Insects are considered "cold blooded" as opposed to mammals that maintain their internal temperatures regardless of the temperature around them. Why is that important? Because, if you understand Darwin's "Origin of Species" it is easy to understand that temperature change is a huge issue when it comes to creatures without power over their climate.
Insects, for as much as humans like to exterminate them, are vital to ecosystems. They even enhance soil quality at times. I am sure everyone knows how worms aerate the soil, yes?
When the air temperature and the soil temperatures become to warm for the insects they die and/or they aren't able to reproduce. That is not a good thing. Organic farmers are very careful to protect their soils from chemicals to provide better crops and crop yields that consumers like and value.
American agriculture can't do without pollinators. While, commercial beekeepers are transporting bees from orchard to orchard, they are also transporting disease and it hurts the bees and the crops.
If the climate crisis isn't bad enough, the US EPA under Trump is deregulating all kinds of nasty stuff and it is making it's way into the food chain of people as well as insects.
He is even assaulting Earth's ozone layer with abandon.
Stopped enforcing a 2015 rule (click here) that prohibited the use of hydrofluorocarbons, powerful greenhouse gases, in air-conditioners and refrigerators.
The return of acid rain.
Reverted to a weaker 2009 pollution permitting program for new power plants and expansions.
The petroleum industry is rejoicing over this one.
Proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan, which would have set strict limits on carbon emissions from coal- and gas-fired power plants. In August 2018, the E.P.A. drafted a replacement plan, called the Affordable Clean Energy rule, that would let states set their own rules.
Ever hear the word schadenfreude? You have now. Look it up. It will help explain the gaslighting of this administration in the White House.
Sunday, February 10, 2019
California leads the way on climate and their knowledge may be applied globally, too.
By Todd R. Hansen
Fairfield — The man (click here) who has come to be known as the Walnut King in Solano County and around Northern California said he has not experienced a great deal of problems related to climate change.
But Raj Kumar Sharma is very much aware of the potential threat, not only to his 700 acres of walnuts in Solano, but to all fruit and nut orchards in the region.
“This year seems OK. We are getting a lot of rain and cooler nights,” Sharma, owner of Sunrise Orchards, said in a phone interview Friday.
Those wintertime temperatures, and specifically the number of “chilling hours” the trees get during the dormant periods, are critical. Warmer temperatures associated with climate change could negatively affect production.
Walnuts, the top money crop in Solano County, had a gross value of $47.36 million in 2017, according to the county crop report. Fruit and nuts as a crop group had a gross value of $116.62 million. At 32 percent, the group was the largest share of the overall $362.82 million crop and livestock value in the county.
Wendy Rash, district conservationist at the Vacaville U.S. Department of Agriculture Service Center, said climate change can affect different crops and livestock in different ways, so the solutions must be equally diverse....
...“Climate change has taken a toll on farmers throughout the state and in my district,” Limón said in a statement released by the California Climate & Agricultural Network – or CalCAN. “To protect our agricultural businesses, the livelihoods of hardworking Californians and address a changing climate, we need to invest in our farmers and support their effort to face these growing challenges. I’m proud to author this bill.”...
Fairfield — The man (click here) who has come to be known as the Walnut King in Solano County and around Northern California said he has not experienced a great deal of problems related to climate change.
But Raj Kumar Sharma is very much aware of the potential threat, not only to his 700 acres of walnuts in Solano, but to all fruit and nut orchards in the region.
“This year seems OK. We are getting a lot of rain and cooler nights,” Sharma, owner of Sunrise Orchards, said in a phone interview Friday.
Those wintertime temperatures, and specifically the number of “chilling hours” the trees get during the dormant periods, are critical. Warmer temperatures associated with climate change could negatively affect production.
Walnuts, the top money crop in Solano County, had a gross value of $47.36 million in 2017, according to the county crop report. Fruit and nuts as a crop group had a gross value of $116.62 million. At 32 percent, the group was the largest share of the overall $362.82 million crop and livestock value in the county.
Wendy Rash, district conservationist at the Vacaville U.S. Department of Agriculture Service Center, said climate change can affect different crops and livestock in different ways, so the solutions must be equally diverse....
...“Climate change has taken a toll on farmers throughout the state and in my district,” Limón said in a statement released by the California Climate & Agricultural Network – or CalCAN. “To protect our agricultural businesses, the livelihoods of hardworking Californians and address a changing climate, we need to invest in our farmers and support their effort to face these growing challenges. I’m proud to author this bill.”...
