Energy Stats: Then and Now, Here and There 

Can we all just take a second and appreciate how amazing it is that these fine folks make such high quality and understandable videos on these interesting topics? Big Props to both the Professor and the production team!

Thank you for your dispassionate, balanced, and highly informative videos. Personally, I think it’s shameful that we aren’t using more nuclear power. France gets 80% of its power from nuclear.

Need more nuclear plants, they are good.

I was braced for something with a political agenda, I was so pleased this turned out to be a video that just stuck to the facts rather than opinions or those videos where the facts are edited to support a predetermined conclusion.

I'd love to see a total cost video per quad on each source. Cost including subsidies and total environmental cost including manufacturing and mining.

Ahhhhh, that sweet sweet sound of the marker gliding on the glass is soothing now.

In Ontario, Canada, we are something like 60% nuclear, 25% hydroelectric, and 0% coal. Except for cars, air pollution is almost non-existent here.

Thank you, Professor Ruzic and the production team!

It's so cool to see University of Illinois making these videos. Illinois represent!

Wow, one of the clearest most fascinating presentations of energy production and consumption. Had me on the edge of my seat. All I need now is some popcorn.

Excellent presentation!. I think everyone should see this one.

Please keep doing what you’re doing! Love these videos!

I absolutely love these videos. It's refreshing to see real science about energy explained in an understandable manner on the internet. I've learned a lot from these videos. Please keep them coming. And keep us updated on how that fusion technology is coming! I'm pretty excited about the future of that stuff!

Luv facts. Ty and Happy New Year.

Very fine lecture with clarity and insights, arguably better than many paid subscriptions! Carry on Energy Prof!

A no- nonsense video well delivered and to the point. Excellent. Thank you.

Excellent! Thanks, professor!

Iv'e learned so much fron your videos. I really appreciate the spin free presentation of facts and the incredibly simple way you discuss these complex topics.

A fresh video with a fresh marker. 😀

This Man deserve's my tuition!

New EnergyProf content, thank you!

I'm really appreciating these lessons you are uploading about energy. The presentations are great and well organized and presented. I wonder if I can ask if you can do a couple topics in the near future; - Presentations - behind the scenes. A look at how your setup operates with your screen and your slides that you present - Comparison of Nuclear vs renewables. A look at the numbers of RoI, energy density, running costs, life expectancy, end of life decommissioning, etc. I did find your "There's Always a Cost" video, which was helpful, but if can done for the major energy sources it would be very helpful.

Your videos are so informative and interesting to watch. You are very good at consolidating large concepts and presenting them in a manner that is easily comprehended. Thank you very much for your contributions. Greetings from a guy on a train on his way to work in Sweden.

I remember taking NPRE101 (which he sadly doesn't teach anymore) a couple years ago while I was still in school. I only really took it to satisfy some geneds. He was one of the best professors I had, the most fun I'd ever had listening to in lecture (though I didn't like the assignments!). Really helped me understand so much more about the world of energy, even though it wasn't my major. Hope you teach the class again some day! The lecture where you swam in Bonecreek was the best :)

Thank you and your team so much for these videos.

2 significant improvement suggestions to this video 1) also show energy usage by capita next to those numbers, this is very relevant information 2) also show a pie-chart of each county's energy production split then and before. With these changes, this video would skyrocket in informative value for the uneducated

The gray jacket looks good on you! Thank you for these videos. They really improve my understanding of these subjects.

Thank you!!

Last time I was this early Gore had the lead in Florida

Constantly impressed with this guy's ability to write in mid-air. Astonishing!

Great content and production quality (I do miss the squeaky markers though :-) A little suggestion - if you put the monitor on the other side then when pointing at the projected (superimposed actually) graphs and figures then it would appear as if you were looking directly at the image.

4:38 I say opinion! Because there is no physical reason why it should not be possible. We need a lot of energy storage though (electric, heat, kinetic - maybe power-to-gas).

Incredible

Great stuff, thank you. I more the squeeky markers

I subscribed because everyone else is right- these are excellent quality videos on interesting and pertinent topics, presented in such an approachable manner, Im actually finding myself seeking out more information about them. You do your job very well, sir.

