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Page added on July 5, 2016
Fossil Fuels Still Dominate U.S. Energy Consumption
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review
Three fossil fuels—petroleum, natural gas, and coal—have provided more than 80% of total U.S. energy consumption for more than 100 years. In 2015, fossil fuels made up 81.5% of total U.S. energy consumption, the lowest fossil fuel share in the past century. In EIA’s Annual Energy Outlook 2016 Reference case projections, which reflect current laws and policies, that percentage declines to 76.6% by 2040. Policy changes or technology breakthroughs that go beyond the trend improvements included in the Reference case could significantly change that projection.
In 2015, the renewable share of energy consumption in the United States was its largest since the 1930s at nearly 10%. The greatest growth in renewables over the past decade has been in solar and wind electricity generation. Liquid biofuels have also increased in recent years, contributing to the growing renewable share of total energy consumption.
The most significant decline in recent years has been coal: U.S. coal consumption fell 13% in 2015, the highest annual percentage decrease of any fossil fuel in the past 50 years. The only similar declines were in 2009 and 2012, when coal fell 12% below the level in the previous year.
In EIA’s Reference case projection, petroleum consumption remains similar to current levels through 2040, as fuel economy improvements and other changes in the transportation sector offset growth in population and travel. Coal consumption continues to decline, especially in the electric power sector. Natural gas consumption increases in the industrial sector and the electric power sector.
Some electric fuels, such as nuclear and hydroelectric, remain relatively flat in the Reference case, with little change in capacity or generation through 2040. Biomass, which includes wood as well as liquid biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel, remain relatively flat, as wood use declines and biofuel use increases slightly. In contrast, wind and solar are among the fastest-growing energy sources in the projection, ultimately surpassing biomass and nuclear, and nearly exceeding coal consumption in the Reference case projection by 2040.
Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Monthly Energy Review, Annual Energy Outlook 2016
19 Comments on "Fossil Fuels Still Dominate U.S. Energy Consumption"
Plantagenet on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 11:19 am
Look at the spike in natural gas consumption!
Don’t the idiots in DC release that methane is a much worse Greenhouse gas then CO2?
SHEESH…!
MikeX11.2 on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 11:50 am
Exxon does fracking, Exxon Controls the Repub Puppets. That’s why Exxon has 9 ( NINE ) special tax breaks for Fracking already in place.
You’re paying thru the nose to help Exxon expand Fracking, poison our water, destroy our foundations with fracking earthquakes and rapidly accelerate Global Warming, with Fracking’s massive methane release.
Will Exxon ever stand on it’s own two financial feet? Not with Citizens United and a Bought Congress.
The more you subsidize Exxon the longer it will take for them to switch to Solar.
HARM on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 12:06 pm
Unburned (flared or naturally released) Methane is far worse than CO2, and then there is the long-term damage to groundwater aquifers from fracking and frack chemicals.
But, at least you don’t end up with blown off mountaintops in rivers/streams or piles of toxic sludge after processing methane, unlike coal:
http://www.wral.com/two-years-later-nc-fines-duke-for-coal-ash-spill/15342212/
Pick your (literal) poison. All FFs are bad for the environment and your health.
Apneaman on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 12:33 pm
I thought high fructose corn syrup dominated US energy consumption? A growing number are carrying around months to over a years worth of personal energy. How ironic that all that blubber will extend the lives of some after TSHTF.
…and the people of Walmart shall inherent the earth.bb
http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/
HARM on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 12:39 pm
@Apneaman,
Sure, obesity can help in a starvation scenario, but… long-term obesity is a primary cause or major contributing factor to Type II diabetes, heart disease and significantly shorter lifespans.
Plus, the U.S. style obesity is expanding worldwide (pun intended), with growing waistlines across Central America, Europe, North Africa and Oceania.
http://www.worldobesity.org/resources/world-map-obesity/
onlooker on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 12:49 pm
“…and the people of Walmart shall inherent the earth.bb ” love it
dave thompson on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 12:50 pm
“Fossil Fuels Still Dominate U.S. Energy Consumption” Well, DUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?
Apneaman on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 2:26 pm
HARM, I think you missed my point. Those diseases will all but disappear in the coming years. If fact, I bet there are a bunch of type 2 Venezuelans who no longer need insulin and others who don’t need blood pressure meds and other band-aids of the all industrial diet/life style.