When China lost their bee population is was do to chemical pesticides that made the land sterile. Now China has to pollinate crops by hand. Somehow I don't see that happening in Iowa.
By Damion Carrington
According (click here for Yale article as well) to global monitoring data for 452 species, there has been a 45 percent decline in invertebrate populations over the past 40 years.DIRZO, SCIENCE (2014)
The world’s insects (click here) are hurtling down the path to extinction, threatening a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”, according to the first global scientific review.
More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered, the analysis found. The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles. The total mass of insects is falling by a precipitous 2.5% a year, according to the best data available, suggesting they could vanish within a century.
The planet is at the start of a sixth mass extinction in its history, with huge losses already reported in larger animals that are easier to study. But insects are by far the most varied and abundant animals, outweighing humanity by 17 times. They are “essential” for the proper functioning of all ecosystems, the researchers say, as food for other creatures, pollinators and recyclers of nutrients.
Insect population collapses have recently been reported in Germany and Puerto Rico, but the review strongly indicates the crisis is global. The researchers set out their conclusions in unusually forceful terms for a peer-reviewed scientific paper: “The [insect] trends confirm that the sixth major extinction event is profoundly impacting [on] life forms on our planet.
“Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades,” they write. “The repercussions this will have for the planet’s ecosystems are catastrophic to say the least."...
Beautiful water colors of years past are telling the tale of environmental degradation.
By Erin Blakemore
English artist Edward Francis Burney’s “Road in the Forest,” an undated painting in watercolor and pen and black ink. The Watercolour World, financed by the London-based Marandi Foundation, is a free online database of watercolors painted before 1900 documents a world before the ravages of climate change, overhunting, urbanization and other human activity.
In the 18th century, (click here) watercolors became a popular way for professional and amateur artists alike to document the landscapes, animals and plants that were important to them. Portable and aesthetically pleasing, watercolors helped bring painters’ worlds to life.
Today, these works are precious and unwitting documents of a world altered by the ravages of climate change, overhunting, urbanization and other human activity. The Watercolour World, financed by the London-based Marandi Foundation, is a free online database of watercolors painted before 1900.
It’s the brainchild of Fred Hohler, a former British diplomat devoted to art preservation. His last project, the Public Catalogue Foundation, a charity that is also called Art UK, catalogued all of Britain’s publicly owned oil paintings....
To be completely clear, Europe loves the natural areas of the USA. Most of Europe are small countries with use for their forests. They have natural areas and many are beautiful and unique. Europe has many world famous forests like the Black Forest of Germany (click here). But, the European love of nature comes to America often in the way of tourism.
This project by a British diplomat does not surprise me, it honors the country and the love Europe and the USA have had for nature.
This is why the USA needs a federal climate plan for the entire country.
February 10, 2018
Nebraska state lawmakers and conservationists(click here) who have seen a major drought, historic flooding and gigantic wildfires over the last decade are pushing to prepare the state for climate change, but if history is an indicator, legislators won’t be warming to the idea anytime soon.
Nebraska is one of seven Plains states that haven’t created a formal plan to confront the local impact of more extreme weather, bucking the trend of 33 others and the District of Columbia that have done so since the mid-2000s.
A 2016 report endorsed by a bipartisan legislative committee called on lawmakers to write a plan “based on empirical evidence and Nebraska-based data.” But a bill that would have started the process died in the Legislature in 2017, leaving some supporters exasperated.
“I don’t know if it’s politics. I don’t know if it’s just climate deniers. I just think this is very serious for our generation and future generations,” said Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, of Lincoln. “Just winging it is not a plan.”
North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming also have no plans in place, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, a Virginia-based nonprofit that tracks state climate plans....
And why won't these states protect their agriculture with a comprehensive climate plan? For the same reason the USA is floundering under Trump. THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY!
North Dakota (click here) lies on top of a large geologic feature of North America called the Williston Basin. (See Map 1.) The Basin, more than 300,000 square miles in area, includes Saskatchewan, Manitoba (both in Canada), Montana, and South Dakota. The largest portion of the Williston Basin is located in North Dakota....
...We know today that the Williston Basin is a major source of coal, oil, and natural gas. These resources are located in the Basin area because the geologic history of the region. While the Basin was forming, shallow seas covered the area, but receded several times. Animal and plant organisms lived and died in or near the seas and their remains were deposited on the bottom of the sea. Some of this organic material became oil. The woody debris along the shores of the sea became coal....
