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The Evolution of America's Energy Supply (1776 – 2014)

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Some context for those who insist renewables will 'solve' everything...

 

Source: Visual Capitalist

The early settlers to North America relied on organic materials on the surface of land for the vast majority of their energy needs. Wood, brush, and other biomass fuels were burned to warm homes, and eventually to power steam engines. Small amounts of coal were found in riverbeds and other such outcrops, but only local homes in the vicinity of these deposits were able to take advantage of it for household warmth.

During the Industrial Revolution, it was the invention of the first coal-powered, commercially practical locomotives that turned the tide. Although wood would still be used in the majority of locomotives until 1870, the transition to fossil fuels had begun.

Coke, a product of heating certain types of coal, replaced wood charcoal as the fuel for iron blast furnaces in 1875. Thomas Edison built the first practical coal-fired electric generating station in 1882, which supplied electricity to some residents in New York City. It was just after this time in the 1910s that the United States would be the largest coal producer in the world with 750,000 miners and blasting 550 million tons of coal a year.

The invention of the internal combustion engine and the development of new electrical technologies, including those developed by people like Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, were the first steps towards today’s modern power landscape. Fuels such as petroleum and natural gas became very useful, and the first mass-scale hydroelectric stations were built such as Hoover Dam, which opened in 1936.

The discovery and advancement of nuclear technology led to the first nuclear submarine in 1954, and the first commercial nuclear power plant in the United States in Pennsylvania in 1957. In a relatively short period of time, nuclear would have a profound effect on energy supply, and it today 99 nuclear reactors account for 20% of all electricity generated in the United States.

In more recent decades, scientists found that the current energy mix is not ideal from an environmental perspective. Advancements in renewable energy solutions such as solar, wind, and geothermal were made, helping set up a potential energy revolution. Battery technology, a key challenge for many years, has began to catch up to allow us to store larger amounts of energy when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing. Companies like Tesla are spending billions of dollars on battery megafactories that will have a great impact on our energy use.

Today, the United States gets the majority of its energy from fossil fuels, though that percentage is slowly decreasing. While oil is still the primary fuel of choice for transportation, it now only generates 1% of the country’s electricity through power plants. Natural gas has also taken on a bigger role over time, because it is perceived as being cleaner than oil and coal.

Today, in 2015, wind and solar power have generated 5% and 1% of total electricity respectively. Hydro generates 7%.

 

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Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:28 | 6484964 rejected
rejected's picture

People sometimes forget that solar is only available on an average of a half a day. Batteries or grid will have to cover the other half.   Also the efficiency of solar is always changing due to electrical loads. A Panel manufacture boasts an efficiency of say 22%. That is at full load. There are times during the day when the fridges and A/C or Heat shut off thereby reducing load. If batteries are fully charged then the power required is reduced along with efficiency. There are times when my 2400 watt per hour system is only utilizing 100 watts. Some kind of battery system that can store all the extra power is required to achieve the 22% efficiency. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:00 | 6485303 Axenolith
Axenolith's picture

Oil will never "run out", since it has the highest portable energy density versus it's availability and ease of extraction OR manufacture plus it's a feedstock for essentially all that makes modern society. When in ground oil is scarce enough that its cost effective it will be supplanted with Fischer-Tropf (sp?) process oil powered by pebble bed thorium reactors (also disposing of our spent uranium fuels). When the coal for that runs out it will get made with sewage, unless of course we've evolved into "peaceful light beings" by then...