A year without food
“Back in June of 1965, a Scotsman weighing 207 kilograms, described as “grossly obese” and hereafter known only as Mr A B, turned up at the Department of Medicine at the Royal Infirmary in Dundee.
He was sick of being fat and wanted to lose weight by eating nothing and living off his body fat. He told the hospital staff he was going to fast flat out, whatever they said, so they may as well monitor him along the way.
He ended up fasting for one year and 17 days — that’s right, he ate no food at all for over a year. He lived entirely off his copious body fat, in the end losing about 125 kilograms of weight.”
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2012/07/24/3549931.htm
HARM on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 3:37 pm
@Apneaman,
Great news! We can almost consider obesity as “prepping in place”, minus the cost of MREs and need to defend your stores against post-apocalyptic raiders. I’m sure all the WalMart walruses will be very happy to hear that!
dooma on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 7:40 pm
I could just see a fat person now with a T-shirt with the slogan “I am prepping, I just keep my extra food on me at all times”
claman on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 7:41 pm
Harm : “prepping in place”,
Maybe Apne should start “unprepping”.
Fun aside, what do overweight americans actually do to lose weight.
JuanP on Tue, 5th Jul 2016 7:52 pm
Dave T ““Fossil Fuels Still Dominate U.S. Energy Consumption” Well, DUUUUUUHHHHHHHHHHHHHH?”
Dave , when I ask people in Miami what the main source of energy used in the USA is, the most common answer I get is “electricity”. What is obvious to us is not obvious to most.
rockman on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 12:37 am
Juan = Most pertinent point made IMHO. Not much has changed in 40 years. True story: in 1977, with rising gasoline prices, actually heard from one citizen: “They’re talking about drilling more oil wells. But we don’t need more oil wells. We need more gasoline wells.” And from a PH.D (I forget in what) commenting on the plan to put hundreds of millions of bbls of oil underground in the SPR: “That’s a stupid plan. Eventually those bbls with rust and all the oil will leak out.”
And how much smarter are we today about unit measurements when we crash a space probe into the ground when one NASA engineer programs for miles and another engineer calculates in kilometers?
JuanP on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 5:50 am
Rock, Most of us here tend to forget how ignorant about energy most people are. That is why ideas like the USA being a net oil and gas exporter never die. I make this mistake myself now and then, and give people too much credit. The safest thing to do is to assume that most people don’t know absolutely anything at all about the subject, and that if they think they know something that what they think they know is probably wrong.
That NASA thing was really funny. I remember I couldn’t stop laughing when I heard that. I think we have created a world that is way too complex for most people’s minds to understand.
I am smarter than average and have been studying one thing or another all my life because I read non fiction in an obsessive compulsive way, and I know that what I know is insignificant compared to what I ignore. Most people never had the curiosity, opportunity, time, and compulsion for learning I’ve had all my life so, how much could they learn? Very little, IMO. That is why I like PO so much. We here are not normal by far.
ghung on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 9:18 am
“We here are not normal by far.”
I’m normal. It’s everyone else who’s messed up.
bug on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 5:52 pm
Claman, what overweight people do in the US is…..not much, the amount of elephants I see walking (waddling) around
has increased a thousand fold and kiddies are the worst.
US citizens love stuffing food in there faces.
Apneaman on Wed, 6th Jul 2016 6:15 pm
Claman, the stats are misleading – US weight per capita should be much higher, but the diabetic amputations keeps the aggregate numbers down. It’s rather misleading. It’s all part of the high fructose corn syrup industrial complex conspiracy.
Kenz300 on Thu, 7th Jul 2016 9:55 am
Solar Added More New Capacity Than Coal, Natural Gas and Nuclear Combined
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/09/solar-new-capacity/
Koch Brothers Continue to Fund Climate Change Denial Machine, Spend $21M to Defend Exxon
http://ecowatch.com/2016/06/22/koch-defends-exxon/
Kenz300 on Fri, 8th Jul 2016 9:54 am
Electric cars, trucks, bicycles and mass transit are the future…..fossil fuel ICE cars are the past…………..
Think teen agers vs your grand father…………………. cell phones vs land lines…….
NO EMISSIONS……..climate change is real………
Save money……no stopping at gas stations…..no oil changes……..less overall maintenance……