Main vitality consumption in the USA was 100.4 quadrillion British thermal items (quads) in 2022, a 3% improve from 2021. About 21% of U.S. vitality consumption in 2022 got here from nonfossil gas sources comparable to renewables and nuclear—a tie with 2020 as the best share because the early 1900s, in accordance with information in our Month-to-month Vitality Evaluation. Fossil fuels—petroleum, pure gasoline, and coal—accounted for 79% of complete U.S. vitality consumption in 2022.

Renewable vitality consumption in the USA elevated barely from 12.1 quads in 2021 to a record-high 13.2 quads in 2022. Elevated use of renewables for electrical energy era, significantly wind and photo voltaic vitality, largely drove the rise in renewable vitality consumption. Wind remained the biggest supply of renewable vitality in 2022; it first surpassed hydroelectricity, the second-largest renewable supply, in 2019.

Consumption of nuclear vitality totaled 8.0 quads in the USA in 2022, down barely from 8.1 quads in 2021. The small lower was pushed by the closure of the Palisades nuclear energy plant in Could 2022, 9 years earlier than its working license would have expired.

Petroleum has been the most-consumed vitality supply in the USA since surpassing coal in 1950. U.S. petroleum consumption stays under its 2005 peak, and in 2022, it totaled 35.8 quads. The transportation sector accounted for a lot of the petroleum-fueled vitality consumption. Though the share of electrical automobiles on the nation’s roads has elevated, petroleum stays the dominant gas supply for automobiles, vehicles, and planes.

U.S. pure gasoline consumption totaled 33.4 quads in 2022, essentially the most pure gasoline consumption in the USA on document. Development in U.S. pure gasoline consumption has largely been pushed by elevated use of pure gasoline within the electrical energy sector, which has consumed extra pure gasoline than every other sector yearly for the previous 5 years.

U.S. coal consumption fell to 9.8 quads in 2022, the second-lowest stage in 60 years. U.S. coal consumption has fallen by greater than half since its peak in 2005. Diminished coal use within the electrical energy sector has pushed a lot of this decline.

Early vitality consumption utilizing water to energy grist, lumber, and different milling operations just isn’t effectively quantified, though such mills had been a typical function all through the early historical past of the USA.

Our Month-to-month Vitality Evaluation’s pre-1949 estimates of U.S. vitality consumption are primarily based on two sources: Sam Schurr and Bruce Netschert’s Vitality within the American Financial system, 1850–1975: Its Historical past and Prospects and the U.S. Division of Agriculture’s Round No. 641, Gasoline Wooden Utilized in the USA 1630–1930.

Appendix D of our Month-to-month Vitality Evaluation compiles these estimates of U.S. vitality consumption in 10-year increments from 1635 by way of 1845 and 5-year increments from 1845 by way of 1945. Knowledge for 1949 by way of the current day can be found within the newest Month-to-month Vitality Evaluation.

Principal contributors: Owen Comstock, Elesia Fasching

Article from U.S. EIA’s Right this moment in Vitality.

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