The addition of the global population in each column would have been helpful in figuring out per person usage. Excellent series, BTW. Please don't stop making them!

thanks for such organized analysis! Some remarks from me: - gas got more popular in the US because of many shale gas extractions which appeared only during such timeline used during such analysis - perhaps India has so relatively small energy consumption (compared to China) due to the country is in warm climate (not sure which part of the produced total energy is dedicated to heating and related service)

I stole the professor's squeaky markers. Arrrr, me hearties!

Could you please do an economic cost of energy by type? Ex. Total of a coal plant plus fuel cost / BTUs produced over its lifetime?

Love your videos!

Excellent video and excellently presented 🇺🇸

Isn't it that consumption in the US is flat just because much of the industry was moved to China?

Please have older years on left and more recent years on right like standard timelines. Great video as always!!

Professor Ruzic, RU-vid question: What is your opinion on the Molten Salt cooled Nuclear Reactor, Is it an option and could it increase safety margins ? Thank you.

Thank you for this video. Could you please talk about energy subsidies in a future video? It would be interesting to compare each energy source's production by the amount of taxpayer funding they receive, along with the growth of those energy sources and subsidies over the years.

Happy New Year! can you revisit your global warming lecture this year? I thought the old one was somewhat superficial and left some things open to misinterpretation (out of character for the rest if this channel). maybe you can really clarify a well formed position in an updated way now. appreciate the nice clear content otherwise. Thanks.

The presentation is good, the information is interesting. I don’t understand why the thumbs down ratings....

Good stuff as usual. Could you turn up the volume. All of the other shows I watch much louder.

I'd like to see a lecture on the energy costs of transportation systems. Mazda says diesels are "cleaner/greener" than electric vehicles. Humvee claims it's more energy efficient than a Prius when you take longevity and resource extraction and manufacturing into account. I'm hoping Energy Prof can shed some light on this complex topic.

Can you increase the volume gain on these videos? My mobile is turned up to max and it's still not loud enough. Other than that I really appreciate this series.

very good thanks. Incredible that the common conception on the street is that fossil fuel use is declining and is yesterday's energy to be displaced by solar and wind. People actually take that as a "given"

What are the projections for frack oil wells yet to be installed and depletion rates over time? I mean our frontier zones are limited. Also so is the 10 million gallons of water plus used per frack.

Thank you for this interesting analysis. The one thing I (as an European citizen) I do not agree on is that we perform great because our graph is rather flat. This is a misconception as we do NOT produce as much stuff as in earlier decades, but rather let China, ... produce lots of our stuff. This explains a big part of the rising energy consumption in those countries (which actually relates to our wealth > thus should add up in our numbers).

Nice information. What's the current state of space based energy development?

this videos are epic! i‘m glued to the screen, even moore due the covid time. in switzerland were i live, we sadly wave goodbye for future nuclear power plants.and those who are still in service ( 4 of them) give us 35 % electric power. do the math when 2040 all are shut down.. anyway, thank you so much energy prof and your team.

I’d love to see a video, or series of videos, on real solutions. How to provide the energy required to provide a good standard of living for all people. What will it take? What are the options? You seem to be a trustworthy source of information...

Great videos. Getting slightly outdated, which is understandable. As of 2022, solar was already up to 3.5% and wind 10%, and the adoption of solar in particular is accelerating as it becomes ever cheaper.

Great video. Don't underestimate solar, it can not do everything but it is really taking off, lets check in five years. Also if we can develop large commercial air conditioners that can store energy during the solar window (11 am - 5 pm) and just use the fan at night, that will help. Electric cars give us maximum flexibility on energy use and are more efficient than gas.

Professor in your opinion what energy source or sources should the country concentrate on and why?

Please, pretty please, and quadruple pretty please do a presentation on the impact of electric vehicles on the U.S. electrical grid, with analysis of renewables and how they will or will not cover the increase of demand on the grid. Folks need enlightenment on this issue, and I foresee trouble ahead, caused by magical thinking..... am i wrong? Love your vids, keep up the good work!

What we need is conservation. It's not that dirty of a word. Winter has set in where I live. I have my thermostat turned down a bit. My gas bill is cheaper. I'm happy.

Thank you for pointing out we can not replace oil, gas, coal and nuclear with intermittent energy. It’s not a problem to solved with technology, but understanding energy density and baseload power. Mathematically it is impossible to move to less dense energy sources and solve it with volume, you can try but it is madness. California a case of moving to intermittent energy, with a shell game to buy energy oil, gas, coal and nuclear from surrounding states. When you buy from other states it has to travel the grid and significant energy is lost as it travels. Balancing a grid is not a shell game you will win.

