Massachusetts
Back to mapTo get to zero by 2050, Massachusetts must cut emissions by 3.7% a year
Emissions in Massachusetts
Million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) 
equivalent (MTCO2e ) emissions
Note: Grey area indicates missing data due to processing delays.
Source: WRI, Mar 2021
This is how we're going to do it
- Boilers and furnaces with heat pumps
- Gas stoves with electric induction stoves
- No-till farming to keep CO2 in the soil
- Capturing methane leaks from landfills
- Capturing CO2 to make emissions-free concrete
- Burning green hydrogen to make emissions-free steel
- Plugging methane leaks from gas pipelines
Decarbonize Our Buildings
30% of Massachusetts's climate pollution comes from buildings.
We burn fossil fuels to heat our air, water, and food.
To cut this pollution...
Let's electrify our heat!
We'll replace...
...in all of Massachusetts's 2.1 million buildings.
In fact, 23.6% of appliances in buildings in Massachusetts are already fossil fuel free!
That means we only need to electrify the remaining 1.6 million dirty buildings in Massachusetts. That's around 60,000 per year.
Source: Microsoft, Mar 2021; NREL, Dec 2021Electrifying all buildings cuts 30% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Transport
43% of Massachusetts's pollution comes from cars, trucks, trains, and planes.
But mostly from cars.
To cut this pollution,
your next car must be electric.
Or consider going car-free with public transit, bikes/e-bikes, car share, or other alternatives!
There are 2.0 million vehicles in Massachusetts and 21,000 are already electric (1% of the total).
We need to electrify (or replace) the remaining 2.0 million gas-powered vehicles. That's around 73,000 a year.
Source: DOT, Feb 2021Electrifying all transportation cuts 43% of the pollution.
Decarbonize Our Power
11% of Massachusetts's pollution comes from burning coal, gas, and oil to make power.
That's because of how power is generated in Massachusetts today.
Power Generation in the State of Massachusetts (2020)
But there's already 33% carbon-free electricity generation in Massachusetts!
To clean up the emissions from the polluting power plants we need to replace all fossil fuel power plants with solar and wind farms.
...and find good jobs for those workers.
Current Fossil Fuel Power Plants in Massachusetts
38 gas plants
2,844 MW
872 MW
798 MW
578 MW
578 MW
428 MW
386 MW
353 MW
295 MW
289 MW
261 MW
249 MW
222 MW
200 MW
200 MW
176 MW
151 MW
149 MW
125 MW
102 MW
97 MW
65 MW
56 MW
21 MW
18 MW
12 MW
10 MW
9 MW
7 MW
6 MW
6 MW
5 MW
4 MW
4 MW
3 MW
2 MW
2 MW
2 MW
16 oil plants
1,825 MW
957 MW
135 MW
69 MW
43 MW
42 MW
21 MW
20 MW
20 MW
10 MW
10 MW
8 MW
8 MW
5 MW
5 MW
1 MW
But wait!
It's not enough to replace our power plants with wind and solar farms.
To power our electric cars and buildings, we need two times the electricity we have today.
In all, we'll need to build 6,000 megawatt (MW) of wind power and 5,000 MW of solar power.
Since the average wind turbine provides 2.75 MW of peak capacity, Massachusetts would need to install about 2,000 turbines.
Since Massachusetts already has 25 MW of wind and 491 MW of solar, that's 6,000 MW of wind power we need to build and 4,000 MW of solar power. That's around 213 MW of wind power and 156 MW of solar power a year.
Source: EIA, Apr 2022Decarbonizing all dirty power cuts 11% of the pollution.
And gives us zero-emissions power we need to eliminate pollution from buildings and cars!
Other Emissions
The last 16% of Massachusetts's climate pollution comes from other sources...
This includes farming, landfills, industry, and leaks from gas pipelines.
There's no one solution to solve these problems, but there are lots of great ideas:
That doesn't mean there's no solution, it just means that clean electrification doesn't help with these problems, and you could fill a whole book with covering all of them. We need to encourage our politicians to invest in researching new solutions and implementing existing solutions to these problems!
Ready to do your part?
Learn how to electrify your own machines and pass local policy to electrify the rest
Take Action