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:17 | 6484715 joego1
joego1's picture

It depends on what your definition is of "renewable" energy. All energy forms are renewable. Everything in the universe is potentially energy.

e=mc2

So this is a discussion about a bunch of dressed up apes that would prefer to have one form of energy over another. The majority of humans are useless biomass that will be transformed by nature into some other form of energy. There are a few of the genetically superior apes that have a tiny chance of actually unlocking the secrets to the universe but they will most likely be beheaded by ISIS or nuked by some more "exceptional" apes before they can ever figure that part out. The majority of  Americans piss away huge amounts of energy everyday driving their liquid fuel 2 ton piece of shit down to get their social security check or EBT card and they are truly exceptional. The rest of the planet mostly watches in envy waiting for their turn at the game hoping that their village will soon have electricity and a communal refrigerator. Still other apes find that they are exceptional because their religion tell them so. Their religion also tell them to go kill non believers and that they are here on earth to rape the planet in the name of their God.

Some humans are fairly sure this whole modern human experiment will collapse sometime soon.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:12 | 6484919 TheFulishBastid
TheFulishBastid's picture

It depends on what your definition is of "renewable" energy. All energy forms are renewable. Everything in the universe is potentially energy.

 

Thermodynamics much?

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:07 | 6485176 joego1
joego1's picture

The big bang

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:23 | 6484729 Rock On Roger
Rock On Roger's picture

Natural gas is a renewable fuel.

Produced by bacteria.

Methane is the fuel of the future.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:34 | 6484777 heywood2
heywood2's picture

I have a colon full of renewable methane right now.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:42 | 6484814 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

keep those frijoles coming

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:43 | 6484818 ThroxxOfVron
ThroxxOfVron's picture

The problem there is one of scale.

But, I'll agree that it makes more sense than wind...

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:25 | 6484738 Teh Finn
Teh Finn's picture

The answer is in a shutdown factory in Starnesville, Wisconsin.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:47 | 6484840 Urban Roman
Urban Roman's picture

Thought it was in Auburn Hills, Michigan.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:30 | 6484762 heywood2
heywood2's picture

 

What I see is new technology constantly displacing the old, as the new becomes cheaper and more plentiful. And today, the "new" is mostly renewables. Already, solar and wind are cheaper than coal electricity under many circumstances.

 

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:37 | 6484790 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

a lot of this cheaper energy is the result of maladjusted economic policies. natgas is cheaper than dirt, because hedge funds had access to easy money and they fracked just as much as they could. now we are going to liquify that stuff and export to europe (fuck you putin, they no longer need gazprom) and we are going to send it to japan (fuck you china) where they pay five times the rate for NG, and they have had some problems with nuclear. america is going to be an energy exporting giant and we are going to take care of out friends. then the IMF will seal the deal, american providence will rule for hundreds of years. sorry empire haters.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:59 | 6484886 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

"a lot of this cheaper energy is the result of maladjusted economic policies."

We don't know the price (cost?) of anything anymore.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:12 | 6484918 rejected
rejected's picture

CHEAP ,,, the buzzword of the 21st century.

Years ago I remember people would not buy things produced cheaply. They were 'quality' oriented.

Today they won't touch anything that ISN'T Walmart cheap.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:34 | 6484981 orez65
orez65's picture

Israel is going to be an energy exporting giant.

Why do you think our military is in the Middle East?

To take over Syria so that a natural gas pipeline can reach Europe from the huge and newly discovered Israel's offshore gas fields and Qatar's.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:39 | 6484801 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Only if heavily subsidized. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:32 | 6484767 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

i sort of wonder when the tipping point in energy use crosses over from heating (industrial and home) to cooling (computers and homes) while new technology gets smaller and uses less energy and generates less heat less cooling is required. the old industrial technologies are replaced. some supercomputers require liquid nitrogen, really cold, do we keep cooling things with the old hot energy, or do we find something which can cool off the new technology while giving off less heat, which we have to counterbalance with air conditioning as the planet heats up. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:43 | 6484824 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

If you're cooling something, you are using energy to move energy (heat) from one place to another.  In the case of your kitchen, your fridge will put out more heat from its radiator than it removes from its inside, and it will use energy from a power plant that puts out heat to do it.  Efficiency cannot be greater than 1, and it is almost always much less than 1. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:41 | 6485127 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

The COP Coefficient of Performance of a common heat pump (e.g. Carrier Infinity Series) is 3 which is greater than 1. This means it can move three KW of heat energy using only 1 KW of electrical energy.

