Quizlet Which Of The Following Is The Fastest Growing Form Of Location-based Service In 2015?

At-a-glance

Renewable energy is the fastest-growing energy source in the Usa, increasing 42 per centum from 2010 to 2020 (upward 90 pct from 2000 to 2020).
Renewables fabricated up near 20 percent of utility-scale U.S. electricity generation in 2020, with the bulk coming from hydropower (7.3 percent) and air current power (eight.iv percent).
Solar generation (including distributed), which made upwards 3.3 percent of total U.Due south. generation in 2020, is the fastest-growing electricity source.
Globally, renewables made up 29 pct of electricity generation in 2020, much of it from hydropower (16.8 percentage).
A record amount of over 256 GW of renewable power capacity was added globally during 2020.
Renewable ethanol and biodiesel transportation fuels made upwardly more than 17 percentage of full U.Southward. renewable energy consumption in 2020, a subtract from recent years, likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Renewable Supply and Demand

Renewable free energy is the fastest-growing free energy source globally and in the United States.

Globally:

Virtually xi.2 percent of the energy consumed globally for heating, power, and transportation came from modern renewables in 2019 (i.east., biomass, geothermal, solar, hydro, wind, and biofuels), up from 8.7 percent a decade prior (see effigy below).
Renewables made up 29 percent of global electricity generation by the end of 2020. Led by wind ability and solar PV, more than than 256 GW of capacity was added in 2020, an increase of about x per centum in full installed renewable ability capacity.

The International Free energy Agency notes that the development and deployment of renewable electricity technologies are projected to go along to be deployed at record levels, but government policies and financial support are needed to incentivize even greater deployments of clean electricity (and supporting infrastructure) to give the earth a run a risk to achieve its net zippo climate goals.

Estimated Global Renewable Free energy Share of Total Final Energy Consumption (2009-2019)

In the United states of america:

About 5 percentage of the energy consumed beyond sectors in the United States was from renewable sources in 2020 (11.6 quadrillion Btu out of a total of 92.9 quadrillion Btu). U.S. consumption of renewables is expected to abound over the next 30 years at an average annual rate of ii.4 percent, higher than the overall growth rate in energy consumption (0.5 percent per twelvemonth) under a business concern-as-usual scenario.
Renewables fabricated up 19.8 percent of electricity generation in 2020, with hydro and wind making upwardly the majority. That's expected to rising to 35 percent by 2030. Most of the increase is expected to come from current of air and solar. Not-hydro renewables have increased their share of electric power generation from less than i percent in 2005 to over 12.5 percent at the finish of 2020 while need for electricity has remained relatively stable.

In the transportation sector, renewable fuels, such as ethanol and biodiesel, have increased significantly during the past decade. However, slower growth (i.e., 0.half dozen – 0.7 percentage almanac growth) is expected out to mid-century.

In the industrial sector, biomass makes up 98 pct of the renewable energy utilize with roughly sixty percent derived from biomass wood, 31 percent from biofuels, and nearly 7 pct from biomass waste.

Uncertainty about federal tax credits (e.g., Renewable Fuel Standard), California'due south Low Carbon fuel standard, fuel prices, and economic growth will influence the stride of U.S. renewable energy source development.

Renewable Energy Drivers

Factors affecting renewable energy deployment include market place conditions (e.grand., cost, diversity, proximity to demand or transmission, and resource availability), policy decisions, (east.g., tax credits, feed-in tariffs, and renewable portfolio standards) also equally specific regulations. Nearly all countries had renewable energy policy targets in identify at the end of 2020.

Businesses with sustainability goals are also driving renewable energy development by building their ain facilities (e.g., solar roofs and wind farms), procuring renewable electricity through ability purchase agreements, and purchasing renewable free energy certificates (RECs).

