WA State GHG Emissions

PROJECT DETAILS

Every year, the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program (GHGRP) collects emissions data from all major sectors in the U.S. economy. This includes facility-level greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from large industrial sectors. Reported by direct emitters (power plants, industrial facilities, landfills, etc.) and suppliers, GHGRP data accounts for roughly 85-90% of GHG emissions in the U.S.

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In this data research and analysis project, I used the GHGRP to analyze GHG emissions in Washington State. The largest emitter is the TransAlta Centralia Power Plant, Washington's lone remaining coal power plant that is located in Lewis County. In December 2020, Centralia shut down one of their two units, following an agreement TransAlta and the state made in 2011. Governor Chris Gregoire signed SB 5769 on April 29, 2011 - requiring Centralia to shut down one of their units by 2020 and ending total operations by 2025. Eight years later, Governor Jay Inslee went onto sign SB 5116 - the Clean Energy Transformation Act (CETA) - legislation that will eliminate coal from the utility generation portfolios (imported coal).

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This project is intended to showcase my data research, analysis, and visualizations skills, as well as my understanding of Washington State climate policy. Data was analyzed, manipulated, and filtered in Microsoft Excel, while visualizations were created with Flourish and Datawrapper. 

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Visualizations include (in order): a bar chart race of WA facility largest GHG emitters (accumulated) since 2010; a table with WA's top-10 facility emitters in 2020, a pie chart of WA's largest emitting industrial sectors in 2020, a WA county map detailing where facility emissions are coming from, and an interactive column chart that shows every reporting facility from WA and their emissions from each year since 2010.