When looking at which energy source provides the most energy to the American economy, natural gas topped the charts for 2010 (the most recent year for which data was fully available). Today’s set of facts looks at the breakdown of the various sources and follows up last week’s Five Friday Facts which looked at the technology behind natural gas production.
While natural gas leads the list, it does not represent a majority of the energy consumed. Click here for a graphic generated by the Wall Street Journal which served as the source for this information.
All figures are in British Thermal Units (trillions):
Nonrenewable sources: 66,968 (89.2% of total energy consumed)
- Natural gas: 24,781 (33%)
- Coal: 22,077 (29.4%)
- Crude Oil: 11,669 (15.5%)
- Nuclear: 8,441 (11.2%)
Renewable sources: 8,064 (10.8%)
- Biomass: 4,310 (5.7%)
- Hydroelectric: 2,509 (3.3%)
- Wind: 924 (1.2%)
- Geothermal: 212 (0.3%)
- Solar: 109 (0.15%)
Image source: Metropolitan Museum of Art