AND
The pipelines that not only serve oil companies but, also Canadian tar sands companies.
The pipelines are very dangerous, especially with the climate crisis and here is why.
January 24, 2019
By Daniel Hill
Winter is wintery (click here) once again in the St. Louis area, as the last two weekends have seen the region blanketed in snow, rendering our grocery stores devoid of milk and eggs while simultaneously ensuring Art Hill is the the most happening spot in town.
That's all well and good — after all, St. Louis looks great dressed in white. But next week a polar vortex (the best name for one of the worst weather events) will push temperatures in the region into bitter cold, icy-as-Frosty's-testicles territory.
The National Weather Service says the arctic air will push into the region next Tuesday through Thursday, bringing temperatures in the single digits — even falling to below zero in some areas — with wind chill temperatures even lower still. It's set to be the coldest weather to hit the St. Louis area since the winter of 2014....
Everywhere along the path of the Polar Vortex there is more than ice jams in rivers. They are important because flooding causes peril to human life. But, there are reports of gas main leaks, fires because of gas leaks, water main breaks and now this.
The USA cannot afford to lose valuable agricultural land to leaks, like the one discussed in this article that occurred in very cold North Dakota. With the climate getting hotter every year, there is a real potential for peril to agricultural land. It is vital the USA maintain it's land with a pristine condition and OIL IS NOT THE WAY IT IS DONE!
February 7, 2019
A portion of TransCanada Corp's Keystone oil pipeline (click here) remained shut on Thursday for investigation of a possible leak on its right-of-way near St. Louis, Missouri, a company spokesman said.
TransCanada shut the pipeline on Wednesday between Steele City, Nebraska and Patoka, Illinois and sent crews to assess the situation, spokesman Terry Cunha said in an email.
The 590,000 barrels-per-day Keystone pipeline is a critical artery taking Canadian crude from northern Alberta to U.S. refineries.
Two pipelines operating near the release site will be excavated on Friday to determine the source of the leak, said Darius Kirkwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The agency is monitoring the response to the reported leak, he said....
Nebraska state lawmakers and conservationists(click here) who have seen a major drought, historic flooding and gigantic wildfires over the last decade are pushing to prepare the state for climate change, but if history is an indicator, legislators won’t be warming to the idea anytime soon.
Nebraska is one of seven Plains states that haven’t created a formal plan to confront the local impact of more extreme weather, bucking the trend of 33 others and the District of Columbia that have done so since the mid-2000s.
A 2016 report endorsed by a bipartisan legislative committee called on lawmakers to write a plan “based on empirical evidence and Nebraska-based data.” But a bill that would have started the process died in the Legislature in 2017, leaving some supporters exasperated.
“I don’t know if it’s politics. I don’t know if it’s just climate deniers. I just think this is very serious for our generation and future generations,” said Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks, of Lincoln. “Just winging it is not a plan.”
And why won't these states protect their agriculture with a comprehensive climate plan? For the same reason the USA is floundering under Trump. THE PETROLEUM INDUSTRY!
North Dakota (click here) lies on top of a large geologic feature of North America called the Williston Basin. (See Map 1.) The Basin, more than 300,000 square miles in area, includes Saskatchewan, Manitoba (both in Canada), Montana, and South Dakota. The largest portion of the Williston Basin is located in North Dakota....
...We know today that the Williston Basin is a major source of coal, oil, and natural gas. These resources are located in the Basin area because the geologic history of the region. While the Basin was forming, shallow seas covered the area, but receded several times. Animal and plant organisms lived and died in or near the seas and their remains were deposited on the bottom of the sea. Some of this organic material became oil. The woody debris along the shores of the sea became coal....
AND
The pipelines are very dangerous, especially with the climate crisis and here is why.
January 24, 2019
By Daniel Hill
Winter is wintery (click here) once again in the St. Louis area, as the last two weekends have seen the region blanketed in snow, rendering our grocery stores devoid of milk and eggs while simultaneously ensuring Art Hill is the the most happening spot in town.
That's all well and good — after all, St. Louis looks great dressed in white. But next week a polar vortex (the best name for one of the worst weather events) will push temperatures in the region into bitter cold, icy-as-Frosty's-testicles territory.
