Mapping how the United States generates its electricity | Hacker News Reader

Mapping how the United States generates its electricity

washingtonpost.com

97 pointsingve37 comments

And for a depiction of both how energy is generated and how it is used, see this flow chart from LLNL:

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/docs/2014_United-...

Petroleum is huge for transportation because of its energy density, but it seems like solar is poised take a chunk out of coal for electricity generation (at least during the day, or via what energy we can store).

It's amazing how much heat is rejected from electricity generation. Imagine if we could recapture that lost energy!

There are also state-specific charts on the main LLNL site, and ones depicting water use and carbon emissions. It's easy to see the influence of local resources (solar in HI, oil in TX), and of local industry (note the huge water use in CA compared to, say, NY).

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/

Since you brought up the Sankey diagrams I'll piggyback on you to mention that I spent a summer at LLNL and got to meet the team/person that produces these. I was also given the program they currently use (it's java, still have it somewhere. . .), and tasked to look into applying it to city flows. I have a couple of the results here[1] (my boxes are off in terms of size, but the flow widths should be correct). I still love those diagrams although I haven't touched them in 3 years. It's a fantastic way to visualize a ton of information. The trick is really just finding appropriate data.

[1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/sets/721576342348...

>It's amazing how much heat is rejected from electricity generation. Imagine if we could recapture that lost energy!

Well there is combined cycle[1] which does this with steam and gas turbines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combined_cycle

Combined cycle is very important, but that still only gets you from maybe 35% to maybe 54%. That means that half is still "wasted". It's those pesky laws of thermodynamics. Who was that Carnot guy who's causing us all these problems?

What that link also discusses is that using the residual energy for community heating can get you "theoretical efficiency" of 95%. Now we're talking!

Looking at the first flowchart, a few things stick out to me greatly:

  * Transportation is wasting almost 80% of its input energy. 
  * Transportation rejected energy makes up 36% of rejected energy.

Electricity makes up a tiny fraction of the transportation input. How much will the rejected energy output decrease as we switch to electric cars, and even moreso electric buses and cargo trucks?

  * Electricity generation makes up 43% of rejected energy.

I haven't heard anything about more efficient electricity generation. Maybe that should be a focus of the Green Energy movement?

Have you heard the term "Smart grid?" Being able to postpone some types of usage (water heating, etc) and to quickly ramp down generation based on demand will reduce the amount of rejected energy.

Hawaii depends heavily on imported oil for electric generation (~70%).

Interesting. Unfortunately, it looks like only imported electricity is counted as a net import. It would be great to see diagrams that show all imports—many states lack coal mines but still burn coal for generation.

Fun fact: 87% of the world's energy is from fossil-based fuel[1]. Over the next 40 years (e.g. in our lifetimes) that will go to zero[2]. We are living in the generation that will be most remembered, not for the Internet, but for the transition off fossil fuels.

[1]: http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=11951

[2]: http://www.pvsolarreport.com/the-next-internet/

For people in the future, the age of fossil fuels is going to be a small blip in the history of human civilization. To many people, it may even be weird that it was ever thing at all, given that our earth had renewable resources all along. Hopefully, that shift in mindset takes place, where people cannot imagine not considering environmental impact.

Why would it be weird that it was a thing at all?

Renewables have usually been more expensive than fossil fuels. We're at a point in history where we're transitioning the human race from being 99% in absolute poverty into fractions of that. Yes, fossil fuels are not sustainable, but for the sake of bringing people out of poverty I think the reasons why we used fossil fuels will be obvious to an historian who isn't clouded by their own futuristic first-world bias.

> We are living in the generation that will be most remembered, not for the Internet, but for the transition off fossil fuels.

Bold claim. If that transition goes well and we address the climate issues, I think it's more likely we'll be remembered for the internet and not for yet-another-almost-catastrophe-averted.

Here's the raw data if anyone wants,

http://www.eia.gov/electricity/data.cfm

(WaPo credits the source, but doesn't make it clear you can simply download it).

They also have an interactive map:

http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm

When I first looked at that map I found out that significantly more than 1/2 the generation capacity in my local area is devoted to industry.

