Renewable Energy Tops 10% of U.S. Energy Production

Thought you lot might be interested in this...

I'm sure that large scale hydro is very much included (and is the single biggest chuck) but still... they also include biofuels, which muddies the waters too. Since they don't report petrol and diesel it's hard to know what this means. It appears that they're talking about all energy consumption, not solely power generation, which was how I interpreted it initially.


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Yes they do. they report it in quads. Nukes are not much more significant than renewables, however, since they throw biofuels into the mix I think that that makes it more difficult to really assess. If you take out the biofuels then nukes provide more towards power generation.

 

Like I said earlier, the one issue I have is the inclusion of biofuels. If you throw that in you really can't compare renewables as a whole to nukes, for example. It sorta muddies the waters a bit, so to speak. The good news is that wind and solar are growing quickly. Wind, in particular, will really start to challenge some of the traditions pretty soon. CSP could well show up in force in the coming decade. Of course a severe recession could throw a spanner in the works, but eventually we'll get there.

 

Completely agree with that. Oil isn't really used much in electricity production in the US (Puerto Rico is a notable example), but we are importing more and more NG and it is increasingly used in power generation. Wind generally offsets NG consumption and I'd expect to see CSP doing more of the same in the next decade. It's looking like cellulosic ethanol development is getting more serious. There's a small production plant due to be built in Grand Junction, CO in the near future. It may well be doubtful though now with the price of oil being what it is.