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6 Charts that Will Make You Optimistic About America’s Clean Energy Future
(Please note, US Department of Energy, copyright concerns are nil.)
(Warning: I’ve recently been informed that the US Department of Energy is the “central hub of the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons” so I guess this is probably all pro-nuclear propaganda.)
http://energy.gov/articles/6-charts-will-make-you-optimistic-about-america-s-clean-energy-future
[font face=Serif][font size=5]6 Charts that Will Make You Optimistic About America’s Clean Energy Future[/font]
November 13, 2015 - 1:05pm
[font size=3]Over the last few years, we’ve been in the midst of a clean energy revolution. New technologies, once unthinkably expensive to install and use, have become increasingly cost-competitive at a staggeringly fast clip. Today, the Energy Department released a new report called “Revolution… Now,” which details five booming clean energy technologies -- plus a few other promising pieces of clean tech that will be key to solving major problems, like climate change. Let’s take a quick peek at six charts that can help us understand these technologies.
[font size=4]1. Land-Based Wind Power[/font]
While the first large wind farms were installed 35 years ago, wind power really began to surge around the year 2000, as wind costs dipped into the cost-competitive range of 5 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour (¢/kWh). Since then, wind installations have grown substantially, and now we have more than 65 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity with another 13.6 GW of capacity in development.
So what does this mean? It means that wind is poised to overtake hydroelectric power as America’s number one source of renewable energy. Wind power accounts for 4.4 percent of total U.S. electric generation and reduces annual carbon dioxide emissions by 115 million metric tons, all while supporting 50,000 U.S. jobs. This is exciting stuff, and it’s only going to get better. As wind turbines get taller, more affordable and more efficient, the Energy Department predicts that an additional 700,000 square miles of land will be suitable for wind development. That’s more than twice the size of Texas.
[font size=4]2. Solar PV: Utility-Scale[/font]
The rise of solar photovoltaic (PV) from novelty to mainstream energy source is one of the biggest clean energy stories of the past decade. Since 2008, the cost of installing utility-scale PV has dropped from $5.70 per Watt of generating power in 2008 to only $2.34 per Watt in 2014, a reduction of almost 60 percent. That enables it to be cost competitive with conventional generation in parts of the U.S.
In that same period of time, we’ve seen staggering growth in installed capacity, going from almost none in 2008 to nearly 10 GW in 2014 -- a trend that was jump-started by the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office. In the first half of 2015, 15 percent of new electric generation capacity of any kind -- renewable, nuclear or fossil -- was utility-scale solar power. With a whopping 27 GW of utility-scale solar projects currently in development, that surge is poised to continue in the coming years.
[font size=4]3. Solar PV: Distributed Generation[/font]
The story for distributed solar is just as exciting as it is for its bigger sibling. Distributed solar uses the same hardware as utility-scale solar generation but generates power where it is consumed, such as residential and corporate settings.
With dropping installation costs, the barrier to entry for folks with sunny roofs is decreasing rapidly. Though still slightly more expensive to install than utility-scale PV, distributed solar installation costs have been slashed in half since 2008, and this power source has grown from less than a GW of production to nearly 10 GW in late 2015, which represents almost 800,000 installations.
Historically, distributed PV has been privately purchased and installed. Recently, it has become increasingly popular for third parties, like utility companies, to purchase and install the solar panel systems on homes and businesses. The individual then benefits from lower utility rates while not being required to pay high up-front installation and hardware costs. Third-party ownership was responsible for more than 72 percent of U.S. residential solar installations in 2014!
[font size=4]4. LED Lighting[/font]
At this point, you may be noticing a trend: As technologies become cheaper to install and use, adoption and market penetration skyrockets. If we look at LED (light-emitting diode) installations, we see this story playing out in full effect.
Less than a decade ago, LEDs were a novel lighting option that few people understood. Now they’re practically everywhere. Since 2008, installations of LED bulbs have exploded from less than 400,000 to more than 78 million and dropped in price by almost 90 percent. What’s more, modern LED bulbs -- powered by technology developed here in the U.S. -- consume up to 85 percent less energy than their incandescent counterparts.
The Energy Department predicts that LEDs will account for 80 percent of all lighting sales by 2030, a trend that could cut our lighting electricity use in half while saving Americans $26 billion a year.
