Georgia gets more electricity from coal than any other source
Like most states, Georgia gets electric power from a mix of sources. The majority of it is from coal — 62% in 2006.1
Like other fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas, coal was originally organic matter — the remains of ancient plants and animals—buried deep underground and gradually transformed into its present form. It is rich in carbon, which is released in the form of carbon dioxide (CO2) when it is burned — and in fact, most of the increase in CO2 in the atmosphere over the past couple of centuries comes from burning coal. This increase in carbon dioxide, in turn, has caused a rise in the Earth’s temperature, which is causing a wide variety of effects, including rising sea level — an increasingly significant problem for Georgia.
References
- U.S. Energy Information Administration, “Georgia Electricity Profile, 2007.” ↩
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