Air current and solar renewable free energy technologies have seen substantial price declines over the past decade. Between 2010 and 2019, the toll of utility-scale solar photovoltaics roughshod 82 percent, and the cost of onshore wind roughshod 39 percent. Increased demand and procurement requires more of these technologies to be manufactured and developed, causing reduced costs due to learning and economies of calibration, which increases the incentive for additional procurement.

Global weighted average levelized price of electricity from utility-scale ability generation technologies, 2010 and 2019

Policy Drivers

Two federal revenue enhancement credits have encouraged renewable free energy in the United states:

The production tax credit (PTC), outset enacted in 1992 and after amended, was a corporate revenue enhancement credit bachelor to a wide range of renewable technologies including wind, landfill gas, geothermal, and small hydroelectric. For eligible technologies, the utility received a two.two ¢/kWh ($22/MWh) credit for all electricity generated during the first 10 years of operation. The PTC is currently beingness phased out; at the end of December 2020, the PTC was extended for some other yr at 60 pct of the total credit amount, and facilities beginning construction afterwards December 31, 2021 volition no longer be able to claim this credit.
The investment revenue enhancement credit (ITC) is earned when qualifying equipment, including solar hot h2o, photovoltaics, and small-scale wind turbines, are placed into service. The credit reduces installation costs and shortens the payback time of these technologies. The Consolidated Appropriations Act (2016) extended the ITC for iii years, simply Congress then passed a 2 yr delay in 2020. It will phase downwardly to 10 percent in 2024 (from 26 percent in 2021).

States offer added incentives, making renewables fifty-fifty easier to implement from a toll perspective.

A renewable portfolio standard requires electric utilities to evangelize a certain amount of electricity from renewable or alternative energy sources past a given engagement. Land standards range from modest to ambitious, and qualifying energy sources vary. Some states also include "carve-outs" (requirements that a certain per centum of the portfolio be generated from a specific free energy source, such as solar power) or other incentives to encourage the evolution of particular resource. Although climatic change may not be the prime motivation behind these standards, they can deliver significant greenhouse gas reductions and other benefits, including job creation, energy security, and cleaner air. Well-nigh states allow utilities to comply with the renewable portfolio standard through tradeable credits that utilities can sell for additional revenue.

In states with a renewable portfolio standard, utilities consider price, intermittency and resource availability in choosing technologies that satisfy this requirement.

In the U.Southward. transportation sector, The Free energy Policy Act of 2005 created a Renewable Fuel Standard that required ii.78 percent of gasoline consumed in the Us in 2006 to be renewable fuel.

The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 created a new Renewable Fuel Standard, which increased the required volumes of to 36 billion gallons by 2022, or well-nigh 7 percent of expected almanac gasoline and diesel consumption above a business-as-usual scenario.

Types of Renewable Energy

Renewable energy comes from sources that tin exist regenerated or naturally replenished. The main sources are:

Water (hydropower and hydrokinetic)
Current of air
Solar (ability and hot water)
Biomass (biofuel and biopower)
Geothermal (power and heating)

All sources of renewable energy are used to generate electric ability. In improver, geothermal steam is used directly for heating and cooking. Biomass and solar sources are likewise used for infinite and h2o heating. Ethanol and biodiesel (and to a lesser extent, gaseous biomethane) are used for transportation.

Renewable energy sources are considered to be zip (wind, solar, and water), depression (geothermal) or neutral (biomass) with regard to greenhouse gas emissions during their operation. A neutral source has emissions that are balanced by the amount of carbon dioxide absorbed during the growing procedure. Nonetheless, each source's overall ecology touch on depends on its overall lifecycle emissions, including manufacturing of equipment and materials, installation likewise as land-apply impacts.

Water

Big conventional hydropower projects currently provide the bulk of renewable electric power generation worldwide. With about 1,170 gigawatts (GW) of global capacity, hydropower produced an estimated iv,370 terawatt hours (TWh) of the roughly 26,000 TWh full global electricity in 2020.

