Question: How much does it cost to produce electricity with renewable energy?
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EIA has neither historic nor current data on the cost to generate electricity from existing power plants that use renewable resources.
Generation costs for renewable energy generators depend mainly on the capital costs, installation costs, and the amount of electricity the generator produces. The latter two vary substantially depending on the location of the generator.
Tax credits and other financial incentives also affect the economics of renewable energy projects. |
Electricity Demand Projections in the Annual Energy Outlook 2008 include:
- A comparison of projected costs for renewable electricity (Figures 63 and 68)
- Projected generation of renewable electricity (Figure 66)
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| Last updated: October 30, 2008 |
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Question: Where can I find ethanol prices?
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Question: Where can I find data on ethanol production, consumption and stocks?
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In 2007, U.S. ethanol production was 6,521 million gallons with consumption of 6,886 million gallons and end of year stocks of 442.5 million gallons. |
| Fuel ethanol overview |
| Last updated: November 7, 2008 |
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Question: Can I generate and sell electricity to an electric utility?
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You can generate your own electricity. But, in general, you must use a renewable source of energy, like solar or wind energy, to sell electricity to a utility.
The details of how to connect to and sell electricity to electric utilities vary by State and utility company. Many State governments have “net metering” or other laws and regulations that specify the types of small-scale generators that can connect to electric utilities and how generator owners are compensated for any excess electricity they produce. In some, each utility determines if and how they will allow connection and pay for the electricity. |
How to generate and sell your own electricity (Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy) |
| Last updated: October 30, 2008 |
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Question:
How much U.S. energy consumption comes from renewable sources?
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Question:
How much ethanol is in gasoline and how does it affect fuel economy?
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The 142.4 billion gallons of gasoline consumed in the United States in 2007 contained about 6.9 billion gallons of ethanol, which displaced about 4.6 billion gallons of “pure” gasoline.
Most of the gasoline now sold has a small amount of ethanol in it, but the exact amount in the gasoline you buy varies by region. In general it will not exceed 10% by volume. Gasoline with 10% ethanol content by volume is called E10. E85 is 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.
The energy content of ethanol is about 33% less than “pure” gasoline (although this varies depending of the level of denaturant.) So your vehicle mileage may decrease by up to 3.3% when using E10.
Currently, you must have a “flex-fuel” vehicle to use gasoline with an ethanol content greater than 10%. This may change if research now underway indicates that higher volumes of ethanol can be used without damaging fuel systems of non–flex-fuel vehicles. Most of the gasoline with more than 10% ethanol is sold in the Midwest. |
| Last Updated: November 17, 2008 |
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Question: Where can I find information on alternative transportation fuels and the vehicles that use them?
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In 2006, there were 1,234,655 alternative fueled and hybrid vehicles made available for domestic highways.
In 2006, the Federal Government had 107,125 alternative fuel vehicles in use, State agencies had 71,798 in use, fuel providers had 29,181 in use, transit agencies had 11,651 in use, and private and municipal governments had 414,807 in use. |
2006 Alternative Fuel and Hybrid Vehicles Made Available Report
Historical data on Alternative Fueled Vehicles (AFV) in use |
| Last updated: June 12, 2008 |
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