons per MWh electric.
— Natural gas generates roughly 976 pounds of CO2 per MWh electric, or 0.443 metric tons per MWh electric.
That’s a 2.2:1 difference!
Part of this reduction in CO2 emissions is associated with the fact that power plants using natural gas, especially combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants, have significantly higher efficiency in converting MWh thermal energy to MWh electrical energy. The other part of the CO2 emissions reduction is due to the chemistry differences in combusting each fuel type with air: coal simply has a higher carbon content (and more impurities) per unit of thermal energy than does natural gas.
Here are the other key factors:
— in the year 2005, 50% of US electricity came from coal-fired power plants, and only 19% from natural gas-fired power plants
— in the year 2023, 16% of US electricity came from coal-fired power plants, and 43% from natural gas-fired power plants
— In 2005, total U.S. electricity consumption was approximately 3,963 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) whereas in 2023 it had risen to 9,410 billion kWh . . . a 137% increase while the US population increased by only 14% over this same period.
So, from 2005 to 2023, despite per capita electrical power demand in the US more than doubling, CO2 emissions were reduced primarily due to (a) the transition from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas as the primary source of energy for the US, and (b) the higher energy conversion efficiency enabled by modern natural gas-fed power plants.
To add to the confusion, States heavy into wind and solar need gas peaker backups some of which must be on hot standby so they can respond quickly. Peaker plants operate at roughly 2/3 the fuel efficiency of combined cycle plants and to maintain hot standby can consume up to ~40% of their full power rate depending on their age and design. It is not clear to me that a wind/solar system with peaker backups saves much CO2 emission over a gas combined-cycle baseload with fewer peakers. Regardless, it is clear that a State with X percent wind/solar generation does not realize CO2 emission reductions in direct proportion to the amount of wind/solar generation. Anybody out there that can do the calcs?
The District of Columbia is NOT a state. It was formed in the US Constitution so that no state would “own” the Nation’s capitol. It would take an amendment to make it a state.
(I know David didn’t say it was and he didn’t make the charts. But some of our non-US readers might think it is from looking at the chart.)
For demographic and statistical purposes, it is usually treated like a state… But they should have noted that it was a list of states and the District of Columbia. I think they achieved that -48% by shutting down their only power plant.
DC had a coal plant they converted to mostly natural gas in 2009. But it is used for district heating and no longer generates electricity.
sherro01
September 18, 2025 12:52 pm
CO2 is both emitted to the atmosphere and taken from it by various processes. Manmade emissions are just one category. Often, it is the balance (emission minus reduction) that is important.
All over the globe there are cases of emission minus reduction that are poorly understood or not measured. We do not know which are the most important cases for that trendy but elusive goal of “protection of the environment”. For example, some were surprised when learning of estimates of the size of the CO2 contribution from termites.
It is unbalanced and incomplete research when one case, like motor car tailpipe emissions, is highlighted as a problem when the size and consequences if other cases is not yet well understood. Example, perhaps the large mass of the oceanic plankton cycle. Geoff S
Denis
September 18, 2025 1:05 pm
Like the EV advocates who like to include hybrids among the “EV” sales to make the numbers look higher, California included hydro among their count of renewables. California wind and solar add up to about 38% (www.electricrate.com) to compare with Texas’ 33%; not much different. Texas has very little hydro. It seems the fact that California’s electricity price (38c/kWh) compared to Texas’s 15c cannot be blamed much on wind and solar. It must be taxes or shear incompetence.
I think it’s due to natural gas… And the fact that our (Texas) wind power *almost* makes economic sense and we have just enough solar power to help out the wind power in summer when the winds don’t always cooperate.
Something that many people are probably unaware of is that many of PG&E’s hydroelectric reservoirs were originally built to supply water for hydraulic gold mining.
Newsom is more concerned about trying to look Presidential to make his 2028 run. Fortunately for all Americans, he cannot get away from his long history of incompetence and thin skinned reactions to any type of criticism. What galls me is just how lefty partisan any news coverage of him is in virtually every California news outlet. God I cannot wait to retire and get the hell out of CA.
Would ANYONE REALLY vote for The United States of California? Newsome would most assuredly try to institute California style regulations on the National Level if elected.
Do you know where you’re gonna go? I’m thinking Tucson maybe. Happy to hear your ideas.
TL;DR: Not sure.
In the short term, probably the Phoenix area since my wife’s work takes her there a lot and she’s not as keen to retire as myself. Longer term… still a question. I’ve looked at both Florida and Texas, which are on the short list. I’m not going to live where it’s cold. Recently I was in Arkansas and saw some really beautiful country between Texarkana and Hot Springs. Economically, it’s a good fit, but there are other considerations.