[font size=4]5. Electric Vehicles[/font]
We’re seeing more and more plug-in electric vehicles (also known as electric cars or EVs) on the street than ever before. Surging sales have brought nearly 300,000 EVs onto U.S. roads in just six years. Compared to traditional cars, EVs reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 48 percent on average. As renewable energy sources like utility-scale PV and wind continue to account for a greater portion of our electricity generation, EVs will help further scale back carbon pollution in America, making them an exciting part of our clean energy future.
Battery prices, which have historically limited EV affordability, are falling rapidly. The Energy Department is working with industry to aggressively cut battery costs in half by 2022. We have good reason to believe that this investment will be profitable, since over the last 20 years, the Energy Department’s $1 billion in contributions to EV battery research and development has yielded $3.5 billion in economic value.
[font size=4]6. All Together Now[/font]
Here’s one more chart that sums up just how far prices have fallen for each of these five technologies.
Each of these technologies has dropped between 40 percent and 90 percent in cost since 2008. LEDs in particular cost just one-tenth of what they did in 2008.
What’s remarkable is not just the speed at which these technologies have become cost-competitive, but also how quickly they have been adopted across the country. We are proud of our many investments that have supported these promising technologies, and look forward to other advancements that will have an equally profound impact on our clean energy economy. Projects like the Supertruck Initiative, vehicle lightweighting and smart building technologies promise to bring even bigger energy and cost savings to the American people very soon.
Learn more about these technologies and a few others that are primed to transform our clean energy landscape here![/font][/font]
November 13, 2015 - 1:05pm
[font size=3]Over the last few years, we’ve been in the midst of a clean energy revolution. New technologies, once unthinkably expensive to install and use, have become increasingly cost-competitive at a staggeringly fast clip. Today, the Energy Department released a new report called “Revolution… Now,” which details five booming clean energy technologies -- plus a few other promising pieces of clean tech that will be key to solving major problems, like climate change. Let’s take a quick peek at six charts that can help us understand these technologies.
[font size=4]1. Land-Based Wind Power[/font]
While the first large wind farms were installed 35 years ago, wind power really began to surge around the year 2000, as wind costs dipped into the cost-competitive range of 5 to 10 cents per kilowatt hour (¢/kWh). Since then, wind installations have grown substantially, and now we have more than 65 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity with another 13.6 GW of capacity in development.
So what does this mean? It means that wind is poised to overtake hydroelectric power as America’s number one source of renewable energy. Wind power accounts for 4.4 percent of total U.S. electric generation and reduces annual carbon dioxide emissions by 115 million metric tons, all while supporting 50,000 U.S. jobs. This is exciting stuff, and it’s only going to get better. As wind turbines get taller, more affordable and more efficient, the Energy Department predicts that an additional 700,000 square miles of land will be suitable for wind development. That’s more than twice the size of Texas.
[font size=4]2. Solar PV: Utility-Scale[/font]
The rise of solar photovoltaic (PV) from novelty to mainstream energy source is one of the biggest clean energy stories of the past decade. Since 2008, the cost of installing utility-scale PV has dropped from $5.70 per Watt of generating power in 2008 to only $2.34 per Watt in 2014, a reduction of almost 60 percent. That enables it to be cost competitive with conventional generation in parts of the U.S.
In that same period of time, we’ve seen staggering growth in installed capacity, going from almost none in 2008 to nearly 10 GW in 2014 -- a trend that was jump-started by the Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office. In the first half of 2015, 15 percent of new electric generation capacity of any kind -- renewable, nuclear or fossil -- was utility-scale solar power. With a whopping 27 GW of utility-scale solar projects currently in development, that surge is poised to continue in the coming years.
[font size=4]3. Solar PV: Distributed Generation[/font]
The story for distributed solar is just as exciting as it is for its bigger sibling. Distributed solar uses the same hardware as utility-scale solar generation but generates power where it is consumed, such as residential and corporate settings.
With dropping installation costs, the barrier to entry for folks with sunny roofs is decreasing rapidly. Though still slightly more expensive to install than utility-scale PV, distributed solar installation costs have been slashed in half since 2008, and this power source has grown from less than a GW of production to nearly 10 GW in late 2015, which represents almost 800,000 installations.
