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Texas, however, is as much a global warming culprit as it is a victim. Already No. 1 among all U.S. states in greenhouse gas emissions and seventh worldwide – emitting more than Canada or the United Kingdom – Texas could be about to sanction enormous increases in the carbon dioxide it sends into the atmosphere.
The approval of 16 new power plants that burn coal, by far the most carbon-intensive fuel for making electricity, would add an estimated 117 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, more than the individual emissions from 33 other states and 177 countries. Still, Texas has no formal strategy on global warming and no plans to order reductions in the carbon dioxide that the state's industries, vehicles and farms release into the atmosphere. California, by contrast, approved a bill last week to slash emissions by 2020 back to 1990 levels.
Power companies plan to build the 16 new coal plants in Texas over the next half-dozen years if they get state permits. (A 17th proposed unit, in Calhoun County near Port Lavaca, would burn petroleum coke, a refinery byproduct that is similar to coal in its emissions.) Dallas-based TXU, which plans to build 11 of the new coal plants, would account for 78 million tons of the new emissions – the same amount that would result if TXU gave each of its 2.4 million retail customers four Cadillac Escalades, noted Jim Marston, Texas director of the national group Environmental Defense.
Of all the ways to generate electricity, coal puts out the most carbon dioxide – about 2.86 tons of CO2 for each ton of coal that's burned. That's because the carbon in coal combines with oxygen from the air to make carbon dioxide. And of all the emissions that come out of a coal-burning power plant, only carbon dioxide isn't subject to any limits or controls.
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http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/090306dnproglobal.3350a24.html
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