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USA Electricity Transition - How Are We Doing in 2022? [1]

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Date: 2022-12-05

Let’s take a quick look at how our electricity is generated. I’ve compiled this data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the first chart shows all the details from 2010 to 2021 for the whole year plus 2022 up through September (9 months). One thing to note is that the total amount of electricity consumed each year has stayed rather steady at 4 million million (yep, two millions) kilowatt-hours. This plateau was first reached about 2001 and is likely the result of increasing efficiency in electrical usage (such as energy star appliances and LED lighting).

For a much easier to understand version there are the two charts below which show the same info. The left chart shows the decrease in coal usage and a corresponding increase in natural gas usage. The nice news is the increase in wind and solar generation.

The right chart has the three main electricity source groups. The nice news here is that fossil fuel generation is decreasing and that is entirely due to increasing wind and solar. The change seems to be picking up speed but that can change with an election (change for good or bad). In 2022 the U.S. will generate about 38% of electricity from low carbon sources. This is really good compared to other heavily industrialized countries in general. Also, if we about double our current wind + solar generation we can replace all of the coal fired generation in about 10 years assuming the current rate of renewables plus planned natural gas installation. That is a huge accomplishment for a country as big as the USA, especially with the well funded opposition to renewables.

In the long term, since nuclear and hydro are very unlikely to increase by much, we need to increase wind + solar by adding about 4.5 times the current amount. This is greatly simplified but is useful to get a general idea of the work required. This will also require a compatible investment in storage and transmission capacity. The Green New Deal would have gone a long way to make this happen faster (big sigh) but we will get there somehow.

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving and vacation with Mrs. Robot and now it’s back to writing about energy issues :).

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/12/5/2137200/-USA-Electricity-Transition-How-Are-We-Doing-in-2022

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