Almost everything the left does is nonsensical and political. The key is reality eventually wins, and society has to undo the damage that they have done. This nonsensical war on CO2 has put us at a huge disadvantage to China and the AI War. AI needs energy, and those server farms won’t be powered by Wind and Solar. If China wins this economic war, it will because of the climate change fraud.
https://app.screencast.com/vZJnv6XSBOMS1
“If China wins this economic war, it will because of the climate change fraud.” That’s the purpose and goal of AGW.
Which is why the largest single emitter country, China, is portrayed as the Climate Savior
Maybe AI will just have to ‘sleep’ at night, just like humans.
But David, on a “per capita” basis of greenhouse emissions, Australia and Canada rate waayy above China, which emitts ~ a 3rd of the whole world’s total.
Yet AU and CN are the “altar boys” of ‘net zero’ worship.
Numbers – buggers of things to get in the right perspective sometimes.
But yes we do have to laugh at the gymnastics that alarmists will try to put the numbers through.
Hmmm…Canada per capita….My house in Canada has the furnace “On” eleven months of the year….our beachside winter home in Mexico doesn’t even have resistance heating coils in the AC….In Canada I own two 4WD vehicles to get to the grocery store 10 miles away, a snowplow on my 23 HP lawn tractor to clear the driveway, and a 100 HP tractor with 84” bucket to clear the really big drifts if I have to…In Mexico the grocery store is within bicycle distance. Comparing Canada’s per cap fuel consumption to anywhere but Russian gulags is ridiculous.
Yep.
It’s all about the low counts of “pers” in AU and CN.
(and of course leaving out the yuuuuge quantities of CO2 absorbed constantly by the those vast uninhabited vegetated land areas)
The RGGI states in the NE (some) are high on that list and will brag about that, but it must be ignoring how much power from hydrocarbons is being imported into their borders. Virginia beating out California is hilarious.
OT: Is anyone else having problems with email subscriptions lately? I’ve resubscribed 3 times this week and I’m still not getting emails about new posts.
Me too.
The first time I did it after the reversion of the site, I got a few emails that day. Then nothing for a day. Subscribed again, never saw an email other than the confirmation ones.
Nice charts and content…but is there a chart showing California’s imported electricity (and cost) vs their total electric energy consumption?
The pipeline and the amount of imported oil/gas for California would be helpful, too.
The large difference in price of electricity to consumers should get everyone voting for change.
Thanks.
I don’t have those specific charts handy, but I do have these:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/07/28/california-importing-more-foreign-oil-because-climate-change/
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/15/thank-democrats-for-california-gasoline-prices/
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/images/2025.05.12/main.svg
https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=CA#tabs-5
https://www.eia.gov/state/print.php?sid=TX
Thank you.
David,
When I first saw your “Supply and Distribution ” table, I noticed the total energy difference between Ca. and Tx. That told me the CO2 reductions on a tons basis were much greater in Texas, even if the per capital percentages were the same. Then you pointed out that fact just below the chart. Excellent.
Per capita energy-related CO2 emissions have been declining in the U.S. for a couple decades, but most of that decrease is unrelated to the agenda of the global warming alarmists. It’s due to technological improvements. When left to their own ingenuity without nanny-state meddling from the petty tyrants in government, humans continually improve. It’s in our nature. In a free market economy, those improvements result in efficiencies that lower the cost of things and use less resources and energy to produce or use them. Natural gas power plants that emit less CO2 replaced coal plants due to improvements to fracking technology. Light bulbs use less energy thanks to improvement to LED technology. More fuel efficient hybrid engines have reduced fuel consumption. Building large-scale installations of wind and solar and increasing the number of all-electric vehicles has had little effect on reducing CO2 emissions compared to other technological improvements.
Regarding lights and engines, etc.:
All my house lights are LED. F150 Truck has a gas engine and gets about 2X the mileage of a similar vehicle built 50 years ago. House heating and cooling is more efficient and because of more and better siding, windows, and insulation that equipment doesn’t have to work as hard. New homes or remodels have 5.5 inches of insulation (2x6s) rather than 3.5 inches (2X4s).
If the ROW reduced CO2 emissions as much as the USA they would be closer to their NetZero nirvana. I say get off our case until you catch up, not that we’ll change anything if you do, but then the focus will be proper for your scam.
So much discussion in this CO2 topic is distorted by the assumption that CO2 is bad. Activists rigged estimates of the “social cost of carbon”.
Geoff S
Notice that ALL United States reductions in human emitted CO2 for the last 40 years has not reduced worldwide CO2 atmospheric concentrations at all.
