Alaska News

Alaska ranked No. 2 in energy consumption per capita

Alaska ranks second in the nation of energy consumed per capita, but not because of your heating bill. 24/7 Wall St. reports on the Top 10 energy consuming states, and Alaska finished second behind Wyoming.

Pulling 2010 data from U.S. Energy Information Administration, the site found that the vast majority of U.S. energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, mainly petroleum. Natural gas and coal are the second- and third-most used in the U.S., with nuclear energy and renewable energy following, each contributing around 8 percent of the energy consumed nationally.

Alaska consumed 898.5 million Btu per capita in 2010. That is largely due to industrial consumption, not residential. Alaska pumps out a lot of crude oil – third-most in the nation, behind Texas and North Dakota – and "energy production requires a great deal of energy use," the article explains. Alaska was the third highest state in terms of industrial consumption per capita, but was the 20th lowest for residential consumption.

Alaska also has the sixth-highest price of energy per capita in the nation, at 16.26 cents, bucking a trend. Most energy producing states have relatively cheap energy prices, but not Alaska. The study cites Alaska's geography, where many people live off the grid on diesel generators, as among the reasons for Alaskans' mind-boggling electricity rates.

Alaskans also travel long distances between locales, which helps explain why the state's consumption of energy for transportation was number one among the states, and nearly 35 percent more than any other state.

The study also points out that U.S. accounts for 4.5 percent of the world's population, but consumes a fifth of the world's energy.

Read much more, here.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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