The UK would beg to differ on if you can replace hydrocarbons with renewables. We’re currently are about 47% electric from renewables. We’re also working on storage rapidly.

Would be interested in a video of how new efficient technologies will/are affecting these trends. When the US was going through this growth spurt it was done with incandescent lights, inefficient electric motors, computers that required refrigeration, and poorer or no insulation....etc. Would love to see if these improved technological starting points are showing up in the data as other countries start ramping up.

The new non-squeaky markers are way cool :)

I've watched way too many of these videos.. Its a testament to how good this content is that somehow a series of topics I've either had zero interest in or never had it even occur to me to consider I've been so engrossed with.

This video needs 350 million views. There's too much political conjecture (from both sides) that needs to be reinterpreted and made accordant with this essential info.

Love your videos, but allow me to make a small correction the generic formula for coal is C(x). For oil the formula is CH(x).

Interesting review! Can a flat energy consumption be explained by flat level of energy hungry manufacturing? To do "more" US may import heavy manufacturing components thus needs less energy.

Can anyone please tell me what the control system tank is on an rbmk? I can't get a consistent answer from anyone. And I was interested before chernobyl (HBO) just fyi. I was born in Europe in July 86 so it I've always been interested!

Can you do a video on the integral fast reactor?

Im glad to see Boromir doing well after LOTR

There are two significant geothermal power plants in central Utah, Blundell and Sulphurdale.

Here in New Zealand we have shut down several major power stations and haven't run out of power, so I'd have to assume that we have massively reduced consumption.

Thanks for that, encouraging. Texas is experimenting with a couple Tesla towers and thorium reactors are in view for power production as well. I think India is pushing that.

EnergyProf is leaving out key info and context for this video. Firstly, he uses "primary energy", probably from the 2018 BP Energy Review. The problem with primary energy figures is that they incorporate the total energy WITHIN the fuel, not the USABLE energy we get from the fuel. This skews the numbers quite a bit, especially for fossil fuels. For example, coal amounted to 13 quads of energy consumption in 2018, but since coal power plants are only around 33% efficient, the actual usable energy in the form of electricity delivered from this coal was maybe 4.4 quads. Natural gas plants fare a little bit better since they can be 50% efficient. Usable energy from natgas was then 15.1 quads. I think BP applies this correction for nuclear power, so the number is correct in this video. The error comes when comparing primary energy production of different fuels and renewable energy. Since solar and wind make usable electricity directly and their output is reported as such, you need to remove all the waste energy from coal and natgas plants to make a real comparison. Otherwise, the numbers for renewable energy look artificially small. This error is very apparent when you look at energy from oil consumption. Even a generous interpretation of the efficiency of our cars and trucks shows they are 20% efficient at most in getting power to the wheels. So in effect, we really only need 7.2 quads of useable energy to satisfy our personal transport needs. So when things are put into proper context on an apples to apples basis, renewables produce twice as much of the energy pie as these numbers would tell us. Solar is undoubtedly higher because a lot of its production is consumed on-site (as in a rooftop array) and it is nearly impossible to aggregate all these small, distributed generators. Secondly, EnergyProf derides renewable energy depending on "government programs". This is a silly point to make. Fracking was developed through decades of government-funded R&D. The Manhattan Project and later "Atoms for Peace" programs gave us nuclear power. Nuclear power is still dependent on free liability insurance from the government, the ability to offload the responsibility for long-term waste disposal onto the government, the ability to charge utility customers for nuke plants under construction, the ability to offload bad debt and bankruptcy costs onto utility customers when nuke plants become too expensive to build or are abandoned in mid-construction (See WPPSS for an example)...the list goes on and on. Recently, a string of old, supposedly paid-off nuclear plants in several U.S. states have required massive bailouts to keep operating. The paltry tax breaks renewables have received are dwarfed by the length of time and magnitude of government support going towards fossil fuels and nuclear power. Finally, EnergyProf claims that wind and solar installations will slow dramatically in the future because "the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine all the time". Numerous studies from Clack, Jacobson and other energy system modelers disagree on a lot of things, but what they do agree on is that getting to 80% renewable energy is very achievable and economic, even with current technology. Maybe EnergyProf's preferred solution of nuclear power will be able to stick around and provide much of the other 20% while we figure out how to expand renewables even more. But this is a debate for energy modelers in the 2040's or thereabouts. It's way too early to predict the demise of renewable energy at this point. The comically misguided predictions of the EIA and the IEA on growth in renewable energy over the past 15 years are a testament to how wrong people can be when they are locked in to a pro-status quo mindset. Nonlinear and disruptive changes tend to confuse and then surprise these types of analysts.

