Dig into the reports and models

I spent a few minutes poking around in the EPA carbon footprint calculator. I filled in some online forms. In the end, everything about our family's emissions is below the U.S. average, but not by a lot: about 1/4 lower non-embodied, non-travel emissions. We have not altered our lifestyle, only substituting new technology a bit faster than most. Our current emissions are estimated at 45,205lb/yr and after instituting suggested improvements it's still 45,205lb/yr. That's because we already did that -- we've already picked the low hanging fruit: replaced all incandescent bulbs with LED or fluorescent tube lamp, compost and recycle according to CSWD best practices (about 1/2 ton reduction in emissions) -- and still we are nowhere near the orders of magnitude reduction that is required.

Estimated Household CO2 Emissions

One thing that caught my attention was the emissions from electrical service. The online calculator estimates our rate of 731lb/MWh, or 0.731lb/kWh. This seemed high, and since the EPA calculator invites users to dig deeper into the model, I did. The whole thing can be downloaded as a spreadsheet. Looking at the data tables and the footnotes, it is clear that their emission estimates are exactly that, estimates.

I was confident that our Vermont utilities have actual historical data for the emissions. Indeed, a Google search quickly yielded a 2011 integrated resource plan for Green Mountain Power.

Green Mountain Power's 2011 Integrated Resource Plan, p.131

Vermont electric utilities cause significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than the regional average. The more you dig, the more you know.