When you fight something you want results. Otherwise its a wasted effort.
And wasting effort is not efficient at all at anytime for anybody.
“And wasting effort is not efficient at all at anytime for anybody.”
Unless that’s the goal.
As for explaining the basic cause for the decrease in per capita CO2 emissions across all states in the US, this is presented in the article’s quote from EIA:
“CO2 emissions across the country primarily declined because less coal was burned in the electric power sector.”
While true, that statement fails to provide the full perspective.
Here are some of the specifics:
— Coal generates approximately 2,180 pounds of CO2 per MWh electric, or 0.998 metric tons per MWh electric.
— Natural gas generates roughly 976 pounds of CO2 per MWh electric, or 0.443 metric tons per MWh electric.
That’s a 2.2:1 difference!
Part of this reduction in CO2 emissions is associated with the fact that power plants using natural gas, especially combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants, have significantly higher efficiency in converting MWh thermal energy to MWh electrical energy. The other part of the CO2 emissions reduction is due to the chemistry differences in combusting each fuel type with air: coal simply has a higher carbon content (and more impurities) per unit of thermal energy than does natural gas.
Here are the other key factors:
— in the year 2005, 50% of US electricity came from coal-fired power plants, and only 19% from natural gas-fired power plants
— in the year 2023, 16% of US electricity came from coal-fired power plants, and 43% from natural gas-fired power plants
— In 2005, total U.S. electricity consumption was approximately 3,963 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) whereas in 2023 it had risen to 9,410 billion kWh . . . a 137% increase while the US population increased by only 14% over this same period.
So, from 2005 to 2023, despite per capita electrical power demand in the US more than doubling, CO2 emissions were reduced primarily due to (a) the transition from coal to cleaner-burning natural gas as the primary source of energy for the US, and (b) the higher energy conversion efficiency enabled by modern natural gas-fed power plants.
To add to the confusion, States heavy into wind and solar need gas peaker backups some of which must be on hot standby so they can respond quickly. Peaker plants operate at roughly 2/3 the fuel efficiency of combined cycle plants and to maintain hot standby can consume up to ~40% of their full power rate depending on their age and design. It is not clear to me that a wind/solar system with peaker backups saves much CO2 emission over a gas combined-cycle baseload with fewer peakers. Regardless, it is clear that a State with X percent wind/solar generation does not realize CO2 emission reductions in direct proportion to the amount of wind/solar generation. Anybody out there that can do the calcs?
The District of Columbia is NOT a state. It was formed in the US Constitution so that no state would “own” the Nation’s capitol. It would take an amendment to make it a state.
(I know David didn’t say it was and he didn’t make the charts. But some of our non-US readers might think it is from looking at the chart.)
For demographic and statistical purposes, it is usually treated like a state… But they should have noted that it was a list of states and the District of Columbia. I think they achieved that -48% by shutting down their only power plant.
DC had a coal plant they converted to mostly natural gas in 2009. But it is used for district heating and no longer generates electricity.
CO2 is both emitted to the atmosphere and taken from it by various processes. Manmade emissions are just one category. Often, it is the balance (emission minus reduction) that is important.
All over the globe there are cases of emission minus reduction that are poorly understood or not measured. We do not know which are the most important cases for that trendy but elusive goal of “protection of the environment”. For example, some were surprised when learning of estimates of the size of the CO2 contribution from termites.
It is unbalanced and incomplete research when one case, like motor car tailpipe emissions, is highlighted as a problem when the size and consequences if other cases is not yet well understood. Example, perhaps the large mass of the oceanic plankton cycle. Geoff S
Like the EV advocates who like to include hybrids among the “EV” sales to make the numbers look higher, California included hydro among their count of renewables. California wind and solar add up to about 38% (www.electricrate.com) to compare with Texas’ 33%; not much different. Texas has very little hydro. It seems the fact that California’s electricity price (38c/kWh) compared to Texas’s 15c cannot be blamed much on wind and solar. It must be taxes or shear incompetence.
I think it’s due to natural gas… And the fact that our (Texas) wind power *almost* makes economic sense and we have just enough solar power to help out the wind power in summer when the winds don’t always cooperate.
It could be taxes and shear incompetence.
I’m pretty sure it’s “sheer” as in easy to see through, vs. “shear” as in to cut off.
Shear the politicians, perhaps? 🙂
Something that many people are probably unaware of is that many of PG&E’s hydroelectric reservoirs were originally built to supply water for hydraulic gold mining.
Perhaps they did it purposely to confuse readers without actually having to lie.