An analysis of the electricity, natural gas, vehicle and jet fuel delivered in Teton County shows valley sources annually contribute 723,000 metric tons of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Based on those numbers, Jackson Hole on a per-person basis emits 37 metric tons of the odorless, colorless gas per year, exceeding the national average of 24 metric tons. If Jackson Hole were to go collectively to the Chicago Climate Exchange and try to purchase what’s known as carbon offsets to mitigate the output, it would have to pay $6.5 million, according to Michael Miller, president of Teton Power.

Miller determined the carbon emmissions based on data – gas and jet fuel delivered in the county, and electricity and natural gas sold by Lower Valley Energy to valley customers – collected by Jackson Hole News&Guide.

“The numbers were just staggering,” said Miller, whose company helps organizations and individuals find ways to decrease their carbon footprint. “We’re energy pigs and to live where we live is energy intensive.”

Such statistics show that Jackson Hole, known for fostering a land conservation ethic, has developed an economy that relies on massive energy consumption.

The cold climate ensures that businesses and residents have to expend millions of British thermal units to heat living spaces, driveways and pools chilled by winter air. The remote location further adds to the energy cost because almost every bite of food and almost all goods are hauled to the valley by truck.

The valley economy “is completely unsustainable without outside input,” Miller said. “There is no such thing as a salad grown in Jackson Hole during the winter.”

In 2006, LVE sold 457 million kilowatt hours and 4.1 million therms of natural gas to customers in Teton County, according to figures provided by Brian Tanabe, communications manager for the utility.

An analysis of tax data for 2004-2006, shows an average of 20.3 million gallons of gasoline and diesel were delivered per year. Jackson Hole Airport records show 4.2 million gallons of jet fuel were pumped at that facility in 2006.

Miller, whose business can be found at www.tetonpower.com and has been hired by the likes of Sen. John Kerry, used these yearly numbers to determine valley carbon emissions. His calculations do not include energy that comes from burning wood or heating oil.

The metric tonnage – 723,000 – puts Jackson in the ballpark with Aspen, Colo., which studied its emissions earlier in the decade. Aspen found it emitted 840,875 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2004. That study included greenhouse gas sources such as energy plants and air travel, as well as emissions from a landfill and commuter traffic.

Jackson Hole residents are knowledgeable about energy consumption and its impacts, said Jim Webb, the president and CEO of LVE. Town and county leaders are working to reduce their government’s energy consumption.

Ten percent of the utility’s customers pay extra to buy “green” power.

“That’s going better than any other utility I know of,” Webb said.

Customers can direct the utility to purchase 100 percent green power for them. The money buys electrons generated by wind power, but those electrons to not power LVE grid. They do power other parts of the grid.

 Such a move increases costs from 4.83 cents per kilowatt hour to 6 cents. The resulting price for using green energy is 40 percent less than national average of 10.4 cents per kilowatt hour, Webb said.

“I’m excited about it and I hope it will take off,” Webb said. “It is a way you can do something about [carbon emissions] and not wear your coat around home all day.”

Lower Valley customers who don’t buy green power may find it difficult to determine the source of their electrons. The company buys electricity from Bonneville Power Administration, which generates energy with nuclear plants and dams centered around the Snake and Columbia river drainages. In one sense, when valley residents toast bread in the morning they generate nuclear waste and impede salmon runs.

That energy generated on the West Coast is fed into the transmission grid. To get energy to Jackson Hole,  Bonneville Power Administration “swaps” electrons with PacificCorp.

PacificCorp runs a giant coal-fired power plant outside Rock Springs that supplies almost 90 percent of the valley’s electrons during the winter and 85 percent during the fall, according to information from LVE. When residents toast bread during the winter, they are actually burning coal.

During spring and summer, hydro power from Palisades Reservoir and other sources charges the valley.

Year round, LVE customers who use natural gas get their supply from the ExxonMobil facility almost 120 miles south of Jackson. Trucks, carrying approximately 10,000 gallons of liquid natural gas, make nearly 500 one-way trips per year to supply the valley.

LVE plans to replace the truck trips with a pipeline to the Merna gas field 50 miles away, eliminating transfer costs and risks. It won’t, however, eliminate the irony that the valley consumes natural gas while at the same time opposing gas field development in areas such as the Wyoming Range – along the pipeline route.

John Bargas, manager of communications for the Independent Petroleum Association of Mountain States, says demand for natural gas from places such as Jackson Hole will only increase. Plus, the drive to use renewable energy will require even more natural gas development because wind and solar energy require backups that can be turned on immediately, Bargas said.

“We’re going to need to continue to develop in the West the vast natural gas resources we have,” Bargas said. “We’re going to continue to need access to public land to do that.”

Bargas, 32, who contemplates having a family with his wife, said energy demand will continue to grow. The country will need natural gas because it is relatively clean and allows for flexible power generation.

