Biofuels, renewables strongly up since 2008, says new EIA report

March 28, 2013 |

In Maryland, the “Monthly Energy Review” by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with data through December 31, 2012 is showing that renewable energy sources and natural gas expanded rapidly during the Obama Administration’s first term while coal, nuclear power, oil imports and use, energy consumption, and CO2 emissions all declined significantly.

Comparing data for 2008 (last year of the Bush Administration) to data for 2012 (last year of the Obama Administration’s first term), domestic energy production from renewable energy sources (i.e., biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, and wind) grew by 23.48% with wind and solar more than doubling their output.

By comparison, total domestic energy production from all sources increased by just 8.15% with domestic natural gas and crude oil production growing by 18.71% and 29.47% respectively. Moreover, during the same period, nuclear power output declined by 4.47% and domestic coal production dropped by 13.28%.  Total energy use  declined by 4.16%, petroleum consumption decreased by 6.95%, CO2 emissions dropped by 9.38%, and imports of crude oil and petroleum products fell by 17.32%.

During the first four years of the Obama Administration, hydropower production grew by 7.01%, geothermal by 18.23%, biofuels by 40.66%, solar by 138.20%, and wind by 149.27%. Only biomass dipped – by 0.89%. Hydropower accounted for 30.21% of domestic energy production from renewable sources in 2012, followed by biomass (27.61%), biofuels (21.94%), wind (15.30%), geothermal (2.55%), and solar (2.39%). These figures may not fully reflect the total contribution from renewable energy sources inasmuch as EIA data does not totally account for distributed, non-grid connected applications.

Category: Policy

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