Energy Update: Renewable Sources on the Rise

Energy Update: Renewable Sources on the Rise

The latest scorecard for U.S. energy sources shows that the country has made “substantial progress in reducing fossil fuel use and in moving to adopt more renewable energy sources.” That’s the summary of advocacy group the Natural Resources Defense Council in its recent report, “A Tectonic Shift in America’s Energy Landscape.”

Two facts in this shift stand out: U.S. coal consumption is down by more than 21 percent from year 2005, a time of peak use, and U.S. wind power has grown from zero to almost five percent of today’s national electricity generation. And that growth has been exponential. In 2000, the U. S. had 2,500 megawatts of wind power. By 2015, the total has grown to 66,000 megawatts. The report also finds that solar power has begun to expand rapidly, with more than 20,000 megawatts of installed capacity as of last July, More than one-third of that capacity has been installed since mid-2014. A side note: energy and electricity consumption in the U.S. has leveled off, despite population increase. The result is that U.S. carbon emissions have decreased by 10 percent from 2005, and are now below 1996 emission levels.

I’m John Howell for 3BL Media.