Washington
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, Washington must cut climate pollution by 3.5 million metric tons of C02 equivalent a year.
Emissions in Washington
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) emissions
We can do it. Here's how.
- Regenerative agriculture to sequester carbon in soil
- Composting to reduce landfill methane emissions
- New techniques for manufacturing CO2 emitting materials, like concrete
🏠 Buildings
11% of emissions in Washington comes from buildings.
Mostly from different types of heating.
80% of the pollution of your typical home comes from heating your space, water, and food.
To stop this pollution, we need to replace our furnaces with electric heat pumps, electrify our water heaters, and cook with induction and electricity instead of gas.
There are 3.1 million buildings in Washington and 60% of building systems are already electrified.
We need to electrify the remaining 1.3 million buildings in Washington. That's around 45,000 per year.
That will solve 11% of the problem.
🚗 Getting Around
49% of emissions in Washington comes from cars, trucks, and planes.
Mostly from our cars.
To cut this pollution, if you have a car, your next one needs to be an electric vehicle (EV).
Or try going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, or walking if it works for you.
There are 2.8 million vehicles in Washington and 51,000 are already electric (1.8% of the total).
We need to electrify the remaining 2.7 million vehicles. That's around 99,000 a year.
That will solve another 49% of the problem.
🔌 Power Generation
10% of emissions in Washington comes from making power.
Specifically from coal, gas, and oil plants.
To cut this pollution, we need to replace all dirty power plants with clean ones (mostly wind and solar).
In Washington we need to close and replace:
1 coal plant
Centralia
Lewis County
1,782 MW
16 gas plants
Chehalis Generation Facility
Lewis County
698 MW
Grays Harbor Energy Center
Grays Harbor County
698 MW
Fredonia Generating Station
Skagit County
376 MW
Mint Farm Generating Station
Cowlitz County
319 MW
Frederickson Power LP
Pierce County
318 MW
Ferndale Generating Station
Whatcom County
286 MW
Goldendale Generating Station
Klickitat County
284 MW
River Road
Clark County
248 MW
Frederickson
Pierce County
178 MW
Encogen Generating Station
Whatcom County
176 MW
2 oil plants
Grimes Way
Whitman County
4 MW
Crystal Mountain
Pierce County
3 MW
...and help those workers find good jobs.
But wait! Remember how we electrified all cars and buildings?
Our machines don't pollute now, because they run on electricity!
But that means we need to make more power for those new electric machines - twice as much power as we make now!
And all of it needs to be clean power!
So to cut the climate pollution from our power, cars, and buildings we need to INSTALL 6,000 MWs of wind and 5,000 MWs of solar.
Since Washington already has 41 megawatts of solar power generation and 1,000 megawatts of wind power generation, that's 183 Megawatts of wind capacity AND 192 Megawatts of solar capacity a year we need to build.
That will solve another 10% of the problem.
🏭 Other Emissions
The last 30% of emissions in Washington comes other sources
This includes industry, landfills, and farming.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are a lot of great ideas!
These include:
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action