Monday, January 3, 2011

Power production similar for nuclear and renewables


In the first 9 months of 2010, renewable energy provided 10.89% of all primary energy produced in the U.S. while nuclear power produced 11.39% of the total according to data released in December's Monthly Energy Review released by the US DOE Energy Information Agency.

Now, while this looks like they can each be rounded to about 11%, in fact, the Energypriorities.com site notes that "they are separated by a spread of 223 trillion Btus or 65,458 megawatt-hours. That's close to half of what wind energy contributed (505 trillion Btus) in the report period." [right, credit Energypriorities.com]