Twenty Years of Electric Power

While on the subject of electrical energy, I thought I would update my understanding on the total picture—thus beyond nukes and hydro. A very nice data set is available here from the Department of Energy’s hard-working Energy Information Administration. Let’s first look at total electrical generation, in billions of kilowatt hours (kWh) from 1990 through 2009.

At the beginning of this period, we consumed 3 billion kWh. Our use of electricity peaked in 2007 at 4.157 billion. Usage had dropped to 3.95 billion kWh by 2009—indicating that even electrical generation responds to economic turndown by a matching dip in production.

The lower curves show the generation of electricity by selected types of fuels or methods like hydroelectric and wind. Note here that until 2006 the top two were coal and nuclear. After that time natural gas became more important than nuclear. Fourth is hydroelectric. Petroleum was fifth until, in 2008, wind power began to generate more electricity than oil. The categories shown do not exhaust the list— but since petroleum and wind barely show on this chart, a closer view of the others needs another graphic. Herewith the shares of fuels and methods in 2009 as a pie chart:

I am showing the percentage share of the leaders—coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, and wind. Together these accounted for just a hair under 97 percent of all electrical generation in 2009. Please note that solar and photovoltaic, while in the pie, is such a tiny sliver so as not to show at all (0.02%).

Finally, here is a chart that shows the growth rates of the various fuels/methods used to get that spark into the wire:

Now this is a most illuminating chart. It shows that wind-power wins, hands down, growing at 18.8 percent—and that’s every year in the 1990-2009 period! The big loser is petroleum. Some of the categories here need additional commentary—also revealing:

• The category “Other Gases” includes, to quote from my source, “blast furnace gas, propane gas, and other manufactured and waste gases derived from fossil fuels.”

• The “Other” category, growing at 6.5 percent a year, includes “non-biogenic municipal solid waste, batteries, chemicals, hydrogen, pitch, purchased steam, sulfur, tire-derived fuels, and miscellaneous technologies.” By non-biogenic I think they mean unlikely to rot, thus paper, cardboard, plastics, wood, etc.

• “Wood and Wood Derived” fuels include “paper pellets, railroad ties, utility poles, wood chips, bark, red liquor, sludge wood, spent sulfite liquor, and black liquor, with other wood waste solids and wood-based liquids.” Various liquids mentioned here are wastes in paper pulping mills.

• “Other Biomass” includes “biogenic municipal solid waste, landfill gas, sludge waste, agricultural byproducts, other biomass solids, other biomass liquids, and other biomass gases (including digester gases and methane).” Biogenic wastes are those that rot, ferment, and throw off gases.

Did you notice the interesting common feature of these categories? They all represent recovery of energy from wastes of some sort. The “Other” category ranks second in overall growth. We can come up with an Environmentally Friendly grouping: Wind, Solar, Wood, Biomass, and Other. In 2009 these accounted for 3.6 percent of total electric power generation. And in 1990? In 1990 they were 0.05 percent of the total—thus a 72-fold increase in the last twenty years. A tiny fraction of total megawattage, but the trend is there—and the growth rates are there as well.

Electric Leaders: Nukes and H2O

A table appearing in the 2011 United States Statistical Abstract (here) provides an interesting view of power generation across the globe in 2008. Some extracts from that table are graphed here. I am presenting one bar-graph on the top twenty countries in nuclear electric —and another on the top twenty in hydro-electric generation.

The United States produces 19.4 percent of its electric power using nuclear technology but ranks a distant thirteenth among the twenty leaders in the world. (I like that ranking. We’re contrarians in this family, and 13 is our lucky number.) Notice that Europe is very prominent on this list—and France leads the pack. At 78 percent of its total electricity, it generates 22.2 percent more than its nearest rival, Belgium, at 58.8 percent.

This bar graphs shows the top twenty in hydro-power generation—something of a misnomer. Hydro power relies on gravity. Water is its medium. And capturing tidal power is also due to the gravitational pull—of the moon. Here I show the United States as the twenty-first country. The U.S. doesn’t make the top twenty, but I thought I’d show us by way of comparison. Russia, another country with a large land area, produces 18.3 percent to our 6. China produces 14.1 percent. The leader is Paraguay. And speaking of Paraguay, notice the strong representation here by Latin American countries. Four of the top five are Latin American—and they’d sweep if Norway would not be butting in so powerfully. Aren’t they satisfied to have off-shore oil and gas. Ah, these northerners.

Five countries make both lists. These are, in order of their hydro-rankings, Sweden, Argentina, Romania, Russia, and Finland. And in their nuclear rankings, Sweden (again), Finland, Russia, Romania, and Argentina. Most balanced in this sub-list are Sweden and Russia. Both produce roughly the same percentage of electricity from both nukes and hydro-electric.

You might think that countries ranking high in hydro had it made. Nukes have the major problems of safety and waste disposal. Hydro-electric has the problem that dams eventually silt up and natural water flow is subject to climate change. Nobody is ever dealt the perfect hand that will take the pot forever and ever more.