In the same manner, a high speed magnetic switching electric generator such as the AuroraTek PUP3000UC can deliver more electrical energy to a real load (of energy extracted from the vaccuum) than than it consumes.

Study the works (and US Patents) of Tom Bearden to learm more.

 

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:09 | 6485180 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

Put a few of these PUP3000's in the trunk of an electric car, and you will never have to plug into the grid (or pay) to charge.

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:14 | 6485198 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

And how much heat is pumped out of the power plant powering that pump?  I guarantee that when you take that into account, your total efficiency is less than 1.  Those pumps don't run on nothing. 

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 00:31 | 6486464 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

In the case of the AuroraTek PUP3000UC, there is no energy input, and the output is 2 kilo-watts.

In the case of the Rosch Innovations generators, outputs are 4kw (for the GAIA produced model), and 5 to 100 MW for the commercial models. No fuel is consumed to operate.

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:33 | 6484771 Zen Master
Zen Master's picture

Just more BS from someone who "thinks" he's real smart...but plays the fool or the court jester. Repeating meme's and myths that sound good, but are simply not true.

People that think wind and solar are renewable are just plain "stupid." Thermal has potential, but anytime you hear someone repeat the solar or wind meme it would be best to consider there information highly flawed and suspect.

And guess what...oil isn't going anywhere because it is the most cost efficient "green" energy source on the planet. That's right...it GREEN. Why? Because it is produced by the earth, or in other words...it's natural.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:43 | 6484820 the grateful un...
the grateful unemployed's picture

there are a lot of natural things that will kill you

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 12:50 | 6484837 rejected
rejected's picture

+100

Solar and Wind cannot survive without the 'green' oil to manufacture the panels and generators and what have you. They use more energy than they return.

The fact that huge amounts of hydrocarbons have been found on the moon of Saturn reasonably proves they are not fossil fuels as the Global Warming high Priests suggest.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/media/cassini-20080213.html

"Affordable battery technology is 20th century at best" Any of the newer stuff is so expensive that only governments  with OPM can buy it. 

This article was written for the GW religious,,, subtle propaganda for the non believers.

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:04 | 6484896 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

A friend of mine in New England completely powers his house and electric car from solar panels on his roof.  He has a 6 year payback.  Yes, oil freaks, there were subsidies.  Without subsidies it would be an 8 year payback.

The house is in New England.  Yeah I know it snows there.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:55 | 6485017 orez65
orez65's picture

Your friend must heat his house with some kind of fossil fuel.

It is not possible to heat, even a very small home, with solar power. The physics just don't work out.

Remember this, the approximate amount of energy at noon from the Sun falling on an area about 3' x 3' is about the same as that from a 100 watt light bulb.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:22 | 6485074 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

There is natural gas to heat the house, but the house is well insulated.  So complete independence, no.  Large savings, yes.  Large disruptions in living standard, no.  Electric grid eliminated, yes.  Nuclear power eliminated, yes.  Gasoline eliminated, yes.

The panels cover an area of 1152 sq ft, or 128 light bulbs according to your statistics.  I guess 128 light bulbs is enough to provide electricity to their house and car.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:31 | 6485103 orez65
orez65's picture

That's only at noon for about an hour.

Bell shaped energy curve ending at 0 energy on both sides, night and morning.

746 watts per horsepower.

Typical car engine today 200 horsepower.

Do the math.

We need to grow food for 7 Billion people, can't do it with solar and wind.

I appreciate the grid a lot more than you do because I've lived in South Florida after hurricanes.

Not fun without electricity.

You want a real solution for no CO2 and 7 Billion people: go nuclear 

Mon, 08/31/2015 - 06:45 | 6489436 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

Wowza. That's a lot of really cool factoids.

I'm going to go with my friend who meets all of her electric and transportation need with solar panels.

