BPU_Agenda_07-18-12 - Los Alamos County

Performance
This measure includes emissions from community wide electricity usage, natural gas usage and solid
waste generation. These emissions include usage from Los Alamos National Laboratory, thereby
capturing usage and emissions from the entire community of Los Alamos County.
Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity usage were determined from community electricity usage
data and information about the sources of electricity used in Los Alamos County. Los Alamos County
gets all of its electricity from the locally owned Department of Public Utilities, which enables the
collection of specific data on the sources used to generate electricity. This information is not readily
available to most communities, and it will result in a higher level of accuracy when calculating emissions
from electricity usage.
The two major sources of electricity provided to LAC are coal and hydroelectric facilities. The County is
partial owner of the San Juan Generation station, a coal fired power plant in New Mexico, and has a lifeof-plant
entitlement of 10MW from another coal plant in Wyoming. The burning of coal results in one
of the highest greenhouse gas emissions rates per MWH generated when compared to other electricity
sources. While on the other hand, the generation of electricity from the two County owned (Abiquiu and
El Vado) and federally owned hydroelectric facilities results in no direct emissions of greenhouse gases.
Over the past six years the County has decreased the amount of electricity coming from coal-fired
power plants by increasing the amount coming from hydroelectric facilities. This has resulted in a 14%
decrease in greenhouse gas emissions per MWH of electricity from 2006 to 2011. (Figure 7). For a
thorough explanation of the methodology used to determine emissions from the usage of electricity
refer to Appendix D.
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Sustainability Plan Draft Page 10
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