I would love to see chronological data about how this has evolved over the past decade.

It would be especially interesting to see if the grey and red dots are gradually disappearing or if the alternative methods are just an addition to serve an increasing energy demand.

Additionally, it's heavenly to see that the single biggest dot on the map is Hydro, the Grand Coulee Dam in the state of Washington.

It's insane how in 2015 we still rely that much on coal. Yet we give lessons to China about energy. Hah.

Coal is readily available, easy to transport, easy to store, and we have technology in place to dampen most of the pollutants from burning it. Nuclear got stuck and never moved on, even the new plants are still of that old idea of massive containment buildings, large cooling towers, and budget overruns. Where is all the cool reactor tech we read about?

Hydro is likely going in reverse as many rivers were returned to original condition for environmental reasons. I don't know of any large hydro under way other than expansion of current installations.

Solar and wind, larger foot print for the same power, and to top it off storage for when needed is not simple. I am still not keen on bunkers of lithium batteries so hopefully other solutions for storing the power to when its needed come along.

Every dollar of electricity generated from coal costs several dollars worth of health problems, its a net negative for a nation before you even consider climate change. Basically anything else is a better and cheaper option.

The only current problem with wind and solar in the US is the lack of it. There will need to be changes as it gets to a higher percentage of the grid but we already have various solutions for that, the main reason for not rolling out the solutions is the lack of problem to solve.

> we have technology in place to dampen most of the pollutants from burning it

Could you please go into a little bit more detail here? Which pollutants are you referring to? By "technology in place" do you mean "deployed in the field and being used", or something more speculative?

(not disagreeing with you, i am ignorant and curious!)

The two big ones I know about are sulfur dioxide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide#As_an_air_pollu...) and fly ash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly_ash).

How about we use other types of Nuclear like LFTR? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uK367T7h6ZY)

And that is with cheap natural gas prices - more coal is used when gas prices go up. Many plants are able to burn either ones, and will switch fuel sources based on the markets.

About 1.6% of electricity in the US is imported from hydroelectric from Canada. Much goes to New England and New York State. The New York Subways are partially powered by Canadian hydroelectric.

http://www.pressherald.com/2015/08/03/canada-has-growing-hyd...

As a kid my parents took me to see the laser light show at the Grand Coulee Dam. I haven't been since but it left a lasting memory and I really want to go again.

This article made me think of it, because it is the largest dam in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_light_show_(Grand_Coulee...

The "other" source of energy the article doesn't elaborate on is probably mainly biomass.

Also geothermal (e.g. in Nevada: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Neva... )

There should be another view showing the cost per kWh or some other indicator showing the bang people get for their buck with these plants. It'd be interesting to see how, say, solar in Nevada and Arizona compares to solar in Massachusetts or New Jersey.

Here's a similar thing in Power Map (a tool made by MS) form:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoeL3_5M2zA

Plurality. You keep using that word, I don't think it means what you think it means.

I think it's a reasonable usage of the word. By the dictionary, it is used in this sense only for voting and demographics, but it is a natural extension to use it for other fractional values.

"a usually large number of things" [1]

Just a weird way to say "a bunch" or "lots".

[1] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/plurality

I think they mean it in the second sense listed, more than any other type of power, but not a majority (>50‰)

I stand corrected. I didn't see that one. I.e., it is the largest single source.

Solar accounts for 1% so Elon Musk really has his work cut out for him!

Does this properly account for rooftop solar as it's not a "plant" but tends to show up as a demand reduction? It's still probably not all that large.

Rooftop solar (more generally, "distributed generation") is growing rapidly and is expected to be a much larger electricity source than utility scale photovoltaic plants fairly soon, say by 2020 or even earlier.

The following link shows solar utility and DG through 2014. Sorry, can't immediately find the predicted values through 2020.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/3085476-the-long-term-prospe...

It does not account for rooftop solar at all. The information is from eia.gov which does not collect/include rooftop solar in its data. I think it is safe to say that solar is ~double what is listed in the eia's data.

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