Renewable Energy Is On the Rise in U.S.

By: Jennifer Kho

Renewables made up 10.6 percent of the energy produced in the United States in the first half of the year, said the U.S. Energy Information Administration in a report released this week.

According to the report, renewable energy accounted for 3.61 quadrillion British thermal units of the 34.16 quadrillion Btu domestically produced energy the country used from January to June.

That represents a 5 percent growth from 3.44 quadrillion Btu of renewable-energy production in the first half of last year. Most of that growth came from wind power, which increased production by nearly 49 percent from the year-ago quarter to 244 trillion Btu.

Biofuels and biomass energy make up the largest portion of U.S. renewable-energy generation, producing 1.88 quadrillion Btu in the first half of 2008, followed by hydropower, which accounted for 1.38 quadrillion Btu. Geothermal power made up 17 trillion Btu and solar made up only 41 million Btu.

Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the Sun Day Campaign, a nonprofit that promotes renewable energy, said:

The significant contribution being made by renewable energy sources to the nation's energy supply documented by the U.S. Energy Information Administration is far greater than most Americans realize. Repeated statements by nuclear and fossil fuel interests that renewables contribute only a tiny fraction of the nation's energy supply are not only misleading but flatly wrong.

Of course, these numbers represent only the United States' domestically produced energy.

According to the report, the country used 50.67 quadrillion Btu of energy, of which 16.51 quadrillion Btu were imported. Including the 24 trillion Btu of imported renewable energy, renewables made up 7.36 percent of the total U.S. energy consumption.

That compares with nuclear power, which provided 8.07 percent of the country's energy, coal, which made up 21.93 percent, natural gas, which supplied 25.22 percent, and petroleum, which accounted for 37.25 percent.

Comments

[Navin Sinha:]

Reading these and coming to a conclusion the none of us are using the easily available sources and the technological advances that we are in.We are all familiar that 75% of our globe is surrounded with water and as per the technical advances in todays world we can make this as one of our alternative source of energy simply by taking help of nozzles/diffusers or probably superheaters.In fact I believe if we work with the help of these things and spend some time and money on the process then we can get a source which will be economical for the entire world and will help us to keep our enviroment green.If someone would like to know about a method then they may contact on the mail and i could held out with a possibility but don't know whether it will really be successful or not.Probably yes?????????

2008 Sep 26 08:10 AM

[CaptBob:]

With no jobs to drive to, no goods to transport and enough money to burn a single light bulb, who the He(( will need alternative energy??.

Buy Now--those glue on rubber shoe resoles-(remember them?).

2008 Sep 26 02:23 PM

[billp37:]

Renewables may have BTU problems?

"Question some attendees had was

Where are the BTU's [British Thermal Units] going to come from to generate electricity for old and new buildings?

This question apparently crossed the minds of some PNM technical employees too.

PNM electric IRP foils address the issue of BTUs required to generate 1 KWh of electricity by technology."

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...

2008 Sep 26 09:50 PM

[Freemarketm...:]

I expect that the way to get to 10% is to include hydroelectric. No one is talking about adding more dams, so what is the part of the 10% that is not hydro?

2008 Sep 27 11:56 AM

[Brian Pursley:]

Oil is renewable.

"Hydrocarbons can be re-defined as a 'renewable resource, rather than a finite one' (Gurney 1997)" -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

"Enormous implications follow from oil and gas being renewable resources." -- Peter R. Odell, economist/geologist, 2004

2008 Sep 27 12:51 PM