The United States is the 4th-largest producer of hydropower after China, Brazil, and Canada. In 2011, a much wetter than boilerplate twelvemonth in the U.Due south. Northwest, the United states generated vii.nine pct of its full electricity from hydropower. The Department of Energy has found that the untapped generation potential at existing U.S. dams designed for purposes other than power production (i.east., water supply, flood control, and inland navigation) represents 12 GW, roughly fifteen pct of electric current hydropower chapters.

Hydropower operational costs are relatively low, and hydropower generates little to no greenhouse gas emissions. The main environmental impact is that a dam to create a reservoir or divert h2o to a hydropower establish changes the ecosystem and physical characteristic of the river.

Waterpower captures the energy of flowing h2o in rivers, streams, and waves to generate electricity. Conventional hydropower plants can be congenital in rivers with no water storage (known as "run-of-the-river" units) or in conjunction with reservoirs that store water, which tin can be used on an every bit-needed basis. Equally water travels downstream, it is channeled downward through a pipage or other intake structure in a dam (penstock). The flowing water turns the blades of a turbine, generating electricity in the powerhouse, located at the base of the dam.

Other Hydroelectric Ability Generation

Small hydropower projects, generally less than 10 megawatts (MW), and micro-hydropower (less than i MW) are less costly to develop and have a lower environmental impact than large conventional hydropower projects. In 2019, the total amount of small hydro installed worldwide was 78 GW. Prc had the largest share at 54 percent. Red china, Italy, Japan, Norway and the Usa are the top five pocket-sized hydro countries by installed capacity. Many countries have renewable energy targets that include the development of small hydro projects.

Hydrokinetic electric power, including wave and tidal power, is a class of unconventional hydropower that captures energy from waves or currents and does not crave dam construction. These technologies are in diverse stages of research, development, and deployment. In 2011, a 254 MW tidal power institute in Republic of korea began functioning, doubling the global capacity to 527 MW. By the end of 2018, global chapters was about 532 MW.

Depression-head hydro is a commercially available source of hydrokinetic electric power that has been used in farming areas for more than 100 years. Generally, the capacity of these devices is modest, ranging from 1kW to 250kW.

Pumped storage hydropower plants use inexpensive electricity (typically overnight during periods of low need) to pump h2o from a lower-lying storage reservoir to a storage reservoir located above the power house for afterwards use during periods of peak electricity demand. Although economically viable, this strategy is non considered renewable since it uses more electricity than it generates.

Hydroelectric Power Generation

Wind

Wind was the 2d largest renewable energy source worldwide (after hydropower) for power generation. Wind ability produced more than than vi percent of global electricity in 2020 with 743 GW of global capacity (707.4 GW is onshore). Capacity is indicative of the maximum amount of electricity that tin can be generated when the wind is blowing at sufficient levels for a turbine. Considering the current of air is non always blowing, wind farms practice not always produce as much as their capacity. With effectually 290 MW, China had the largest installed capacity of wind generation in 2020. The United States, with 122.5 GW, had the second-largest chapters; Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Kansas provide more half of U.Due south. current of air generation, with Texas greatly leading all other states in installed capacity, at 27 percentage of the U.South. total. In 2019, wind energy overtook hydropower for the largest share of renewable generation in the U.S., providing eight.4 pct of electricity in 2020.

Although people have harnessed the free energy generated by the movement of air for hundreds of years, modern turbines reflect significant technological advances over early windmills and even over turbines from just 10 years ago. Generating electric power using wind turbines creates no greenhouse gases, simply since a air current farm includes dozens or more turbines, widely-spaced, it requires thousands of acres of land. For example, Lone Star is a 200 MW current of air farm on approximately 36,000 acres in Texas. However, most of the country in between turbines tin can notwithstanding be utilized for farming or grazing.

