Report: Greater Portland pollution equals a coal plant
Portland's energy bill in 2007 was $1.2 billion, with nearly half of those costs due to transportation, according to a new report by the Greater Portland Council of Governments and Clean Air-Cool Planet in Portsmouth, N.H.
The report, the Greater Portland Maine 2007 Energy Use and Emissions Inventory, says the region's 26 municipalities spent more than $450 million on gasoline and more than $140 million on diesel fuel. Electricity costs approached $280 million, with $224 million spent on heating oil. Per person, energy costs came to more than $5,000.
Fueling automobiles cost $529 million. Heating and powering homes cost $353 million, while commercial units consumed $244 million worth of energy and marine transportation cost $65 million.
This local energy use emitted more than 4.2 million metric tons of equivalent carbon dioxide gases, greater than the annual emissions produced by a coal-fired power plant, the report finds.
With grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, Cumberland County is paying the council to expand its survey to the rest of the county and to start a regional energy and climate planning initiative, called EmPower Cumberland County, with participants from the private, public and nonprofit sectors.
This initiative will focus on reducing regional greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs by 17% by 2017 and save the Greater Portland region about $204 million a year, according to Rebecca Lambert, the council's transit and energy planner.
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