

Renewable energy tops nuclear power in the US - llambda
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/07/renewable-power-booms-in-developing-world-as-it-tops-nuclear-in-the-us.ars

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pingswept
This article is a little jumbled, but not exactly wrong. In most of the
article, "renewables" excludes hydropower; in another it includes biomass and
hydropower.

For the main claim ("Renewable energy tops nuclear power in the US"), the
relevant data is the second page of this PDF:
<http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec10.pdf>

Nuclear and renewables are each being consumed at a rate of around 8
quadrillion BTU per year, while fossil fuels are around 80.

The breakdown within renewables can be summarized as:

    
    
      * Solar: 0.1 quadrillion BTU/year
      * Wind: 1 quadrillion BTU/year
      * Hydropower, biomass, geothermal, waste: ~7 quadrillion BTU/year
    

(I only think it's interesting to break out solar and wind in particular
because the rest of the article talks mostly about the huge investment going
on in solar and wind.)

~~~
pcowans
Also worth looking at the historical data in
<http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/sec1_4.pdf>. That shows that
this was also the case briefly in the late 90s, and consistently before about
1990.

