U.S. State-Level Fossil Fuel CO2 Emissions from 1960 to 2001

Annual estimates of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel consumption for each U.S. state and the District of Columbia. The data was calculated by T. J. Blasing of Oak Ridge National Laboratory using fuel consumption data and thermal conversion factors from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. It covers a 42-year period from 1960 through 2001.

Use Cases

• Modeling state-level carbon emission trends over time based on the annual estimates from 1960 to 2001.
• Analyzing the relative contribution of coal, petroleum, and natural gas to state emissions based on the described fuel-type energy calculations.
• Benchmarking historical state emissions for climate policy analysis based on the multi-decade time series.
• Correlating economic or population data with fossil fuel CO2 output at the state level based on the described geographical coverage.

Strengths

• Covers a 42-year time range from 1960 to 2001.
• Includes data for all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
• Emissions are calculated using official U.S. Department of Energy conversion factors and State Energy Data Reports.

Limitations

• Data ends in 2001; it is not current for recent decades.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Oak Ridge National Laboratory, using U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data.

Collection Method

Fuel consumption data multiplied by EIA thermal conversion factors to calculate heat energy and derived CO2 emissions.

Time Range

1960 through 2001

Geography

United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia