How Much Wind Energy Does The Us Use

(CNN)The U.s. prepare a major renewable free energy milestone last Tuesday: wind power was the second-highest source of electricity for the get-go time since the Energy Information Administration began gathering the data.

Every bit E&Eastward reporter Ben Storrow noted and the EIA confirmed, wind turbines last Tuesday generated over two,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity, edging out electricity generated by nuclear and coal (just still trailing behind natural gas).

Terminal year, current of air was the quaternary-largest electricity source behind natural gas, coal, and nuclear, generating close to 380 terawatt-hours for the unabridged year, according to the EIA. For context, a terawatt is a thousand times bigger than a gigawatt.

Major milestone bated, wind free energy in the Us is still lagging backside one European country that recently broke a record of its own: Germany.

Although the US has more wind capacity by sheer numbers -- information technology'southward a larger country with a larger population -- Deutschland is outpacing the United states of america in terms of how much electricity it gets from wind. In Feb lone, windmills in Germany generated a record 20.half-dozen terawatt-hours of wind energy, Rystad Energy reported Tuesday, which made upwards 45% of its total energy in Feb.

In 2020 -- the most recent yr the Eia has robust statistics for -- Germany got 24% of its electricity from wind, compared to 8% in the US.

"Europe and Federal republic of germany in particular, have adult pregnant current of air power over the past decade," said Fabian Rønningen, a power markets annotator at independent free energy business firm Rystad.

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And the larger film shows the United states trails Europe in its renewables capacity.

In 2020, the European union and United kingdom combined had the chapters to produce around 49% of their electricity from renewables, well-nigh twice that of the US' 25%, according to the International Renewables Energy Agency.

With more than 100 planned offshore- and onshore-air current projects in the pipeline, President Joe Biden's administration is trying to make up the lost ground in the air current-power game. The assistants gear up a goal to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy alone.

The EIA projects the US will bring some other 7.six gigawatts of utility-scale wind online this twelvemonth, alongside 21.v gigawatts of utility-calibration solar power. Simply last month, for example, the Traverse current of air farm in Oklahoma brought close to a gigawatt of new energy online.

The US milestone comes equally the UN's Intergovernmental Console on Climatic change reported that wind and solar accept declined significantly in price and are at present economically feasible alternatives to fossil fuels. Scientists warned the world must rapidly transition to renewables and away from fossil fuels to avert the worst impacts of global warming.

"We cannot run our fossil fuel-based infrastructures anymore the fashion we did," said Jan Christoph Minx, a climate researcher and a lead author on the report, at a news conference. "The big message coming from hither is we need to end the historic period of fossil fuel. And we don't simply need to end it, but nosotros demand to end information technology very quickly."