In the 2024 state slice of EIA electric-power operational data, positive observations for consumption-uto with distillate fuel oil (DFO) and Electric Power Sector Non-CHP appear in only 13 of the 50 states. The other 37 states report 0.000. The 50-state sum is 45.947 thousand barrels. Alaska contributes 19.577 thousand barrels and Missouri 18.097; together they account for 82.0% of the sum. Adding Iowa raises the top-three share to 90.5%. The defining feature of the dataset is therefore concentration, not a broad distribution across the country.
The physical unit needs special care. Distillate fuel oil is a petroleum liquid, and EIA physical-fuel tables report it in thousand barrels. An imported unit label incorrectly described the unit as thousand short tons, a unit used for solid fuels such as coal or petroleum coke. The article, tables and charts therefore use thousand barrels while preserving the original 50 state values unchanged.
Table of Contents
The metric is a narrow EIA data slice
This is not total U.S. distillate-fuel consumption. It is one exact combination in EIA electric-power operational data: annual 2024, fueltypeid DFO, sectorid 90, and the consumption-uto field. The state values should not be relabeled as highway diesel use, total heating-oil use, every petroleum input at power plants, or total electric-power-sector fuel consumption. Those broader concepts use different EIA series and often different units or sector definitions.
EIA defines useful thermal output as thermal energy made available for processes or applications other than electric generation. At the same time, sector 90 is labeled Electric Power Sector Non-CHP. That combination is not intuitive. The safest interpretation is therefore to preserve the exact EIA dimensions and compare the reported state values without inventing a facility-level explanation for why a non-CHP sector slice has positive consumption-uto observations.
Zero is the dominant state-level result
Of the 50 states, 37 report 0.000 and only 13 are positive. These zeros are not imputed missing values; they are actual observations in the supplied annual data. As a result, the 50-state median is 0.000 thousand barrels even though the mean is 0.919. A simple average would therefore give a poor picture of the typical state.
Among the 13 positive states only, the median is 0.401 thousand barrels and the mean is 3.534. The gap is still large because Alaska and Missouri sit far above the rest. For this series, the number of zero states, the number of positive states, and the concentration share of the leaders are more informative than the overall mean alone.
Alaska and Missouri account for about 82%
Alaska represents 42.6% of the 50-state sum by itself. Missouri brings the combined top-two share to 82.0%. Iowa ranks third at 3.889 thousand barrels, and the top three together reach 90.5%. Adding Kentucky and Minnesota takes the top-five share to 96.0%. The remaining eight positive states collectively account for only about 4.0% of the total.
| Rank | State | 2024 value (thousand barrels) | Share of 50-state sum |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alaska | 19.577 | 42.6% |
| 2 | Missouri | 18.097 | 39.4% |
| 3 | Iowa | 3.889 | 8.5% |
| 4 | Kentucky | 1.459 | 3.2% |
| 5 | Minnesota | 1.106 | 2.4% |
| 6 | South Dakota | 0.619 | 1.3% |
| 7 | North Dakota | 0.401 | 0.9% |
| 8 | South Carolina | 0.285 | 0.6% |
| 9 | Louisiana | 0.220 | 0.5% |
| 10 | Washington | 0.192 | 0.4% |
| 11 | Wisconsin | 0.075 | 0.2% |
| 12 | Arizona | 0.026 | 0.1% |
| 13 | Texas | 0.001 | 0.0% |
The scale drops quickly after Iowa. Kentucky reports 1.459 thousand barrels and Minnesota 1.106. South Dakota is at 0.619 and North Dakota at 0.401. Every positive state below North Dakota is under 0.3 thousand barrels except none; the final observation, Texas, is only 0.001. A rank list therefore hides an enormous difference in magnitude between the first few states and the bottom of the positive group.
Concentration describes this series better than an average
A national sum of 45.947 thousand barrels can sound like a broadly shared quantity until the distribution is inspected. In reality, 37 states are zero and two states hold more than four-fifths of the measured amount. Energy datasets with the same national total can imply very different geographic structures depending on whether values are spread widely or concentrated in a handful of states.
The concentration itself is directly supported by the state observations. Its cause is not. Explaining why Alaska or Missouri is high would require plant-level records, operating configurations and other evidence that are not contained in this one column. It would be speculative to assign the pattern to weather, fuel prices, generation levels, or a particular facility without additional verified data.
Why the useful-thermal-output and Non-CHP labels require caution
EIA’s general definition connects useful thermal output with heat made available for non-electric applications, a concept strongly associated with CHP reporting. Sector 90, however, is explicitly a Non-CHP electric-power-sector category. Rather than trying to resolve that apparent tension by rewriting the metric, the article keeps the official labels intact. The positive values are treated as EIA-reported observations for this exact field and sector combination, nothing broader.
That discipline matters because changing even one dimension creates a different statistical series. Relabeling these values as CHP heat use would discard the sector filter. Calling them total Non-CHP distillate-fuel consumption would discard the consumption-uto field. The identity of an EIA operational series is the combination of fuel, sector, metric field, year and unit.
Closely named EIA measures answer different questions
Total fuel consumption, fuel consumed for electricity generation, useful-thermal-output consumption, heat content and net generation can all appear in nearby EIA tables. They are not interchangeable. Net generation is electrical output, typically measured in megawatthours. Fuel consumption is an input in physical or energy units. Heat content describes energy per unit of fuel. A state can rank very differently across these metrics even when the fuel and sector labels are the same.
The same warning applies when comparing this 45.947-thousand-barrel sum with another distillate-fuel series. A broader electric-power sector, CHP-inclusive sector, all-sector total or consumption-for-eg field changes the population being measured. Subtracting one series from another to create an unofficial remainder is only valid when EIA definitions and dimensions are demonstrably compatible.
With 37 zeros, presence is more useful than a 1-to-50 rank
In a conventional 50-state dataset, ranking every state can be informative. Here, positions 14 through 50 would all be tied at zero, so pretending there is a meaningful ordering among them adds noise. The article instead ranks the 13 positive observations and treats the remaining states as one zero-observation group. That is not hiding data; it reflects the actual structure of the EIA values.
For a reader checking a specific state, absence from the positive table means the state is one of the 37 with a reported 0.000 in this exact 2024 slice. It does not mean that the state used no distillate fuel in every context. The zero applies only to DFO, sector 90 and consumption-uto as defined in this dataset.
Source and calculation
The state observations come from U.S. Energy Information Administration Open Data, electric-power operational data, using annual 2024 with DFO, sector 90 and consumption-uto fixed. Summing the 50 published state values gives 45.947 thousand barrels. State shares, top-two, top-three and top-five concentration, and the positive-state and all-state medians and means are calculated directly from those observations.
The unit is thousand barrels. EIA’s official fuel tables place distillate fuel oil under thousand barrels, while thousand short tons applies to solid-fuel columns such as coal or petroleum coke. The inconsistent imported unit label was corrected accordingly; the underlying state values themselves were not altered.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are the 37 zero states missing data?
No. They are reported 0.000 observations in the supplied 2024 EIA state data; missing values were not filled with zero.
Why is the unit thousand barrels rather than thousand short tons?
EIA physical-fuel tables report distillate fuel oil in thousand barrels. The imported thousand-short-ton label was inconsistent with the fuel and was corrected from official EIA documentation.
Does this measure all diesel or heating-oil use in each state?
No. It is limited to the exact 2024 EIA slice defined by DFO, sector 90 Electric Power Sector Non-CHP, and the consumption-uto field.
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