Texas
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, Texas must cut emissions by 3.8% a year
Emissions in Texas
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) 
equivalent (MTCO2e ) emissions
Note: Grey area indicates missing data due to processing delays.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
This is how we're going to do it
- Boilers and furnaces with heat pumps
- Gas stoves with electric induction stoves
- No-till farming to keep CO2 in the soil
- Capturing methane leaks from landfills
- Capturing CO2 to make emissions-free concrete
- Burning green hydrogen to make emissions-free steel
- Plugging methane leaks from gas pipelines
Decarbonize Our Buildings
3% of Texas's climate pollution comes from buildings.
We burn fossil fuels to heat our air, water, and food.
To cut this pollution...
Let's electrify our heat!
We'll replace...
...in all of Texas's 10.7 million buildings.
In fact, 56.7% of appliances in buildings in Texas are already fossil fuel free!
That means we only need to electrify the remaining 4.6 million dirty buildings in Texas. That's around 176,000 per year.
Source: Microsoft, Mar 2021; NREL, Dec 2021Electrifying all buildings cuts 3% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Transport
27% of Texas's pollution comes from cars, trucks, trains, and planes.
But mostly from cars.
To cut this pollution,
your next car must be electric.
Or consider going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, car share, or other alternatives!
There are 8.1 million vehicles in Texas and 52,000 are already electric (0.6% of the total).
We need to electrify (or replace) the remaining 8.0 million gas-powered vehicles. That's around 305,000 a year.
Source: DOT, Feb 2021Electrifying all transportation cuts 27% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Power
22% of Texas's pollution comes from burning coal, gas, and oil to make power.
That's because of how power is generated in Texas today.
Power Generation in the State of Texas (2020)
But there's already 31% carbon-free electricity generation in Texas!
To clean up the emissions from the polluting power plants we need to replace all fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind farms.
...and find good jobs for those workers.
Current Fossil Fuel Power Plants in Texas
16 coal plants
4,008 MW
3,397 MW
3,180 MW
1,850 MW
1,690 MW
1,674 MW
1,444 MW
1,136 MW
1,080 MW
1,008 MW
949 MW
932 MW
721 MW
720 MW
622 MW
410 MW
159 gas plants
2,295 MW
2,164 MW
2,051 MW
1,894 MW
1,734 MW
1,713 MW
1,628 MW
1,606 MW
1,438 MW
1,434 MW
1,433 MW
1,379 MW
1,280 MW
1,231 MW
1,230 MW
1,176 MW
1,153 MW
1,113 MW
1,110 MW
1,097 MW
1,088 MW
1,082 MW
1,076 MW
1,036 MW
1,021 MW
989 MW
958 MW
943 MW
940 MW
940 MW
940 MW
933 MW
932 MW
930 MW
928 MW
918 MW
892 MW
882 MW
878 MW
861 MW
860 MW
822 MW
815 MW
807 MW
803 MW
801 MW
788 MW
713 MW
713 MW
698 MW
696 MW
644 MW
635 MW
623 MW
623 MW
619 MW
610 MW
609 MW
606 MW
604 MW
595 MW
593 MW
580 MW
572 MW
570 MW
551 MW
550 MW
543 MW
536 MW
527 MW
521 MW
517 MW
510 MW
501 MW
498 MW
475 MW
468 MW
451 MW
450 MW
440 MW
434 MW
432 MW
428 MW
427 MW
418 MW
418 MW
382 MW
381 MW
371 MW
359 MW
317 MW
310 MW
283 MW
268 MW
266 MW
243 MW
242 MW
240 MW
236 MW
232 MW
230 MW
226 MW
224 MW
203 MW
191 MW
176 MW
174 MW
173 MW
172 MW
171 MW
170 MW
170 MW
168 MW
167 MW
154 MW
138 MW
122 MW
121 MW
121 MW
114 MW
112 MW
107 MW
107 MW
103 MW
102 MW
100 MW
93 MW
87 MW
87 MW
83 MW
80 MW
77 MW
57 MW
55 MW
51 MW
50 MW
48 MW
47 MW
41 MW
40 MW
38 MW
38 MW
35 MW
26 MW
23 MW
21 MW
20 MW
15 MW
14 MW
14 MW
12 MW
11 MW
7 MW
6 MW
6 MW
5 MW
4 MW
3 MW
2 MW
6 oil plants
77 MW
11 MW
8 MW
6 MW
5 MW
4 MW
But wait!
It's not enough to replace our power plants with wind and solar farms.
To power our electric cars and buildings, we need two times the electricity we have today.
In all, we'll need to build 29,000 megawatt (MW) of wind power and 35,000 MW of solar power.
Since the average wind turbine provides 2.75 MW of peak capacity, Texas would need to install about 10,000 turbines.
Since Texas already has 11,000 MW of wind and 2,000 MW of solar, that's 17,000 MW of wind power we need to build and 33,000 MW of solar power. That's around 662 MW of wind power and 1,000 MW of solar power a year.
Source: EIA, Apr 2022Decarbonizing all dirty power cuts 22% of the pollution.
And gives us zero-emissions power we need to eliminate pollution from buildings and cars!
Other Emissions
The last 47% of Texas's climate pollution comes from other sources...
This includes farming, landfills, industry, and leaks from gas pipelines.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are lots of great ideas:
That doesn't mean there's no solution, it just means that clean electrification doesn't help with these problems, and you could fill a whole book with covering all of them. We need to encourage our politicians to invest in researching new solutions and implementing existing solutions to these problems!
Ready to do your part?
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action