Solar Energy Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels

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Rows of solar panels on a family farm in Grafton, Massachusetts, provide electricity to nearby homes and small businesses. (Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images)

Solar Energy Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels

According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, a majority of Americans (77%) believe that it is more important for America to develop alternative energy sources such as solar and wind energy than to produce more coal, oil and other fossil fuels. This begs the question: how

Why Are Fossil Fuels So Hard To Quit?

The answer is, as you might expect, complicated. The use of solar and wind energy has grown rapidly over the past decade, but these sources accounted for less than 4% of the total energy used in the US. Data, most of the energy used in the United States comes from coal, oil, and natural gas. In 2018, fossil fuels provided about 80% of the country’s energy needs, which is slightly less than 84% a decade earlier. Although the use of coal has decreased in recent years, the use of natural gas has increased, and the share of oil in the country’s energy sector has changed from 35% to 40%.

The total amount of energy used in the US that. — from lighting and heating homes to cooking, powering fuel plants, driving cars and powering smartphones — reached 101.2 quadrillion Btu in 2018, the highest level since data collection began in 1949, according to federal data. . Energy Information Administration (EIA).

(Abbreviation for British Thermal Unit, Btu is often used in the energy industry – not to mention home businesses – as a common standard for measuring and comparing different types of energy. One Btu is the amount of energy required to heat 1 lb. of water to 1 degree C at sea ​​level. (Fahrenheit. This is equivalent to about 1.055 joules in the metric system, or the heat released by lighting a standard wooden kitchen match.)

The United States is the second largest user of energy, second only to China, according to one estimate. With public concern over climate change rising and energy policy becoming a major issue in this year’s political campaigns, we wanted reliable first-hand information on how the US is doing. It gets and uses energy and how the trends are changing lately.

How The Clean Energy Transition Affects Workers And Communities

The report is primarily based on data collected by the Energy Information Administration, the US statistical office. that. Department of Energy. We also refer to the Pew Research Center’s survey of Americans’ views on climate and energy policy. The survey interviewed 3,627 members of the Center’s American Trends Panel drawn in October 2019 from a national, randomly selected sample of residential addresses. Here are the survey questions, answers and survey methodology.

About 38% of all BTUs go to the power industry (power companies and independent power producers), which convert them into electricity and feed it back into the rest of the economy. Transport accounts for about 28% of total energy consumption, followed by the industrial sector (23%), households (7%) and commercial establishments (less than 5%).

Per capita energy consumption in the US that. has been on a downward trend since the beginning of the 21st century, but increased in 2018. In 2000, each American used an average of 349.8 million Btu. In 2017, that fell to 300.5 million Btu, a five-decade low. In 2018, energy consumption per capita increased to 309.3 million Btu. (Per capita energy consumption reached 359 million Btu in 1979.)

Put another way, the U.S. In 1949, it took 15,175 Btu to produce each dollar of real gross domestic product. In 2018, it was 5,450, which is a decrease of 64%. But there are still many inefficiencies in the system: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory estimates that two-thirds of all energy used in 2018 was wasted (like heat from cars and furnaces). And only 34.5% of the energy used in the electricity industry reaches the end consumers as electricity, and the rest is lost in the process of energy production, transmission and distribution.

Solar Energy Now Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels Even Without Subsidies

Today, the United States meets almost all of its energy needs domestically. Net imports, mostly oil, accounted for less than 4% of total US imports. that. Energy supply in 2018, up from 26% a decade earlier.

In the first 10 months of 2019, the US that. About 3.7 billion barrels of crude oil were produced, which is more than 2 billion more than the same period in 2009, according to EIA data. In all of 2018, crude oil accounted for nearly a quarter of total US crude oil production. that. Energy production. Natural gas, which accounted for about a third of total energy production in 2018, also rose from 21.7 trillion cubic feet in the first nine months of 2009 to 33.6 trillion cubic feet in the same period in 2019.

The dramatic increase in domestic oil and gas production has been fueled by new technologies, particularly fracking and horizontal drilling, which allow companies to access underground deposits that were previously too expensive to exploit. As a result, the US that It was the largest producer of oil and gas in 2018 – Saudi Arabia and Russia, respectively.

In contrast, coal has fallen sharply since a peak of around 1.2 billion tonnes mined in 2008. Almost all American it. Coal (about 93% in 2018 according to EIA data) is used for electricity generation. But according to a Brookings Institution report, US electricity demand is Coal accounted for just 16% of total domestic energy production in 2018, less than half its share a decade ago. The volume of 540 million tons mined in the first nine months of 2019 was a third less than in the same period of 2009.

Six Places Where Renewable Energy Is Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels

Over the past decade, solar has had the largest percentage growth of any energy source in the US. that. Source of energy. In 2008, solar energy produced slightly more than 2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, and a decade later it produced more than 93 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is almost 46 times more. Solar growth is happening both large (power plants) and small (rooftop solar panels). In general, two-thirds of solar energy is generated on the grid, with solar installations in homes and commercial buildings making up most of the rest.

However, solar energy accounted for only 1% of the country’s total energy production in 2018. The largest renewable energy source remains hydropower (2.8% of total production), followed by wind, wood and biofuels.

About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan center that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends that shape the world. Conducts public opinion surveys, demographic surveys, analysis of media content and other empirical social research. The Pew Research Center does not take political positions. It is a subsidiary of the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Copyright 2022 Pew Research Center Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Reprints, Permissions, and Use Policy Feedback Careers Workers clean photovoltaic panels at a solar power plant in Gujarat, India. Credit: Reuters / Alamy Stock Photo.

Renewable Energy To Be Equal Or Cheaper Than Fossil Fuels By 2020

The world’s best solar systems now offer the “cheapest… electricity in history” with technology that is cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries.

This is according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020. The 464-page forecast released today by the IEA also points to an “extremely turbulent” impact from the coronavirus and a “highly uncertain” outlook for global energy use over the next two periods. for decades.

Reflecting this uncertainty, this year’s version of the highly influential annual outlook offers four “pathways” to 2040, all of which would lead to large increases in renewables. The IEA’s baseline scenario includes 43% more solar generation in 2040 than expected in 2018, after a new detailed analysis found solar power to be 20-50% cheaper than projected.

Despite the rapid growth of renewables and the “structural” decline of coal, the IEA believes it is premature to declare a peak in global oil use unless drastic climate action is taken. Similarly, if global warming policy measures are strengthened, gas demand could increase by 30% by 2040.

Wind Power Or Solar Energy: What’s The Better Choice?

This means that although global CO2 emissions have effectively peaked, they are “far from the immediate peak and decline” needed to stabilize the climate. The IEA says that achieving net zero emissions will require “unprecedented” efforts not just from the electricity sector, but from every part of the global economy.

For the first time, the IEA included a detailed model of the 1.5C pathway to global net CO2 emissions by 2050. She stated that changes in individual behaviour, such as working from home “three days a week”, would be “significant”. This is a role in achieving the new “net zero emissions by 2050.” (NZE2050).

Every year the IEA publishes the World Energy Outlook (WEO).

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