Historically, distributed PV has been privately purchased and installed. Recently, it has become increasingly popular for third parties, like utility companies, to purchase and install the solar panel systems on homes and businesses. The individual then benefits from lower utility rates while not being required to pay high up-front installation and hardware costs. Third-party ownership was responsible for more than 72 percent of U.S. residential solar installations in 2014!
[font size=4]4. LED Lighting[/font]
At this point, you may be noticing a trend: As technologies become cheaper to install and use, adoption and market penetration skyrockets. If we look at LED (light-emitting diode) installations, we see this story playing out in full effect.
Less than a decade ago, LEDs were a novel lighting option that few people understood. Now they’re practically everywhere. Since 2008, installations of LED bulbs have exploded from less than 400,000 to more than 78 million and dropped in price by almost 90 percent. What’s more, modern LED bulbs -- powered by technology developed here in the U.S. -- consume up to 85 percent less energy than their incandescent counterparts.
The Energy Department predicts that LEDs will account for 80 percent of all lighting sales by 2030, a trend that could cut our lighting electricity use in half while saving Americans $26 billion a year.
[font size=4]5. Electric Vehicles[/font]
We’re seeing more and more plug-in electric vehicles (also known as electric cars or EVs) on the street than ever before. Surging sales have brought nearly 300,000 EVs onto U.S. roads in just six years. Compared to traditional cars, EVs reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 48 percent on average. As renewable energy sources like utility-scale PV and wind continue to account for a greater portion of our electricity generation, EVs will help further scale back carbon pollution in America, making them an exciting part of our clean energy future.
Battery prices, which have historically limited EV affordability, are falling rapidly. The Energy Department is working with industry to aggressively cut battery costs in half by 2022. We have good reason to believe that this investment will be profitable, since over the last 20 years, the Energy Department’s $1 billion in contributions to EV battery research and development has yielded $3.5 billion in economic value.
[font size=4]6. All Together Now[/font]
Here’s one more chart that sums up just how far prices have fallen for each of these five technologies.
Each of these technologies has dropped between 40 percent and 90 percent in cost since 2008. LEDs in particular cost just one-tenth of what they did in 2008.
What’s remarkable is not just the speed at which these technologies have become cost-competitive, but also how quickly they have been adopted across the country. We are proud of our many investments that have supported these promising technologies, and look forward to other advancements that will have an equally profound impact on our clean energy economy. Projects like the Supertruck Initiative, vehicle lightweighting and smart building technologies promise to bring even bigger energy and cost savings to the American people very soon.
Learn more about these technologies and a few others that are primed to transform our clean energy landscape here![/font][/font]
3 replies
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Given your need to include this snark:
"
Warning: I’ve recently been informed that the US Department of Energy is the “central hub of the nuclear industry and nuclear weapons” so I guess this is probably all pro-nuclear propaganda.)"
A Brief History of the Department of Energy
The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977 created one the most interesting and diverse agencies in the Federal government. Activated on October 1, 1977, the twelfth cabinet-level department brought together for the first time within one agency two programmatic traditions that had long coexisted within the Federal establishment: 1) defense responsibilities that included the design, construction, and testing of nuclear weapons dating from the Manhattan Project effort to build the atomic bomb, and 2) a loosely knit amalgamation of energy-related programs scattered throughout the Federal government.
DOE’s Two Programmatic Traditions
In August 1939, on the eve of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, informing him that recent research showed that a nuclear chain reaction might make possible the construction of “extremely powerful bombs.” In response, Roosevelt initiated a Federal research program, and, in 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers established the Manhattan Engineer District to design and produce the first atomic bomb. Following the war, Congress engaged in a contentious debate over civilian versus military control of the atom. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 settled the debate by creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which took over the Manhattan Project’s sprawling scientific and industrial complex.
During the early Cold War years, the AEC focused on designing and producing nuclear weapons and developing nuclear reactors for naval propulsion. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 ended exclusive government use of the atom and began the growth of the commercial nuclear power industry, giving the AEC authority to regulate the new industry.
Until the 1970s, the Federal government played a limited role in formulating national energy policy in an era of relatively cheap and abundant energy. The nation relied on the private sector to fulfill most of its energy needs. Historically, Americans expected private industry to establish production, distribution, marketing, and pricing policies. When free market conditions were absent, Federal regulations were established to control energy pricing.
