Released November 11, 2009
RALEIGH, N.C. – Renewable energy, such as wind, water, solar and biofuels power, is all the rage. Everyone wants to increase our power usage from these sources and decrease it from fossil fuels, such as oil. But how are we doing with this goal?
Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:
"Well, we're increasing, but we've got a long way to go. Renewable energy now accounts for 8 percent of our total energy consumption, so it's not a lot.
It is up from 5 percent a decade ago, but it's actually lower today than it was in 1983, when renewable energy accounted for 9 percent of energy consumption.
You can see an ebb and flow here, and it really goes with oil prices. When oil prices go up, energy from renewable sources goes up. When oil prices go down, people back out of renewable energy.
In the last five years, we've had some big increases in certain sources. We've had a 200 percent increase in renewable energy from biofuels. One reason is that's starting for a very, very low base. On the other hand, we've actually had a decline in power coming from wood and water sources. All of these sources are fledgling; they really depend on what people think is going to be the future of the economy. There's a lot of uncertainty there, and one policy recommendation would be for government to put some certainty in the market by perhaps putting a floor, a price floor, on things like oil and gasoline. Obviously, that's a very controversial idea."
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http://www.ncsu.edu/project/calscommblogs/news/archives/2009/11/economic_perspe_488.html