Bargas does not see a conflict between wanting to bring children into the world imperiled by climate change and his work in the petroleum industry. His industry helps families cook dinners and warm their homes.

“I don’t think we have any other choice but to use the energy that is available to us and at this point most of the energy available to us is fossil fuels,” Bargas said.

Phil Leeds, co-owner of downtown outdoor goods retailer Skinny Skis, keeps an eye on how much energy he and his business use, and he watches as the valley demands energy to function. He sees (and recycles) the cardboard boxes that are used to ship coats and skis to his shop. He understands that parts of the valley economy is driven by travelers who use fuel to get here and by second-home owners who can afford to heat large homes and power private jets.

Leeds once did his own research to measure the environmental ethic in the valley. Feeling he lived in a “green” community but wanting confirmation, he asked the recycling center how much of the waste stream was recycled. The answer – 32 to 35 percent – put Jackson on par with the national norm.

“We’re just average,” Leeds said.

Leeds has watched as more and more of his workers carpool, bike or take public transit to work. He recently sold a sport-utility vehicle and bought a hybrid car, reducing what he spent at the gas station and decreasing the carbon dioxide he pumps into the atmosphere.

He and his family talk about the energy question and his teenage son is part of the Jackson Hole Middle School Global Warming Hero League, a group of students raising awareness about climate change and its causes.

He said how energy impacts the environment is “something our family talks about a lot.”

As a member of the generation that helped build the valley economy and as a person who relied on petroleum to power his American Dream, Leeds now feels what some call “carbon guilt.”

“I have quite a bit of guilt as a member of a particular age group that is looking at passing on this sorry situation to these middle schoolers,” Leeds said.

His feelings are not lost on the middle schoolers. Annalyssa Campbell, a 13-year-old eighth-grader, is a member of the Hero League that has grown from 13 last year to 30 this year.

How does she feel about inheriting the carbon footprint stomped by her predecessors?

“I feel scared, to tell you the truth,” Campbell said. “It is extremely scary and a rather disturbing prospect that our world might all go ‘poof.’ It is scary but it is also motivating, to make you want to do something and help out.”

Before holiday break, the Hero League, overseen by middle school science teacher Daryl Periman, gave a presentation to the school about climate change and told students how they could join the group.

Members of the Hero League are all in eighth grade, and while they will take their mission continue their efforts in high school, they want the Hero League to remain strong where it started, in the middle school. “Our mission is to help kids our age understand how they can prevent global warming,” Campbell said.

The 13-year-old is aware that she lives in a place where food comes in by trucks and the lifestyle is energy intensive, but she said anyone can do little things such as recycling or turning off lights.

“Every little bit counts,” she said.

With Jackson youths looking for ways to prevent global warming, businessmen buying hybrid cars, Lower Valley Energy offering green credits and local government trying to cut energy use, some in Jackson Hole show they understand the problem and want to do something about it.

Their effort comes at a time when energy use continues to grow in the valley.

From 1999 to 2006, jet fuel consumption at Jackson Hole Airport increased from 2.2 million gallons to 4.2 million gallons. In 1992, LVE delivered 9.3 million therms of electricity. In 2006, the utility delivered 19.7 million therms of electricity and natural gas.

To maintain its system, LVE is adding a second transmission line that will start near Soda Springs, Idaho, cross Tin Cup Pass and connect to lines in Star Valley. Jackson Hole and Star Valley energy demands will require a large construction project on National Forest lands.

The demand driving the project and the demand driving the energy consumption in the valley comes from increased population and from offering luxury to visitors and homeowners. Outdoor pools don’t stay warm by themselves, and sushi, after all, doesn’t swim to Jackson, it flies.

To avoid the worst of climate change, the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said greenhouse emissions should be reduced worldwide by 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

That means Jackson Hole could have to cut its emissions by more than 50 percent.

So what, ultimately, will force Jackson to use less energy?

Cost.

That’s the answer given by Bert Drake, a plant physiologist with the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center who is talking in Jackson this week. (See box above.)

He said human beings aren’t very good at doing things for moral reasons, but they will adhere to the discipline of the pocketbook.

The price of oil likely will continue to increase, driven by worldwide demand and limited supply. Food and goods will become more expensive as a result of increased fuel costs.

Carbon taxes could add to the price of electricity.

As energy takes up a larger part of individual, family, business and government budgets, those entities will be forced to make changes.

“Ultimately, it is going to be the direct cost of fuel that will have an awful lot to do with how we solve this problem,” Drake said.

Large companies are preparing for a future in which they have to use less energy, Drake said. Innovators will have to come up with new ways to deliver the energy people demand and people will have to find ways to use less.

All of the work has to be done on a grand scale because of the magnitude of the challenge.

“It is not a little problem; it is a colossal problem,” Drake said.