Renewable Energy Provided 11% of Domestic Energy Production in 2010

Electricity from non-hydro renewables grows 16.5% while nuclear power's share drops.

Ken Bossong, Sun Day Campaign
April 06, 2011 | 12 Comments

According to the most recent issue of the "Monthly Energy Review" by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), nuclear power and renewable energy sources are now neck-in-neck with nuclear power's share of domestic energy production dropping while that from renewable sources growing rapidly.

The share of domestic U.S. energy production derived from renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, water, wind) rose to 10.92% in 2010, up from 10.65% in 2009. By comparison, nuclear power's share of domestic energy production dropped from 11.48% in 2009 to 11.26% in 2010.

Looking at the full energy sector (i.e., electricity, transportation, thermal, and other end-uses), overall domestic production of renewable energy, including hydropower, increased by 5.6% in 2010 compared to the previous year. However, non-hydro renewables increased by 11.6% from 2009 to 2010.

Among renewable energy sources, biomass and biofuels combined accounted for 51.98% of the total, followed by hydropower (30.66%), wind (11.29%), geothermal (4.68%), and solar (1.38%). Comparing 2010 production to that in 2009, wind energy increased by 28%, biomass/biofuels by 10%, and solar and geothermal by 4% each. Hydropower dropped by 6%.

Looking at just the electricity sector, the latest issue of EIA’s "Electric Power Monthly," with full-year data for 2010, reveals that non-hydropower renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, wind) increased by 16.5% over 2009 and provided 4.08% of net U.S. electrical generation. Renewables, including hydropower, accounted for 10.32% of net electrical generation.

During 2010, solar increased by 45.8%, wind grew by 28.1%, geothermal expanded by 4.4%, and biomass increased by 3.7%. Among the non-hydro renewable sources, wind accounted for 56.3%, biomass for 33.6%, geothermal for 9.3%, and solar for 0.8%. Nuclear power's share of net electrical generation dropped from 20.22% in 2009 to 19.59% in 2010.

Against the backdrop of the on-going nuclear disaster in Japan and the pressure for financial belt-tightening at home, the U.S. government’s latest energy statistics once again confirm that limited federal dollars are far better invested in rapidly expanding renewable energy technologies and not in the black hole that is nuclear power.

Ken Bossong is Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign.

Note: The U.S. Energy Information Administration released its most recent "Monthly Energy Review" on March 29, 2011. It can be found at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly. The relevant charts from which the data above are extrapolated are Tables 1.1 and 1.2. EIA released its most recent "Electric Power Monthly" on March 11, 2011; see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html. The relevant charts are Tables ES1.B, 1.1, and 1.1A.

12 Comments

David Robbins
January 12, 2012

Biomass is used in cellulosic ethanol production, as well as biocoal. Like natural gas as an intermediate step in transportation, burning biomass has the effect of a carbon neutral or carbon positive action. In perrenial crops with underground root systems, the sequestration of carbon outweighs the emission created. Additionally, the emissions are free of heavy metals and the tailings are utilized in organic fertilizers versus coal wher the heavy metals and tailings are significantly more detrimental to the environment. Additionally, the environmental aspects are but one advantage. Reducing our dependence on imported fossil fuels helps balance the political dynamics; farmers are able to make a better profit then on conventional grain crops; corn is replaced by higher yielding crops to reduce the acreage dedicated to ethanol production. Food supply and cost is not threatened by the use of marginal and farm setside lands. Read the updated "5 billion ton study" to get the whole picture. Narrow views are what have stalled progress in many USA programs. We cannot rely on conservation, wind or solar solutions to solve our energy dilemna. Take electric cars, for example; huge demands will be placed upon electricity generating plants, 50% of which are fired by coal in the US. Electric cars are a bad idea. Hybrids, however, are a better technology.
Do your research or sit in a tree and dream of idealistic solutions. Rome wasn't built overnight!

rolf westgard
April 8, 2011

Frank: All those deaths are from the quake and tsunami.
At this point there are NO deaths from radiation, and there may not be in the future. Once again, asking questions first is good policy when you are "not a radioactivity expert."

Frank Tettemer
April 8, 2011

I'm certainly not a radioactivity expert and won't join in any debate about whether nukes are good or not. Just ask all the dead people in Japan their opinion. I believe the mass fear in the consciousness of the Japanese people is certainly not worth the risk. You may be right about what you say, but the deceased relatives are not going to appreciate your clear thinking.

rolf westgard
April 8, 2011

The ocean has over 200,000,000 tons of uranium plus all of uranium's radioactive daughter products. And it doesn't hurt you or the fish; it is diluted by the ocean. That water from Fukushima is a trivial addition to ocean radioactivity.
Google my name(spelled correctly) and the word nuclear and you will get a series of papers and articles on the subject.
From your comment I think you would do better to ask questions first, then speak.