The National Weather Service says the arctic air will push into the region next Tuesday through Thursday, bringing temperatures in the single digits — even falling to below zero in some areas — with wind chill temperatures even lower still. It's set to be the coldest weather to hit the St. Louis area since the winter of 2014....
Everywhere along the path of the Polar Vortex there is more than ice jams in rivers. They are important because flooding causes peril to human life. But, there are reports of gas main leaks, fires because of gas leaks, water main breaks and now this.
The USA cannot afford to lose valuable agricultural land to leaks, like the one discussed in this article that occurred in very cold North Dakota. With the climate getting hotter every year, there is a real potential for peril to agricultural land. It is vital the USA maintain it's land with a pristine condition and OIL IS NOT THE WAY IT IS DONE!
February 7, 2019
A portion of TransCanada Corp's Keystone oil pipeline (click here) remained shut on Thursday for investigation of a possible leak on its right-of-way near St. Louis, Missouri, a company spokesman said.
TransCanada shut the pipeline on Wednesday between Steele City, Nebraska and Patoka, Illinois and sent crews to assess the situation, spokesman Terry Cunha said in an email.
The 590,000 barrels-per-day Keystone pipeline is a critical artery taking Canadian crude from northern Alberta to U.S. refineries.
Two pipelines operating near the release site will be excavated on Friday to determine the source of the leak, said Darius Kirkwood, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration. The agency is monitoring the response to the reported leak, he said....
The current population of the United States of America is 328,189,389 as of Sunday, February 10, 2019, based on the latest United Nations estimates.
The United States population is equivalent to 4.27% of the total world population.
The U.S.A. ranks number 3 in the list of countries (and dependencies) by population.
The population density in the United States is 36 per Km2 (93 people per mi2).
The total land area is 9,147,420 Km2 (3,531,837 sq. miles)
83.9 % of the population is urban (276,062,331 people in 2019)
The median age in the United States is 37.8 years.
GDP per capita in the USA is $59,531.662 according to the world bank.
But, that doesn't really show the true picture of the GDP per capita in the USA.
If the Trump Administration is going to eliminate the federal government WHOM in the USA will be able to afford clean air and water. The Trump Administration is very guilty of Environmental Injustice.
I doubt Scott Pruitt's incompetence and arrogance can be matched by anyone, but, Wheeler may be the one to surpass him.
Wheeler is a lawyer. He has a business degree as well. He is not qualified to be EPA Director, but, then neither was Pruitt. They would not know a chemical assay of polluted water to save their own lives.
This is what the Trump administration calls qualified. A man that can write the law differently to enhance profits and place the responsibility for clean air and water in the hands of each American.
One of the reasons Americans have a federal government is to carry out such high level decisions regarding protection of their health and well being.
Trump, in every instance I can see, has erased morality and conscience from the demands of his cabinet. This is a prime example.
Andrew Wheeler has worked in government most of his career with many years spent as counsel to Jim Inhofe. Don't expect much in the way of caring about Americans' health or any inkling of humanity. I won't happen.
Nixon created the US EPA. Now, Trump wants to destroy it.
16 November 2018
By Kevin Breuninger and Tom DeChristopher
Andrew Wheeler (click here) will be nominated to permanently lead the Environmental Protection Agency, President Donald Trump said Friday.
Wheeler, 53, has served as the acting head of the EPA since his predecessor, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, resigned under a cloud of ethics investigations in July.
Trump made the announcement at the White House while welcoming various administration officials before awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to seven people.
Trump introduced Wheeler as the "acting administrator who, I will tell you, is going to be made permanent. He's done a fantastic job, and I want to congratulate him."...
This is what the Trump administration calls qualified. A man that can write the law differently to enhance profits and place the responsibility for clean air and water in the hands of each American.
One of the reasons Americans have a federal government is to carry out such high level decisions regarding protection of their health and well being.
Trump, in every instance I can see, has erased morality and conscience from the demands of his cabinet. This is a prime example.
Andrew Wheeler has worked in government most of his career with many years spent as counsel to Jim Inhofe. Don't expect much in the way of caring about Americans' health or any inkling of humanity. I won't happen.
Nixon created the US EPA. Now, Trump wants to destroy it.
16 November 2018By Kevin Breuninger and Tom DeChristopher
Andrew Wheeler (click here) will be nominated to permanently lead the Environmental Protection Agency, President Donald Trump said Friday.
Wheeler, 53, has served as the acting head of the EPA since his predecessor, former Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt, resigned under a cloud of ethics investigations in July.
