The Energy Landscape of Massachusetts
To understand the potential for equitable energy within Massachusetts, we need to understand how the current energy system functions. This post provides an overview of the Massachusetts energy system with links to various datasets and sources of more information.
The best diagram I have found for quickly describing the total energy usage of a particular place is a “sankey diagram” that shows energy sources, transformations, and end uses. Each year, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory creates a new Sankey diagram of energy use for the entire U.S. They also occasionally release state specific versions. The Massachusetts diagram above is slightly old with 2014 data, but it is close enough to current consumption to serve as a starting point.
The Starting Point: Source Energy for Massachusetts
The Massachusetts Sankey diagram makes it clear how far we are from the goal of deep decarbonization. Petroleum at 548 trillion BTU (46.6% of all primary energy) and natural gas at 433 trillion BTU (34.6%) dominate the Massachusetts overall energy mix. While Massachusetts has dramatically increased its use of solar and wind electricity in recent years, it still imports receives more electricity from coal generation via imports than renewables. According to the latest available 2015 data from the Energy Information Administration, coal made up 24.2 trillion BTU (1.7%) of Massachusetts energy while non-combustion renewables (solar, wind, and hydro) made up only 23.1 trillion BTU (1.6%). Biomass did provide 59 trillion BTU (4.2%), but it is still dwarfed by the use of fossil fuels.
All of these numbers are in “source energy,” which is the original form before conversion to useful energy. For fossil fuels and biomass, this is the energy stored within chemical bonds; for nuclear energy, it is within the atoms that are split by fission. The energy is then transformed to either electricity, heat, or motion. Only 42% of the original source energy ends up up providing useful end energy services. Much of this loss is inevitable, but improvements in efficiency can reduce the energy that is currently wasted.
One other interesting note: Massachusetts imports a significant net amount of electricity from other states each year. This is possible because Massachusetts is part of the regional New England Grid. While Massachusetts controls state policies related to electricity procurement and distribution, a nonprofit entity called the Independent System Operation New England (ISO-NE) coordinates the New England wholesale electricity markets, plans and operates the high-voltage transmission grid for moving electricity long distances, and manages the grid in real time. Thus, electricity imported into Massachusetts comes from what sources are currently being used to generated the grid mix of electricity at that particular moment. During the winter peak, imported electricity has a higher percentage of nuclear, coal and oil, while the peak summer mix has almost 60% natural gas source energy.
Where It Goes: End Uses for Massachusetts Energy
In Sankey diagrams, energy use is typically placed into four categories of end uses: residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation. The relative proportions of these categories vary geographically depending on each state’s unique economy. Massachusetts uses roughly 30% of its energy in the residential, commercial, and transportation sectors, while using only 11% of its energy for industrial uses.
(Note: there is some discrepancy between the EIA end sector data and the LLNL sankey diagram. I think this is because the EIA uses source energy for imported electricity while LLNL only counts the energy content of the energy imports, but I have not done the analysis the reason for the difference).
For the residential and commercial sectors, almost all of the energy consumption is attributed to buildings. These buckets contain all of the energy used to heat, cooling, light, and use applications within buildings. Thus, a key intervention in lowering the energy use in these sectors is to improve building efficiency.
In the transportation sector, the vast majority of energy consumption is petroleum utilized for private vehicles. Thus, two key strategies to reduce energy usage in transportation are to improve gas mileage and enact policies that reduce the amount of driving within Massachusetts.
The industrial sector is a bit broader in its end uses, as it includes manufacturing and production in a range of industries from ship-building and defense to the life sciences and information technology. All of these industries would benefit from continued improvements in production efficiencies, and many could also utilize onsite generation through district energy and solar with battery storage.
Massachusetts pays $27 Billion for energy each year
Total expenditures for energy varies by sector, from $11.7 billion for transportation to $2.3 billion for industry. The main takeaway is that spending on energy within Massachusetts is significant; at $27.6 billion, energy costs were 6.5% of the entire state’s $422 billion GDP in 2014. For context, total energy spending is a greater percentage than the state’s income from manufacturing of durable goods.
Per capita, energy spending comes to over $3514 for every resident of the Commonwealth. This puts at 32 out of 50 states in energy cost per capita. That low ranking might seem surprising given that Massachusetts has the 6th higher per unit cost of energy in the country. But it makes sense given the great strides Massachusetts has made great strides with energy efficiency. The state has the 9th lowest per capita energy consumption in the country, and it won the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy #1 ranking on overall efficiency policies for the 7th straight year in 2017.
A Legal Mandate to Cut Pollution: Reducing Massachusetts GHG emissions by 80% by 2050
Unlike most states in the US, Massachusetts had legally-binding policy goals to reduce global warming pollution. Under the Global Warming Solutions Act enacted in 2008, Massachusetts must achieve a 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and an 80% reduction in emissions by 2050. Massachusetts is close, but has not yet achieved its 2020 target.
As of 2014, 93.2% of all Massachusetts emissions came from CO2 emitted by the energy sector. As show by the graph below, most of the emission reductions achieved to date have come from the electricity sector, which was largely due to a shift from coal to gas (along with increased efficiency and limited renewables). Total emissions for the transportation, residential, and commercial sectors have remained more or less stable since 1990.
The breakdown of emissions from Massachusetts, which is shown below in the left pie chart, is dominated by transportation (45%) and heating commercial and residential buildings (32.5%). This is quite different than the national average, where electric power still is the largest single sector.
One other important thing to note is that Massachusetts total emissions are very small compared with the biggest emitters in the United States. As shown in the graph below, Massachusetts emissions are less than half of Michigan, which is the 10th highest emitting state. Even the six state region of New England as a whole (CT, RI, MA, VT, NH, and ME) emits less than Michigan. It’s a important reminder that while Massachusetts needs to keep moving forward on its climate goals, its individual actions need to be accompanied by similar efforts in much larger states to make a difference on climate.
Conclusion: Massachusetts has a lot of work to do
I want to share one final graph that gives a sense of how much further Massachusetts needs to go to achieve its climate goals. In addition to its 80% emission reduction target laid out in the Global Warming Solutions Act, Massachusetts is also part of the “Under 2 MOU Coalition,” a group of sub-national governments that have pledged to reach emission levels of under 2 tons per capita by 2050. While other countries like the U.K. or Denmark are somewhat close to meeting this target, Massachusetts as a whole is at 11 tons of CO2e per capita. Achieving these deep reductions won’t be easy, and Massachusetts has yet to set a binding 2030 emissions reduction target or lay out a statewide plan on how it will achieve emission cuts beyond 2020.
Relative to the rest of the United States, Massachusetts is clearly a climate leader. But if leadership states are still so far from achieving deep decarbonization, things do not bode well for the rest of the country.
In future posts, I’ll outline ways that Massachusetts can take bold steps to move towards the emission reductions it needs between now and 2030 to achieve its goals. For now, I recommend that interested readers explore the Energy Vision 2030 report from the Acadia Center that presents a pathway for the entire Northeast to reduce emission by 45% by 2030. The work ahead is clear and straightforward. But we won’t meet our goals unless we make policy and investment choices that match our states intentions.