Frank Tettemer
April 8, 2011

Rolf-Wesgard, your idea of "clean" nuclear energy is ridiculous.
You may have missed reading the news about Japan, perhaps?
We will all be eating some pretty unclean fish over the next few centuries.

It is now time for us to disallow government from subsidizing and continuing the use of nuclear energy, and allowing the practice of each of us living with less energy per capita, even if that is a bother for us. Mother nature will assure that choice for us.

Mary Saunders
April 8, 2011

While current technology would have us burn bio-mass, that is not the only option. A proper carbon-nitrogen mix (dried brown stuff is carbon-rich and green stuff is nitrogen-rich) can produce heat, while producing compost as well.

Doing this in greenhouses with hanging gardens and humans or chickens running around can add value.

France and India are already doing things with vertical gardens. There are a few spots in the U.S. as well, but not as many.

Mixing flora and fauna is good because plants use carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen, and animals inhale O2 and exhale CO2.

We can do better quickly, and we will, when we absolutely have to, and when we get to a point where we will disallow government from subsidizing really harmful things.

Glenn Doty
April 8, 2011

Doggydogworld,

I agree that renewables are clearly growing. You chose 2007, as that was a genuine electricity demand peak, and you could show a very sharp reduction in coal from then to now.

I chose 2009-2010 because that was the timeframe chosen by the author of the article.

But with either timeframe, or with a more logical 10-year timeframe (in which renewables see ~80 TWhs net increase), it is very clear that it will take decades to replace the current capacity of nuclear power with new renewables power, which means that any nuclear power capacity that is taken offline will be replaced with fossil energy.

While I certainly don't support the installation of new nuclear (costs too much), I see the eventual diminishment of our nuclear fleet as a tragedy, not something to cheer about... because it just means that much more coal will have to be brought online while renewables slowly grow to fill the void of what is currently carbon neutral energy.

DoggyDog World
April 8, 2011

"Between 2009 and 2010 we saw:
Coal generation increase by 95 TWhs,
Natural gas generation increase by 61 TWhs,"

True, but 2009 was anomalous with respect to coal (least since the mid-90s). The deltas from 2007 to 2010 are (in TWhs):

Coal: -166
NatGas: +85
Wind: +60
Oil: -29
Hydro: +10
Solar: +0.6 (more than doubled off a miniscule base)

Everything else, including nuclear, was basically unchanged over the period.

rolf westgard
April 8, 2011

The new report on UK wind from the John Muir Trust excopes the wind energy scam:

The John Muir Trust report (PDF link), published on Wednesday, says output from wind farms metered by the National Grid is often less than 10% of their capacity.
It says wind "cannot be relied upon" to provide any significant level of energy generation at any defined time in the future and there is an "urgent need" to re-evaluate the implications of relying on wind power to meet Scotland's future energy needs.
Report author Stuart Young said, "Over the two-year period studied in this report, the metered wind farms in the UK consistently generated far less energy than wind proponents claim is typical.
"The intermittent nature of wind also gives rise to low wind coinciding with high energy demand. Sadly, wind power is not what it's cracked up to be and cannot contribute greatly to energy security in the UK."
4/7/2011

rolf westgard
April 8, 2011

Article is complete nonsense. In 2010 solar is one thirtieth of 1% of US electric power. It's not hard to grow a high percent from nothing. Wind is a little over 2% at about a 27% erratic capacity factor which is likely to decline. The best wind sites go first, and new farms will be in poorer locations requiring huge taxpayer subsidies.. Since we can't increase hydro, nuclear is the ONLY large scale dispatchable source of new clean energy.

Glenn Doty
April 7, 2011

Talking about "share of energy" or "percent growth" only tells part of the story.

Between 2009 and 2010 we saw:
Coal generation increase by 95 TWhs,
Natural gas generation increase by 61 TWhs,

"Other renewables" (waste) generation increase by 24 TWhs,
Wind generation increase by 21 TWhs,
Biomass generation increase by 2 TWhs,
Geothermal generation increase by 0.6 TWhs,
Solar generation increase by 0.4 TWhs,
Hydroelectric generation DECREASE by 16 TWhs.

Total renewables generation increased by ~42 TWhs, while fossil fuel based generation increased by 156 TWhs.

Nuclear generation increased by 8 TWhs last year... but total nuclear generation in 2010 was 807 TWhs.

Looking at the relative increases in renewables vs fossil-based production, what do you suppose would fill in the missing supply if nuclear generation were to decrease? Note, I'm not advocating nuclear - it's too expensive... but I'm not going to cheer for its decline, when that begins (which wasn't last year, despite the misleading nature of this article).

Phil Manke
April 7, 2011

This is good news.
It will be good to see the biomass and biofuels dropped from being called renewables since they are still "burn-tec", and adding to atmosphere CO2.
Enjoying the "Solar Sweetlife".

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Kenneth Bossong

Ken Bossong is the Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign. The SUN DAY Campaign is a non-profit research and educational organization founded in 1993 to promote sustainable energy technologies as cost-effective alternatives to nuclear...