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The Redder, the Greedier

Category: Announcement • Commentary • Energy • Environment
Posted on: January 29, 2007 4:30 PM, by Sarah Dasher

Anyone know how to explain this?

Story at The Economist.

Hat-tip, Evan Priestley.

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Comments

One factor that seems obvious to check into would be heating and air conditioning. Air conditioning tend to be powered by electricity. Heating can be powered by a variety of energy sources. Red states tend to be in the warmer south. Blue states tend to be in the cooler northeast and on the temperate west coast.

Posted by: df | January 29, 2007 5:26 PM

Temperate west coast my foot. I live in Calif and 100degree weather is pretty much the norm in the summertime -with less than 1% chance of
clouds to block the sun. All the temperate near coastal real-estate has long ago been bid up, essentially all new growth is inland -and still we are at the bottom of the chart. That probably has a lot to do with end-user pricing.
In any case relatively modern A.C. is reasonably efficient, as the heat pump only has to fight relatively small delta-T, so moving say
10BTU's at the cost of 1BTU of electricity isn't too difficult. The state is also tops in percent of electricity from renewables (hydro dominates). Now transportaion .. thats a different matter altogether.

Posted by: bigTom | January 29, 2007 5:44 PM

And it could be all California -- The graph needs some error bars to help show if it is a significant difference. You do see a regression to the mean as you go farther from the 2004 election. You might see a similar graph if you sorted them alphabetically or randomly.

Posted by: CA | January 29, 2007 5:45 PM

It would be useful to compare red and blue states in the same geographical issue to see if there is a stronger correlation to location than politics.

Posted by: Clark Goble | January 29, 2007 6:26 PM

Here's my mapping of energy by state from a couple years back. This is old news to me. But then, it is my specialty.

Posted by: quitter | January 29, 2007 7:06 PM

Oh, and I think you can make a pretty convincing argument that it's a result of sprawling development. Concentrated development is more efficient, and sprawl is more energy intensive to deliver the same resources.

You look at a high-rise, which is actually a very efficient use of energy and space, and compare that to a sprawling red state suburban community (not that blue states don't have them too - but statistically fewer). You're looking at longer driving times, greater distance to deliver resources, bigger houses further apart and thin population densities. It is far more efficient to concentrate people in specific locations to deliver and use energy, which is really the hallmark of blue state populations, urbanization.

Posted by: quitter | January 29, 2007 7:16 PM

I guess that's a rhetorical question, because, well, Doh!

Posted by: writerdddd | January 29, 2007 7:25 PM

Quitter: Sprawl is more about transportaion costs, electricity use is presumably orthogonal to transportation energy use. Of course heating/cooling costs of a multifamily dwelling will be less per capita, but I suspect that is a small effect. Driving miles/year may not be a good proxy for gasoline consumption, I doubt the residents of Wyoming, and New Mexico spend lots of time in Urban traffic jams -although the popularity of pickups may makeup for the relative lack of stsrt/stop driving.

Posted by: bigTom | January 29, 2007 11:04 PM

Tom, read the whole post, that's just the first map, the second map is a direct measure of energy use per capita.

And the consequences of inefficient development and sprawled communities are pretty significant. You're talking about delivering utilities over much longer distances, heating homes that are often over-large, have more space per person, and aren't concentrated (or built up) to save and share in heating and cooling costs.

Concentration of population is critical, you look at the most energy efficient citizens in the country and it's people who live in New York City. The least energy efficient? The states with large rural populations.

Posted by: quitter | January 30, 2007 12:16 PM