OK, ace?

Nuclear?  You are a fucking idiot.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:00 | 6485301 joego1
joego1's picture

So I spend my gallon of oil and get a solar panel that charges my electric car for 20 years. What do you get for your gallon of oil?

Sincerely

Your Suspect

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:10 | 6484911 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Show this chart to the dumbfucks who believe their Prius/Tesla will save the world... even though 9 times out of 10 it gets recharged by plugging it into a coal burning powerplant.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:13 | 6484921 Teh Finn
Teh Finn's picture

I NEVER pass a prius on the highway.  They always zoom by me.  And don't get me started on Prius drivers and their jackrabbit starts from stoplights.  They must all worship the Force family of dragstrip drivers.  Both are behaviours that unneccesarily waste fuel.  You know, "saving the planet."

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:31 | 6484973 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

Somebody let me drive their Prius once.  The thing about a typical electric motor is that it has full torque at 0 RPMs.  If you put your foot into the floor at a stoplight, its not that a Prius has tons of power, it is that it can apply its full force to the tires right at the beginning, like you're in the power band of the engine in a normal car.  People are going to use that. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:25 | 6485086 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

For that reason electric drag racers kick ass.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:25 | 6485087 MalteseFalcon
MalteseFalcon's picture

For that reason electric drag racers kick ass.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:28 | 6485093 Urban Roman
Urban Roman's picture

But still, when it's going 80 MPH on the highway, it doesn't really get better fuel economy than a Camry or whatever.

(because wind resistance)

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:07 | 6485175 22winmag
22winmag's picture

Truer words were never spoken.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:12 | 6484917 rushjob
rushjob's picture

The problem with that chart is that it doesn't compare energy use through periods. Energy use per capita and per entire USA was minuscule compared to now in 1800's

 

A more realistic graph can be found at the end of this article.

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/WEAP/WEAP.html

 

The extrapolation is assuming we've reached a bumpy plateau of oil now.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 02:28 | 6486543 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture

YES, rushjob, thanks for posting that link. From another article from paulchefurka.ca:

"Climate change will not be ameliorated by international agreement.  This is due to the cooperation problems identified in the “Prisoner’s Dilemma” game, national and corporate self-interest, a lack of urgency due to the hyperbolic discount function mentioned above, and the complete lack of any realistic substitute for fossil fuels."

and

"Fertility rates and birth rates are likely to plummet world-wide over the next 30 years, due to the same influences seen in Russia from 1987 to 1993 during the break-up of the Soviet Union.  These changes will largely be driven by personal choice rather than centralized planning and legislation."

 

"one way or another, sooner or later we will have a zero-child policy" - MEAN BUSINESS

"Horizon to horizon

memory written on the wind

Fade away like an hourglass, grain by grain

Swept away like voices in a hurricane

       In a vapor trail

RUSH- VAPOR TRAILS/VAPOR TRAIL/2002

------------------------------------------------

ALL roads lead to Paris

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:20 | 6484935 TheFulishBastid
TheFulishBastid's picture

Energy Returned On Energy Invested

 

All of this is Bullshit.

 

The quick and clean fossils are all gone.

 

The closer we get to parity

 

The Stupider this Conversation sounds.

 

The Laws of Thermodynamics break for no one.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:24 | 6484951 orez65
orez65's picture

What would be more significant in this article is if you overlay the world's population as a function of time.

All the way back to 1492 when the world's population was 500 million humans vs 7 BILLION today.

7 Billion humans can not survive on a renewables energy economy.

Let Al Gore set the example by entering the "Termination Chanber" first.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 13:44 | 6485004 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Energy monopolies are top of my shit list. The amount of BS out there is mind numbing. Solar and wind are not working out after decades of teet sucking. What a collossal waste.

 All thats needed for solar and wind power to fly is some fairy dust. Fiat magic has been keeping this scam afloat. Take that away and all this dogma pumped out of the last 30 years will be shown for the scam that it is. Its a religious cult. Facts dont matter to the true believers.

