State’s carbon dioxide emissions drop

Carbon dioxide emissions from Nevada fell 12.5 percent from 2004 to 2007 despite a growing population, an environmental advocacy group reports.

Environment Nevada today reported the decrease while releasing a report on the subject.

The group attributed much of the decrease to the shutdown of a coal-fired power plant near Laughlin, but also reported decreases in emissions in the residential, industrial, commercial and transportation sectors.

Carbon dioxide is the gas most often associated with legislation aimed at mitigating global climate change.

Pete Dronkers of Environment Nevada said the new report shows reducing consumers' dependence on energy from coal and other fossil fuels works to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

Dronkers says it supports the contention the United States should adopt measures such as renewable fuels requirements.

"We have just begun a trend to start cleaning our energy," Dronkers said. "We can continue that trend or we can reverse it."

Dronkers and Rob Disney, senior regional representative for the Nevada field office of the Sierra Club, presented the state-specific numbers as part of a national report on carbon dioxide emissions from Environment America Research & Policy Center.

Their numbers covered emissions from 1990 to 2007 compiled from Department of Energy data.

According to the stats, carbon dioxide emissions peaked in 2004 at 48 million metric tons.

That was almost 55 percent higher than the 31 million metric tons emitted in 1990, but 12.5 percent lower than 42 million in 2007.

From 1990 to 2008 the state's population increased from 1.2 million to 2.6 million, an increase of more than 116 percent.

With population growth outpacing increases in carbon emissions, the per capita rate of emissions is down since 1990, according to Environment Nevada.

Dronkers said from 1990 to 2007 per capita emissions were down 52 percent in the electric sector, down 37 percent in the industrial sector, down 20 percent in the commercial sector and down 9 percent in both the transportation and residential sectors.

Although the biggest drop was in the electric sector, much of that was related to the shutdown of the Laughlin power plant, Dronker said.

"If (the power plant) doesn't close we wouldn't see these trends," Dronkers said. "We were given a gift."

That, he said, demonstrates that legislation aimed at reducing the nation's reliance on fossil fuels for electricity generation could result in big decreases in carbon dioxide emissions.

Alternatives to coal include solar, geothermal and wind power.

Carbon emissions are the subject of myriad national and global efforts to attempt to reverse a long-term atmospheric trend of rising temperatures.

Most scientists say human use of fossil fuels is to blame for the emissions, which they say are behind the warming trend.

As a result, climate legislation is directed at reducing carbon emissions and encouraging the use of nonfossil fuels.

Contact reporter Benjamin Spillman at bspillman@ reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3861.