Renewable Energy Statistics for the United States

The Renewable Energy Annual, published by the Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the United States Department of Energy, provides the most comprehensive and reliable aggregate statistics on renewable energy production and consumption in the United States.

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As the name implies, the publication is updated yearly and covers renewable energy trends in biomass, geothermal, wind, solar, and conventional hydropower.

User friendliness is one of the strengths of EIA data. You can often choose from a PDF, HTML or EXCEL format. Click on the link for Table 1 in EXEL format, for example, and a spreadsheet of the information opens up on your computer. If you know how to move the rows and columns of the spreadsheet around, it takes about thirty seconds to create Table 1, a pie chart showing the percentage of energy consumed in the United States in 2004 by general source.

A quick look at the chart shows that 85.7% of all energy consumed in the United States in 2004 came from fossil fuels such as coal, natural gas and petroleum. Only 6.1% of all power consumed came from renewable sources, and with 8.2%, nuclear power rounds out the list. When you look further into the statistics you also discover that the ratio of fossil fuel to nuclear power to renewable energy consumed in the United States has changed very little over recent years.

The Renewable Energy Annual is a valuable tool for students, consumers and anyone else looking for quick and easy access to the latest statistics.

© 2007 Patricia A. Michaels.