Kansas has been able to reduce its carbon-dioxide emissions for a 10th straight year largely due to the rapid adoption of wind energy and a slow move away from coal powered electricity.
About 36% of all electricity produced in Kansas is from wind, the highest percentage of any U.S. state, the Kansas News Service reported. In 2019 alone, Kansas saw four new wind farms, adding enough capacity to power 190,000 homes for a year.
In 2017, about half of Kansas’ total carbon-dioxide emissions came from burning fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, to create electricity. Plant upgrades and federal environmental regulations since, have forced coal plants to clean up what was coming out of their smoke stacks.
Carbon-dioxide emissions contribute to global warming. Ashok Gupta, a Natural Resources Defense Council board member, said the move to renewable energy and subsequent decrease in carbon-dioxide emissions will be vital to reducing the impacts of climate change.
“We should be going by 2030 to pretty much carbon-free electricity,” he said.