No overall energy policy existed. Government officials generally thought in terms of particular fuels, technologies, and resources rather than “energy.”
The Energy Crisis and the Department of Energy
What brought these two traditions together in the Department of Energy were two factors. First, the AEC’s activities in developing and commercializing nuclear energy represented the Federal government’s largest and most significant energy project into the early 1970s. Second, the energy crisis of the mid-1970s hastened a series of government reorganizations as both the executive and legislative branches sought to better coordinate Federal energy policy and programs.
The establishment of the Department of Energy brought most Federal energy activities under one umbrella and provided the framework for a comprehensive and balanced national energy plan. The Department undertook responsibility for long-term, high-risk research and development of energy technology, Federal power marketing, energy conservation, the nuclear weapons program, energy regulatory programs, and a central energy data collection and analysis program.
Security and Prosperity through World-Class Science
Over its thirty-five year history, the Department of Energy has shifted its emphasis and focus as the needs of the nation have changed. During the late 1970s, the Department emphasized energy development and regulation. In the 1980s, nuclear weapons research, development, and production took a priority. With the end of the Cold war, the Department focused on environmental clean up of the nuclear weapons complex and nonproliferation and stewardship of the nuclear stockpile.
In the 2000s, the Department’s priority has been ensuring the nation’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through science and technology solutions. The Department has sought to transform the nation’s energy system and secure leadership in clean energy technologies, .pursue world-class science and engineering as a cornerstone of economic prosperity, and enhance nuclear security through defense, nonproliferation, and environmental efforts.
http://www.energy.gov/node/%20362173DOE’s Two Programmatic Traditions
In August 1939, on the eve of World War II, Albert Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, informing him that recent research showed that a nuclear chain reaction might make possible the construction of “extremely powerful bombs.” In response, Roosevelt initiated a Federal research program, and, in 1942, the Army Corps of Engineers established the Manhattan Engineer District to design and produce the first atomic bomb. Following the war, Congress engaged in a contentious debate over civilian versus military control of the atom. The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 settled the debate by creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), which took over the Manhattan Project’s sprawling scientific and industrial complex.
During the early Cold War years, the AEC focused on designing and producing nuclear weapons and developing nuclear reactors for naval propulsion. The Atomic Energy Act of 1954 ended exclusive government use of the atom and began the growth of the commercial nuclear power industry, giving the AEC authority to regulate the new industry.
Until the 1970s, the Federal government played a limited role in formulating national energy policy in an era of relatively cheap and abundant energy. The nation relied on the private sector to fulfill most of its energy needs. Historically, Americans expected private industry to establish production, distribution, marketing, and pricing policies. When free market conditions were absent, Federal regulations were established to control energy pricing.
No overall energy policy existed. Government officials generally thought in terms of particular fuels, technologies, and resources rather than “energy.”
The Energy Crisis and the Department of Energy
What brought these two traditions together in the Department of Energy were two factors. First, the AEC’s activities in developing and commercializing nuclear energy represented the Federal government’s largest and most significant energy project into the early 1970s. Second, the energy crisis of the mid-1970s hastened a series of government reorganizations as both the executive and legislative branches sought to better coordinate Federal energy policy and programs.
The establishment of the Department of Energy brought most Federal energy activities under one umbrella and provided the framework for a comprehensive and balanced national energy plan. The Department undertook responsibility for long-term, high-risk research and development of energy technology, Federal power marketing, energy conservation, the nuclear weapons program, energy regulatory programs, and a central energy data collection and analysis program.
Security and Prosperity through World-Class Science
Over its thirty-five year history, the Department of Energy has shifted its emphasis and focus as the needs of the nation have changed. During the late 1970s, the Department emphasized energy development and regulation. In the 1980s, nuclear weapons research, development, and production took a priority. With the end of the Cold war, the Department focused on environmental clean up of the nuclear weapons complex and nonproliferation and stewardship of the nuclear stockpile.
In the 2000s, the Department’s priority has been ensuring the nation’s security and prosperity by addressing its energy, environmental and nuclear challenges through science and technology solutions. The Department has sought to transform the nation’s energy system and secure leadership in clean energy technologies, .pursue world-class science and engineering as a cornerstone of economic prosperity, and enhance nuclear security through defense, nonproliferation, and environmental efforts.
