The Path from Petroleum Shortages to Electricity Shortages

It seems to me that there is likely to be a very short path from petroleum shortages to electricity shortages. There are a lot of issues involved, from the fact that the fuels used in electricity production are themselves dependent on petroleum for their extraction and transportation, to the current state of the US electricity infrastructure, to the impact of peak oil on debt financing. I have written about most of these issues before, but since the petroleum/electricity link is such an important one, I thought I would devote an article to putting the pieces together.


Fuels used for electricity generation

In the United States, the primary fuel used for electricity generation is coal, at 49% of electricity production. Natural gas follows at 22%; nuclear at 19%; hydroelectric at 6%, and petroleum at 1.6%. The newer renewables are all quite small: wood at 0.93%; wind at .77%; waste at .41%; and solar (for electricity generation) at 0.01%.

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