Wednesday, March 27, 2013

US 2012 CO2 Emissions Down Almost 4%

Today the U.S. Energy Information Agency put out final energy numbers for 2012.



U.S. CO2 emissions continued to drop, down 205 million metric tons from 2011, or -3.7%.

(But still a total of 5.29 Gt CO2/yr.)

Per capita emissions dropped from 17.6 tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2011 to 16.8 metric tonnes in 2012, or -4.4%.

(But still about 4 times higher than the world average.)

Total energy consumption dropped by 2.3 Quads, or -2.3%.

(1 Quad = 1015 BTU = 1.06 × 1018 Joules)

In terawatts it went from an average of 3.26 TW in 2011 to 3.17 TW last year.

Per capita, it dropped by 353 Watts, or -3.4%.

The C/E ratio of carbon emissions to energy consumption went from an average of 140.5 t CO2/MW to 138.9 t CO2/MW.

1 comment:

Paul S said...

Much has been made of natural gas as a key reason for reduced CO2 emissions, yet in the primary energy consumption by source data it looks to me that renewable energy production has increased equally as much.

The shift to natural gas and renewables can explain the decrease in CO2/unit energy but it looks like the reduction in total CO2 emissions has more to do with reduced total energy consumption. Presumably this has been caused, in some proportional distribution, by a trifecta of decreased demand due to recession, increased efficiencies and international outsourcing of manufacturing.