Average turbine size has been steadily increasing over the past 30 years. Today, new onshore turbines are typically in the range of 2 – 5 MW. The largest production models, designed for off-shore utilize tin generate 12 MW; some innovative turbine models under development are expected to generate more than xiv MW in offshore projects in the coming years. Due to higher costs and technology constraints, off-shore capacity, approximately 35.6 GW in 2020, is but a minor share (about five percent) of total installed wind generation capacity.

Wind Turbine Sizes

Solar

Solar energy resources are massive and widespread, and they can exist harnessed anywhere that receives sunlight. The amount of solar radiations, also known equally insolation, reaching the Earth'due south surface every 60 minutes is more than all the free energy currently consumed by all human activities each yr. A number of factors, including geographic location, time of day, and atmospheric condition atmospheric condition, all touch on the amount of energy that tin be harnessed for electricity production or heating purposes.

Solar photovoltaics are the fastest growing electricity source. In 2020, around 139 GW of global capacity was added, bringing the total to about 760 GW and producing about 3 percent of the world'south electricity.

Solar energy can be captured for electricity production using:

A solar or photovoltaic cell, which converts sunlight into electricity using the photoelectric event. Typically, photovoltaics are institute on the roofs of residential and commercial buildings. Additionally, utilities accept constructed large (greater than 100 MW) photovoltaic facilities that require anywhere from 5 to 13 acres per MW, depending on the technologies used. In the United States, not-residential solar (e.g. utility-scale) installations made up 16.vii GW, while residential solar (eastward.thousand. rooftop) installations made up xix.1 GW.
Concentrating solar power (CSP), which uses lenses or mirrors to concentrate sunlight into a narrow beam that heats a fluid, producing steam to drive a turbine that generates electricity. Concentrating solar power projects are larger-scale than residential or commercial PV and are oftentimes owned and operated by electric utilities.
Although utility-scale CSP plants were in operation long before solar photovoltaics became widely commercialized, solar photovoltaics have largely taken over this market place, due to their declining costs. Global CSP capacity grew but ane.vi percent in 2020 to half-dozen.2 GW.

Solar hot water heaters, typically constitute on the roofs of homes and apartments, provide residential hot h2o by using a solar collector, which absorbs solar energy, that in plough heats a conductive fluid, and transfers the heat to a h2o tank. Modern collectors are designed to be functional even in cold climates and on overcast days.

Electricity generated from solar free energy emits no greenhouse gases. The master environmental impacts of solar energy come from the utilise of some hazardous materials (arsenic and cadmium) in the manufacturing of PV and the big amount of land required, hundreds of acres, for a utility-scale solar project.

Concentrating Solar Power

Biomass

Biomass free energy sources are used to generate electricity and provide direct heating, and can exist converted into biofuels as a direct substitute for fossil fuels used in transportation. Unlike intermittent air current and solar energy, biomass can be used continuously or according to a schedule. Biomass is derived from wood, waste product, landfill gas, crops, and alcohol fuels. Traditional biomass, including waste wood, charcoal, and manure, has been a source of energy for domestic cooking and heating throughout human being history. In rural areas of the developing world, it remains the dominant fuel source. Globally in 2019, bioenergy accounted for about xi.six percent of total free energy consumption. The growing apply of biomass has resulted in increasing international trade in biomass fuels in recent years; wood pellets, biodiesel, and ethanol are the main fuels traded internationally.

In 2020, global biomass electric ability capacity stood at 145 GW, increasing 5.8 percent from the previous twelvemonth. The United States had sixteen GW of installed biomass-fueled electrical generation chapters. In the U.s., near of the electricity from wood biomass is generated at lumber and paper mills using their ain wood waste; in addition, woods waste matter is used to generate the rut for drying woods products and other manufacturing processes. Biomass waste is more often than not municipal solid waste, i.eastward., garbage, which is burned every bit a fuel to run power plants. On average, a ton of garbage generates 550 to 750 kWh of electricity. Landfill gas contains methyl hydride that tin be captured, processed and used to fuel power plants, manufacturing facilities, vehicles and homes. In the United States, there is currently more 2 GW of installed landfill gas-fired generation chapters at more 600 projects.

