A Renewable Energy Revolution?

Over the past few years there has been lots of excitement in the renewable energy world. As a result of new legislation, tax incentives, and feed-in tariffs, investment in global renewable energy has surged. As shown in the first graph below, investment has nearly quadrupled over the last five years. And real energy production from renewables has soared. The second graph shows PV with an average annual growth rate of 36 % from 2001-2006! Extraordinary!

Although the US market has been slow to take off, it seems to also be making great strides. A recent WorldWatch Institute paper declared "wind, solar, and geothermal energies all on the rise" and the US is set to explode with renewables. Wind power capacity alone is expected to be increase by 45 % over last year.

All of this data seems to paint an extraordinary picture. It would suggest that we are witnessing a revolution! The way that we generate and consume energy is changing rapidly!

Right?

I had a look at official energy statistics from the US government to see just how these reports stack up against macro-level evidence. These numbers, unfortunately make this renewable energy revolution appear a little less revolutionary. The first two figures show the sources of US energy in 2002 and 2008 Very little difference. The final one shows total energy produced from renewablesUnfortunately the lines look much less upward-bound than those in the previous graphs.

These all suggest that perhaps most Americans are not consuming different types of energy. We are almost exactly where we were 6 years ago. That is humbling. It seems we are only at the very beginning of our journey and we have a long way to go. If this really is a revolution, then we have done little more than gathered in a dimly-lit room.