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7 amazing facts about renewable energy

Sustainable Energy Coalition's renewable energy facts for 2009.
Wed, May 13 2009 at 11:45 PM EST
Read more: BIOMASS, CLEAN TECH, ETHANOL, GEOTHERMAL POWER, GREEN ENERGY, RENEWABLE ENERGY, SOLAR POWER, WIND POWER

Photo: Matt Knox/Flickr
The Sustainable Energy Coalition is hosting a big energy expo in D.C. today, and they have assembled a nice collection of interesting factoids about renewable energy. Here are 7 facts about the renewable market you probably didn't know: 
 
. . . that renewable energy sources provided nearly 10% of both domestic energy production and U.S. electrical generation in 2008 with non-hydro renewable electricity expanding by 17.6% over the previous year; renewable energy will account for about a third of new electricity capacity added to the U.S. grid over the next three years.
 
. . . . that U.S. wind power grew by 50% in 2008 and accounted for 42% of all new power generation in the United States last year; wind energy could supply at least 20% of U.S. electricity needs by 2030 while avoiding 7.6 cumulative gigatons of carbon dioxide.
 
. . . . that grid-tied photovoltaic (PV) capacity increased 58% in 2008 and solar water heating capacity increased 40%; the PV industry today is 10 times larger than 1998 and likely to grow by 50% annually in the coming years; solar thermal plants covering an area equal to 9% of Nevada could generate enough electricity to power the nation; solar power is on the verge of reaching cost parity with conventional energy sources.
 
. . . . that there may be more than 90,000 MW overall of untapped water potential in the United States; through new hydropower technologies, such as advanced turbines, and new applications, such as tidal, wave, ocean currents, and in-stream hydrokinetic approaches, the industry could double its output over the next 20 years.
 
. . . . that six million Americans are using geothermal energy in their homes – three million receive electricity from geothermal power plants and another three million use geothermal heat pumps to heat & cool their homes; more than 100 new geothermal power projects now under development in 13 states will more than double the county’s geothermal capacity over the next five years.
 
. . . . that total ethanol capacity expanded 34% and E85 stations exceeded 1,800 in 2008; the fuel now represents more than 7% of the nation’s gasoline supply and can be found in more than 70% of gasoline gallons sold in the U.S.; the 6.5 billion gallons of ethanol produced last year added $47.6 billion to the nation’s GDP; moreover, cellulosic ethanol requirements are projected to boom during the coming decade.
 
. . . . that biomass is presently the largest U.S. renewable energy source with more than 200 existing biopower plants now providing electricity for 1.5 million American homes; manure-to-energy biogas projects are expanding and could power up to 3% of North America’s electricity needs.
 
 
(MNN homepage photo: Cortomaltese/Flickr) 
 
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Comments(6)

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Posted By Anonymous - Tue, Aug 04 2009 at 12:31 PM EST

This website...

it was helpful

Posted By Harry Tournemille - Wed, May 20 2009 at 4:53 PM EST

Query

Interesting article and great stats. Could you source them please? I couldn't find any of them on the SEC website. Their factoids are all from 2007. Where did you find this?

Posted By manika - Fri, May 15 2009 at 2:08 PM EST

Nice article

Found it useful and informative

Posted By RAMC - Fri, May 15 2009 at 8:33 AM EST

7 amazing facts about renewable energy

Why is it that all of the so-called green web sites conveniently leave out a key fact about existing renewable energy? Namely, of the nearly 10 % of existing renewable energy, most of it is produced by hydropower and that the 50 % increase in wind power made a slight dent in the overall renewables because it is still a small part of the total electric generation from renewables and will be for some time. And, why is there little recognition that hydropower is the most efficient renewable with.... More

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, May 14 2009 at 2:57 PM EST

7 amazing facts about renewable energy

Rather than saying that renewable sources provided 10% of electric generation and that non-hydro grew 17%, please tell us how much non-hydro provided. After all if non hydro grew from two tenths of one percent to 3 thenths of one percent, that would be a 50% growth but still pretty damn insignificant.

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, May 14 2009 at 5:04 PM EST

http://www.greenelectricityhq.com

Amazing, but still way to go. Although the world started to move in green! direction, it needs to speed it up a little bit. Still, we depend so much on non-renewable resources for generating energy.

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