Energy

That is the title of a recent post on Briefed by Data. The graph here, from that post, shows our current electricity consumption and what we would need to add to move all cars to electric. How does this compare to existing electricity generation? Figure 1 has the answer. We …

Here is an excerpt from my Briefed by Data post Minerals for renewables: A few things stand out. The first is the amount of minerals utilized for offshore wind, which is 50% more than for the next category, onshore wind. The second factor is the importance of copper in all …

In my post of the same name on Briefed by Data I make the case that normalizing energy subsidies by BTU in the same year is misleading. If you do so you get the graph here and can make statements like solar gets 300x more subsidies than nuclear per BTU. …

We don’t use oil for just gasoline and one of the key uses of a barrel of oil is the binding agent for asphalt, which electric cars also desire. From my We Can’t Just Stop Oil post on Briefed by Data: Oil is refined by heating it, and different types …

This is from my Briefed by Data post Seasonal Solar Electricity Generation. It looks like the difference between the maximum month and minimum months of solar electricity generation are growing. In fact, it is fairly consistent in terms of a percentage drop. In Figure 2, we can see that the …

The map says it all from the eia article Two-thirds of North America is at risk of energy shortfalls in high summer heat, NERC says (6/26/2023). If temperatures spike this summer, parts of the United States could face electricity supply shortages as demand for cooling increases, according to analysis by …

From the eia article Monthly U.S. propane exports in March 2023 reached a record high by Josh Eiermann (6/6/2023) U.S. propane exports reached a record 1.7 million barrels per day (b/d) in March 2023, the highest level since we began collecting this data in 1973. Propane is consumed globally for space heating …

From the iea Global EV Outlook 2023 Trends in batteries: Automotive lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery demand increased by about 65% to 550 GWh in 2022, from about 330 GWh in 2021, primarily as a result of growth in electric passenger car sales, with new registrations increasing by 55% in 2022 relative to 2021. …

The eia article U.S. households in warmer states consumer less site energy than household in colder states by Greg Lawson and Mickey Francis (5/4/2023) provides this great graph. Site energy refers to the amount of energy that enters a home, including electricity from the grid, electricity from onsite solar panels, natural …

First some good news. The eia report Renewable generation surpassed coal and nuclear in the U.S. electric power sector in 2022 by Katherine Antonio (3/27/2023) notes Last year, the U.S. electric power sector produced 4,090 million megawatthours (MWh) of electric power. In 2022, generation from renewable sources—wind, solar, hydro, biomass, …