Trump made the announcement at the White House while welcoming various administration officials before awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to seven people.
Trump introduced Wheeler as the "acting administrator who, I will tell you, is going to be made permanent. He's done a fantastic job, and I want to congratulate him."...
The US EPA Secretary Lisa Jackson was a chemical engineer well prepared for the job.
If there was one thing, (click here) one precious thing, that Lisa Jackson's mother wishes she could have saved before the hurricane came—when Lisa stood over her bed on the eve of Katrina and said, "Mama, wake up, we have to go, we have to go now," and gently helped her diabetic mother into her wheelchair and then to the car for an 18-hour drive out of hell—it wouldn't have been her sacred rosary beads or her silverware (both of which miraculously survived) but that photograph. Of Lisa at age 3. In Washington, D.C., in 1965. Oh, it was a big deal back then to go to Washington, D.C.—to drive all the way from the Ninth Ward in New Orleans, at a time when black people still had to worry about what might happen if they stopped at the wrong traffic light. But Lisa's parents were determined to show their daughter, "our little jewel," says her mother—the baby they brought home from an orphanage when she was two weeks old—everything they possibly could about the world....
...By the 1960s, American industries exploited an atmosphere of lawlessness, in which the dumping of industrial waste and the pumping of factory smokestack emissions went practically unchecked. But by 1970, consciousness had been sufficiently raised to turn environmentalism into a movement: On April 22 of that year, 20 million Americans hit the streets and parks for the first-ever Earth Day. (As Jackson likes to say, when it comes to the environment, the biggest strides start at the grassroots level, with people saying, Enough already.)...
...Jackson graduated summa cum laude in chemical engineering, the only female in her class to do so, and headed to Princeton for a master's (she has a photo of herself wearing large pink hair rollers while packing the car for the Ivy League: "That was the hot thing—pink rollers, baby")...
...she worked for the EPA, a few blocks from the World Trade Center. (On September 11, 2001, rushing out of the building after the first tower was hit, she saw a panicked coworker in a wheelchair and proceeded to push the woman 49 blocks to safety).....
...But even with lawmakers trying everything they can to curtail the EPA's efforts, Jackson is up for the fight. "The politics are one thing," she says. "I got used to tough politics in New Jersey," where she was commissioner of that state's Department of Environmental Protection. "And I like the give-and-take of a real democracy. But I like hearing from real people, not special interests. It's what I came to D.C. to do—to ensure that the EPA protects the average American, not corporate profits. The hardest fights are the ones that I see happening in a 'fact-free zone.' Facts matter. And politics shouldn't trump science and public health."...
Among the other challenges she's squaring up for: Jackson is determined to protect air quality and reduce greenhouse gas pollution, and to restore health to the Chesapeake Bay, a major waterway currently being smothered by nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff and air pollution. The cleanup is now 25 years behind schedule; House Republicans are proposing a 20 percent reduction in the funds it would require....
..."Our challenges are serious," she says. "The longer we wait to deal with our deteriorating atmosphere, the harder and more expensive it may get to address it. I am also a woman of faith, so I believe that we have a moral obligation to care for creation and future generations.
"The conundrum is that the richer and more prosperous we become, the more we think that the environment is all taken care of," Jackson says. It's simply not the case. "I have seen land completely ravaged by pollution. Environmental protection is not a spectator sport."...
How did we get here? Lack of political will, fear of change and a wealthy, powerful petroleum industry.
May 12, 2016
The share of U.S. electricity generation from wind in 1990 was less than 1%. In 2017, the share of U.S. electricity generation from wind was about 6%. Incentives in Europe have resulted in a large expansion of wind energy use there. China is investing heavily in wind energy and now has the world's largest wind electricity generation capacity.
By Meg Jacobs
...Few political dividends (click here) seem to come from taking on conservation, it seems. Just ask Jimmy Carter.
During the 1970s, American leaders were forced to recognize for the first time that the nation used too much oil. In the late 1960s, the United States appeared to be reaching its geological peak of production. New environmental restrictions also limited the extent of production. Feeling the shrinking domestic supply and growing consumption demand, especially as his reelection battle was looming, President Richard Nixon lifted previous import prohibitions. Between 1970 and 1973, oil imports more than doubled, reaching one-third of all usage.
