Via the Washington Post, here’s a detail from a beautiful map of all the electricity plants in the United States, colored and sized according to type and capacity.
The details for Minnesota are highlighted:
I general, I guess you can say that Minnesota has a balanced energy footprint. We’re not as coal-heavy as many Midwestern states farther South and East, for example. That said, coal is still our #1 source of electricity by a wide margin.
Check out the original site for more detailed info, and to click around the country comparing carbon.
Here’s a cool site if you really want to geek out on the data. Two of the maps show planned additions to the generating fleet – lots of gas, wind, and solar; and planned retirements – some gas and lots of coal.
http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/#tabs_unit-4
Pretty amazing that North Carolina of all places is making a big push for solar. I’m curious how that happened.
Tax incentives. They matched the federal 30% tax credit for business and residential PV.
I’ll warn that the map is a little bit misleading because it doesn’t show imports and exports. New York and Vermont both import large amounts of power from Canada, mostly hydro and nuclear.