Over two percent of the world's energy-related CO2 emissions is released by 50 exceptionally prolific U.S. power plants, according to Environment America.
Analyzing data from the Department of Energy's Energy Information Center, the group reports that the five dirtiest plants are found in Georgia, Alabama, Texas, Missouri and Texas, again. Texas leads the country in combined emissions, followed by Ohio and Florida.
Their report comes a week and a half before the EPA is expected to propose carbon limits for new power plants. While the data isn't new, the group organized in ways that they hope will draw attention to "power plants' oversized contribution to global warming."
For example, Georgia Power's Plant Scherer, which wins the superlative for dirtiest plant in America, produced more CO2 in 2011 than the energy producers in the entire state of Maine. And in another way of looking at it, if the top 50 offenders were combined into one country, they'd be the world's seventh-largest emitter of CO2:
[caption id="attachment_13473789" align="alignnone" width="480" caption="Carbon dioxide pollution emitted by the 50 dirtiest power plants compared to other countries (MMT CO2)"]
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