In 1973, the oil-producing Arab nations, through the OPEC cartel, imposed an embargo on the United States in response to its support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The impact was traumatic. In late October, Nixon’s presidential energy advisor, John Love, warned: “Considerable public fear and indignation, cries of industry conspiracy and government ineptitude, and possibly real hardships, appear imminent.” Americans “have an energy crisis,” Nixon said in a televised address to Americans that November. He called for mild conservation efforts combined with more fossil-fuel production, including the development of nuclear energy and coal. Congressional Democrats like Henry “Scoop” Jackson pushed for mandatory rationing....
The American people have wanted a change in strategy for the country and it's energy production and transportation for a long time. The best example of the will of the people is the "small car" market. Everyone can say it was the cost of fuel, but, there were also government legislation that included fuel efficiency.
...The era of the annually restyled road cruiser (click here) ended with the imposition of federal standards of automotive safety (1966), emission of pollutants (1965 and 1970), and energy consumption (1975); with escalating gasoline prices following the oil shocks of 1973 and 1979; and especially with the mounting penetration of both the U.S. and world markets first by the German Volkswagen “Bug” (a modern Model T) and then by Japanese fuel-efficient, functionally designed, well-built small cars.
After peaking at a record 12.87 million units in 1978, sales of American-made cars fell to 6.95 million in 1982, as imports increased their share of the U.S. market from 17.7 percent to 27.9 percent. In 1980 Japan became the world’s leading auto producer, a position it continues to hold....
From the US Department of Energy:
The oil shortages of the 1970s changed the energy environment (click here) for the United States and the world. The oil shortages created an interest in developing ways to use alternative energy sources, such as wind energy, to generate electricity. The U.S. federal government supported research and development of large wind turbines. In the early 1980s, thousands of wind turbines were installed in California, largely because of federal and state policies that encouraged the use of renewable energy sources.
I take issue with the idea the energy environment was changed in the USA with the advent of higher prices for oil. It wasn't until the US EPA under President Obama conducted a study of the greenhouse gas emissions was it finally decided coal fired plants in the USA were more than a third of the GHG emission problem.
Key findings (click here) from the 1990-2016 U.S. Inventory include:
- In 2016, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions totaled 6,511 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents, or 5,795 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents after accounting for sequestration from the land sector.
- Emissions decreased from 2015 to 2016 by 2.5 percent (after accounting for sequestration from the land sector). This decrease was largely driven by a decrease in emissions from fossil fuel combustion, which was a result of multiple factors including substitution from coal to natural gas consumption in the electric power sector, and warmer winter conditions that reduced demand for heating fuel in the residential and commercial sectors.
- Greenhouse gas emissions in 2016 (after accounting for sequestration from the land sector) were 12 percent below 2005 levels.
Continued from US Department of Energy above:
In the 1990s and 2000s, the U.S. federal government established incentives to use renewable energy sources in response to a renewed concern for the environment. The federal government also provided research and development funding to help reduce the cost of wind turbines and offered tax and investment incentives for wind power projects. In addition, state governments enacted new requirements for electricity generation from renewable sources, and electric power marketers and utilities began to offer electricity generated from wind and other renewable energy sources (sometimes called green power) to their customers. These policies and programs resulted in an increase in the number of wind turbines and in the amount of electricity generated from wind energy.
| U.S. electricity generation by source, (click here) amount, and share of total in 20171 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Energy source | Billion kWh | Share of total |
| Total - all sources | 4,034 | |
| Fossil fuels (total) | 2,536 | 62.9% |
| Natural gas | 1,296 | 32.1% |
| Coal | 1,206 | 29.9% |
| Petroleum (total) | 21 | 0.5% |
| Petroleum liquids | 12 | 0.3% |
| Petroleum coke | 9 | 0.2% |
| Other gases | 12 | 0.3% |
| Nuclear | 805 | 20.0% |
| Renewables (total) | 687 | 17.0% |
| Hydropower | 300 | 7.4% |
| Wind | 254 | 6.3% |
| Biomass (total) | 63 | 1.6% |
| Wood | 41 | 1.0% |
| Landfill gas | 12 | 0.3% |
| Municipal solid waste (biogenic) | 7 | 0.2% |
| Other biomass waste | 3 | 0.1% |
| Solar (total) | 53 | 1.3% |
| Photovoltaic | 50 | 1.2% |
| Solar thermal | 3 | 0.1% |
| Geothermal | 16 | 0.4% |
| Pumped storage hydropower3 | -6 | -0.2% |
| Other sources | 13 | 0.3% |
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