Essays
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Quote of the Week

November 6 2023

“And seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”

Jeremiah

Power to the People – Progress Report

July 28 2023

Every so often, we like to peer into the particular details of U.S. power generation and statistics, here are the current numbers:

What is U.S. electricity generation by energy source?

In 2022, about 4,243 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.24 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.1 About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 22% was from renewable energy sources.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that an additional 58 billion kWh of electricity generation was from small-scale solar photovoltaic systems in 2022.2

U.S. utility-scale electricity generation by source, amount, and share of total in 20221
Data as of February 2023

Energy source Billion kWh Share of total
Total – all sources 4,243
Fossil fuels (total) 2,554 60.2%
Natural gas 1,689 39.8%
Coal 828 19.5%
Petroleum (total) 23 0.6%
Petroleum liquids 16 0.4%
Petroleum coke 7 0.2%
Other gases3 12 0.3%
Nuclear 772 18.2%
Renewables (total) 913 21.5%
Wind 435 10.2%
Hydropower 262 6.2%
Solar (total) 146 3.4%
Photovoltaic 143 3.4%
Solar thermal 3 0.1%
Biomass (total) 53 1.3%
Wood 37 0.9%
Landfill gas 9 0.2%
Municipal solid waste (biogenic) 6 0.1%
Other biomass waste 2 0.1%
Geothermal 17 0.4%
Pumped storage hydropower4 -6 -0.1%
Other sources5 11 0.3%

Source: eia.gov

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