Where it comes from, where it goes
Posted by Mindy Limback
Petroleum, coal and natural gas combined to provide more than 83 percent of the energy generated in the United States in 2008, as the flow chart below illustrates. Meanwhile, three of the most talked-about renewable energy sources – wind, solar and biomass – combined to create just 12.4 percent of all generated energy. While more than 40 percent of all generated energy powered homes, businesses, factories, and our planes, trains and automobiles, 57 percent of it was rejected – or wasted as emissions or exhaust.
Source: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Department of Energy
