Renewables are only responsible for a small part of our current energy production.
Topic: Renewable Energy
Category: Institutional
What is it? A graph that shows the percent contributions of different energy sources to the total amount of energy produced in the United States. Renewable energy is only up 1% from the previous year. In 2006, it was contributing only 7% of our total energy need. Solar, which is often seen as a promising solution, only makes up 1% of the renewable energy produced.
Author: The Energy Information Administration
Accessed: Mar 9, 2009
Support: The EIA Office of Coal, Nuclear, Electric and Alternate Fuels provided the statistics for this chart.
Audience and Agenda: The EIA is responsible for making official government energy statistics available to the public. The EIA distributes information about energy stocks, prices, markets, and demand, and reports yearly energy consumption. Their audience is the American People, but those most interested are likely to be professionals and policy makers.
Usefulness: This shows how far we have to go to achieve the goals that were set in Obama’s energy plan. 93% of our energy still comes from nonrenewable sources, and it will take a massive effort to rebuild our energy economy. Our energy needs continue to grow every year, but fossil fuel production may already be at its peak. Rapid implementation of a complete energy overhaul and massive efficiency projects (such as weatherization) will be necessary if we are to continue our way of life for much longer.
Filed under: Institutional, Source Notes