In improver to landfill gas, biofuels can exist synthesized from dedicated crops, trees and grasses, agricultural waste, and algae feedstock; these include renewable forms of diesel, ethanol, butanol, marsh gas, and other hydrocarbons. Corn ethanol is the most widely used biofuel in the U.s.. Roughly 39 percent of the U.Southward. corn crop was diverted to the production of ethanol for gasoline in 2019, up from 20 percent in 2006. Gasoline with upwards to x percentage ethanol (E10) tin be used in most vehicles without further modification, while special flexible fuel vehicles can use a gasoline-ethanol blend that has up to 85 percent ethanol (E85).

Closed-loop biomass, where power is generated using feedstocks grown specifically for the purpose of free energy production, is generally considered to be carbon dioxide neutral because the carbon dioxide emitted during combustion of the fuel was previously captured during the growth of the feedstock. While biomass can avert the utilize of fossil fuels, the cyberspace effect of biopower and biofuels on greenhouse gas emissions will depend on full lifecycle emissions for the biomass source, how it is used, and indirect land-use effects. Overall, however, biomass energy can have varying impacts on the environment. Wood biomass, for example, contains sulfur and nitrogen, which yield air pollutants sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, though in much lower quantities than coal combustion.

Geothermal

Geothermal provided an estimated 225 TWh globally in 2020, with 97 TWh in the grade of electricity (with an estimated xiv.1 GW of capacity) and the remaining half in the form of heat. (Total global electricity generation in 2020 was 26,000 TWh).

In the United states of america, nearly 17 TWh of geothermal electricity was generated in 2020, making up virtually iii.iv percent of non-hydroelectric renewable electricity generation, merely only 0.4 per centum of total electricity generation. Seven states generated electricity from geothermal energy: California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Utah. Of these, California accounted for 80 percent of this generation.

Traditional geothermal free energy exploits naturally occurring high temperatures, located relatively close to the Earth's surface in some areas, to generate electric power and for direct uses such as heating and cooking. Geothermal areas are generally located near tectonic plate boundaries, where there are earthquakes and volcanoes. In some places, hot springs and geysers have been used for bathing, cooking and heating for centuries

Generating geothermal electrical power typically involves drilling a well, possibly a mile or ii in depth, in search of stone temperatures in the range of 300 to 700°F. Water is pumped downwards this well, where it is reheated by hot rocks. It travels through natural fissures and rises up a second well as steam, which can exist used to spin a turbine and generate electricity or exist used for heating or other purposes. Several wells may have to be drilled before a suitable 1 is in place and the size of the resource cannot be confirmed until later drilling. Additionally, some water is lost to evaporation in this process, and then new h2o is added to maintain the continuous flow of steam. Like biopower and unlike intermittent wind and solar power, geothermal electricity can be used continuously. Very small quantities of carbon dioxide trapped below the Globe'south surface are released during this process.

Enhanced geothermal systems employ avant-garde, often experimental, drilling and fluid injection techniques to broaden and expand the availability of geothermal resources.

Geothermal Power Station

Renewable Energy Indicators, 2020

U.Southward. Renewable Resource Availability

The following maps from the DOE National Renewable Energy Laboratory depict the relative availability of renewable energy resources throughout the United States.

Wind resource are abundant in the Great Plains, Iowa, Minnesota, along the spine of Appalachian Mountains, in the Western Mountains, and many off-shore locations.
Solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power resource are the highest in the desert Southwest and diminish in intensity in a northward direction.
The best biomass resources are in the upper primal plains (corn) and forests of the Pacific Northwest.
Traditional geothermal resource are concentrated in the Western The states.

U.S. Wind Resources Map

U.S. Photovoltaic Solar Resources

U.Due south. Biomass Resource

U.S. Geothermal Resource