 We own the carbon cycle. F/T look it up. Its practical now. Sasol is doing it very well in S Africa. Its been around about 100 years. It works well with several feed stocks. Waste,coal,sewage and even sea water or air. It has a few big advantages in energy density and energy storage that make wind and solar look rather stupid. F/T wax is one hell of a great way to store and transport energy.

 We own the carbon cycle. This is why I like the idea of an energy backed coin.Its about as level of a playing field as we are going to get. Because energy has a real value and we can all make it in quantities at scale to prevent either the coin or the energy from being monopolized.

 

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:03 | 6485035 White Mountains
White Mountains's picture

Burning fiat currencies for heating and cooking will soon be visible for a time on that chart.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:06 | 6485039 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Thats what the green section on the chart trully represents.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:25 | 6485085 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

We have not needed coal, oil, gas, or nuclear energy (or surface roads) since 1950:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=lyXi1efbYrk#t=4028

 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:30 | 6485099 Teh Finn
Teh Finn's picture

Just use Black Knight Satellite tech right?

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 14:41 | 6485129 Radical Marijuana
Radical Marijuana's picture

The physical steam engines, and the social debt engines, were invented at about the same time and place in human history. However, the deeper connections between those phenomena tend to be deliberately ignored and misunderstood.

The technologically based civilization known as the USA is the leading example of those deeper problems, that human beings and civilization necessary operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, but do so with their social successfulness based upon the maximum possible deceits and frauds.

There are intense paradoxes that better understanding of general energy systems is NOT applied to political science, due to the consequences of that having to address how and why the political economy actually operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime repeating in fractal patterns, whose primary source is currently that governments enforce frauds by privately controlled banks, so that the public "money" supplies require that the vast majority of people deliberately ignore the principle of the conservation of energy, and misunderstand the concept of entropy, in the most absurdly backward ways possible.

"The Evolution of America's Energy Supply" was directed by fundamentally fraudulent accounting systems, which automatically became worse, faster ...
Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:23 | 6485219 VWAndy
VWAndy's picture

Agreed. These two monopolies go hand in hand. All the other monopolies are dependant on these two keys.

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 15:58 | 6485296 Raul44
Raul44's picture

Natural gas and nuclear are the 2 next best things, unfortunately they may not pay off so well to the crooks as the "other" sources does. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:11 | 6485328 Victor E. Overbanks
Victor E. Overbanks's picture

My technical analysis is that the first graph appears to resemble a volcano. This is a clear economic indicator of a great buying oppourtunity!

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:32 | 6485369 taketheredpill
taketheredpill's picture

Modern economics assigns no cost to pollution. If it did then renewables would be cost competitive.  Thats why government has to apply a non-regressive tax on carbon fuels and use it to develop renewable infrastructure. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 16:45 | 6485398 orez65
orez65's picture

Please is there anyway to explain to you, and others like you, that you can not support 7 Billion humans with solar and wind energy?

The "Greenies" do not fully disclose their agenda.

Which is to terminate 95% of the world's population.

Then a wind and solar economy becomes feasible.

And I don't think that you are in their "survivors list".

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 18:15 | 6485621 Bopper09
Bopper09's picture

A couple well placed bombs deep in the Atlantic ocean may be what the plan is.  Or the new madrid fault.  Glad I live in Saskatchewan. 

Sat, 08/29/2015 - 19:28 | 6485830 OzViking
OzViking's picture

Energy crisis for power and liquid fuels was solved in the 1970s.........its called Thorium.

 

people who write these articles are asleep.

Sun, 08/30/2015 - 10:49 | 6487106 Joe A
Joe A's picture

Renewables is only a matter of technology and scale (and TPTB allowing it to rise). Suppose you create a two layer transparent paint that generates solar energy. You can paint that stuff on anything, stick an anode and kathode in it and voila.

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