The three traditional fossil fuels—coal, petroleum, and natural gas traditionally ensure a major part of the U.S. energy consumption during the last century. Their share in 2015 was 81.5% of the total energy consumption. This was actually the lowest share they had in the past century.
According to the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook2016 Reference case projections, this percentage is expected to decline to 76.6% by 2040. The case assumes that technology breakthroughs could drastically change this share.
For the same year - 2015, the renewable energy share in the US energy consumption was nearly 10%. The greatest growth comes from
wind and solar sources. The shares of liquid biofuels as renewable resources has are also grown.
Coal has the largest decline among fossil fuels.Coal consumption fell with 13% in 2015.This is the highest decrease of a fossil fuel for the past fifty years. Such significant declines happened also in 2009 and 2012. Then, the coal share fell 12% in comparison with the previous year.
Petroleum consumption will probably not change for the period to 2040. Coal consumption will continue its decline, mostly in the electric power sector. The consumption of natural gas tends to increase in the electric power and the industrial sectors.This shifting of the power plants to natural gas leads to the decline in coal consumption.
Still, the percentage of people preferring to stay away from petroleum grows. According to the International Energy Agency, the impressive number of 1.26 million electric vehicles will on the roads of the country by the end of 2016. This will be a record number and shows that more and more people prefer this type of vehicles.
The nuclear and hydroelectric energy shares are expected to remain almost the same with little change through 2040.
Biomas - wood and liquid biofuels share will also probably remain relatively flat. Wood shows a slight decline but biofuel will increase a little.
Wind and solar energy show
significant increase in their shares.They are almost nearly exceeding the coal consumption according to the case projection for the period to 2040.
Their growth is so significant that the U.S. renewable energy consumption in 2015 was the highest for a period of 80 years - about 10 percent of the consumption. This obviously affects the fossil fuel consumption, which fell to its lowest level for the last century. Still, it dominates as major energy sources and it is expected to stay the same for the period to 2040.
This is the effect on the consumers - the lower crude oil price leads to cheaper fuels. This means that more people are expected to prefer driving in the next months in comparison with other forms of transportation. Also, consumer habits beyond driving are usually being influenced by the lower prices of fuel. According to some regional data from the United States, more people buy trucks, as well as sports utility vehicles in comparison with cars.