Utah
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, Utah must cut climate pollution by
2.6 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent a year.
Emissions in Utah
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) emissions
Note: Grey area indicates missing data due to processing delays.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
This is how we're going to do it.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
- Boilers and furnaces with heat pumps
- Gas stoves with induction ranges
- No-till farming to keep CO2 in the soil
- Capturing methane leaks from landfills
- Capturing CO2 to make emissions-free concrete
- Burning green hydrogen to make emissions-free steel
- Plugging methane leaks from gas pipelines
Decarbonize Our Buildings
9% of Utah's climate pollution comes from buildings.
We burn fossil fuels to heat our air, water, and food.
To cut this pollution...
Let's electrify our heat!
We'll replace...
...in all of Utah's 1.1 million buildings.
In fact, 21% of buildings in Utah are already fossil fuel free!
That means we only need to electrify the remaining 859,000 dirty buildings in Utah. That's around 32,000 per year.
Source: Microsoft, Mar 2021; NREL, Dec 2021Electrifying all buildings cuts 9% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Transport
26% of Utah's pollution comes from cars, trucks, trains, and planes.
But mostly from cars.
To cut this pollution,
your next car must be electric.
Or consider going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, car share, or other alternatives!
There are 903,000 vehicles in Utah and 11,000 are already electric (1.2% of the total).
We need to electrify (or replace) the remaining 891,000 gas-powered vehicles. That's around 33,000 a year.
Source: DOT, Feb 2021Electrifying all transportation cuts 26% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Power
39% of Utah's pollution comes from burning coal, gas, and oil to make power.
To cut this pollution...
Put solar panels on your roof!
Then, we'll replace all fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind farms.
...and find good jobs for those workers.
Current Fossil Fuel Power Plants in Utah
5 coal plants
Intermountain
Millard County
2,480 MW
Hunter
Emery County
1,577 MW
Huntington
Emery County
1,037 MW
Bonanza
Uintah County
610 MW
Sunnyside Cogen Associates
Carbon County
58 MW
21 gas plants
Lake Side Power Plant
Utah County
1,385 MW
Currant Creek Power Project
Juab County
649 MW
Gadsby
Salt Lake County
492 MW
West Valley Power Plant
Salt Lake County
217 MW
1 oil plant
St George Red Rock
Washington County
14 MW
But wait!
It's not enough to replace our power plants with wind and solar farms.
To power our electric cars and buildings, we need two times the electricity we have today.
In all, we'll need to build 4,000 Megawatts of wind power and 4,000 Megawatts of solar power.
Since the average wind turbine provides 2.75 MW of peak capacity, Utah would need to install about 2,000 turbines.
Since Utah already has 94 Megawatts of wind and 471 Megawatts of solar, that's 4,000 Megawatts of wind power we need to build and 4,000 Megawatts of solar power. That's around 152 Megawatts of wind power and 141 Megawatts of solar power a year.
Source: EIA, Apr 2022Decarbonizing all dirty power cuts 39% of the pollution.
And gives us zero-emissions power we need to eliminate pollution from buildings and cars!
Other Emissions
The last 26% of Utah's climate pollution comes from other sources...
This includes farming, landfills, industry, and leaks from gas pipelines.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are lots of great ideas:
That doesn't mean there's no solution, it just means that clean electrification doesn't help with these problems, and you could fill a whole book with covering all of them. We need to encourage our politicians to invest in researching new solutions and implementing existing solutions to these problems!
Ready to do your part?
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action