geothermal energy production should be much higher. Unlike wind and sun, you can produce energy 24/7. Wind and sun energy need to be stored in batteries to be used at night and when there is no wind. There is also enough geothermal energy on the west coast to power the whole nation many times over.

5:56 I hope you are wrong. I think there is a huge growth potential simply through cheaper wind and solar even without cheaper storage (note you don't have use all you produce during peak supply, also variable pricing will allow demand to adapt to supply). If both renewables and storage get cheaper (which they are and fast) then the change in renewables can be huge. Add also cheaper chemical long term storage (weeks and months) and or improved global energy grid to absorb national fluctuations and sky is the limit!

Perhaps shifting of manufacturing activities to Asia had something to do with the leveling of the energy use in USA.

Move your graphics monitor to the other side of the camera so you wont be looking in the opposite direction when referencing graphics on the screen.

Bio fuels are very bad for the environment ... all those regulations and subsidies going into a super inefficient way of making energy while using land that could be protected instead. There is no need to use up all the available land to make food either - the US has a huge surplus ... more land should be protected, with crop rotation, land allowed to rest every 7 years, more traditional/bio farming, protected areas next to croplands, changing of the huge monocultures, strips of forests between arable lands etc. This is going in the bad direction unfortunately. We actually have enough energy from gas to turn it around and make better, healthier food with more work and energy use.

I'm studying chemical engineering in the UK. It is frowned upon to use BTUs even in Britain lmao.

How do fracking and coal compare when taking the whole extraction-to-consumption chain into account?

Since the marker change my cat finds your videos less interesting ;)

Love the video but your chart at 8 min doesn't match your chart in the beginning? In your 8 min chart your renewables passed nuclear.

How much energy was saved by switching to non-squeak markers?

This shows why electrification is important. Electric motors, boilers etc. are all more energy efficient than their fuel-burning counterparts. And although that means a lot more electricity generation will be needed, the US has a vast potential for renewables given its enormous landmass. There is a lot more that can be done right now, in many parts of the world, even if we don’t yet have the nuclear and biofuels to replace fossils.

I did a project on Geothermal Generators recently, maybe you should look into Enhanced Geothermal Systems, or EGS.

Do you have the stats for state by state? Also how much is exported?

That title, Then and Now, Here and There, still makes me sad. Great lecture nonetheless.

Volume seems a bit low on this one.

Wow enlightening and depressing how little progress we made and how world is getting worse. We better get moving on science fast to get us out of this mess.

Can you also post CO2 output equivalents by year for US and for the world by country? Do you have data on the breakdown in China, for example? That would be interesting data.

What are the facts behind SolarReserve’s Crescent Dunes backed Citigroup and US Dept of Energy ?

0:49 I prepered my ears and.... suprise!!!!! So chinese torture sound hahaha

Aren't you conflating thermal energy (MWt) and electric energy (MWe)? Fossil fuels are compared on thermal energy (MWt), but hydro, wind, and solar are only measured in energy output of MWe. It looks like you are using MWt for Nuclear, since I get 2.75Q for 2016 US Nuclear electric from Wikipedia. (I have no idea how much energy is used by the US Navy.) When comparing alternative energy sources, what matters is energy delivered, so that's kWh entering a house (so subtract transmission loss from utility scale solar). For building or industrial heat, BTU is what matters, but if we use a heat pump then we can get several times MWt per MWe for building heat or hot water. When looking to the future of alternative energy, negawatts from insulation, heat recovery, or passive heating/cooling could affect the numbers in your 2029 video. For transportation we care about mechanical kWh delivered to the wheel or propeller (average BHP converted to kW). That gets complex to convert from BTU (or gge) of fuel, but I assume it's possible based on calibrated EPA test fixtures. Comparing battery vs ICE powered vehicles, we'd need to measure the power entering the vehicle to charge the batteries, then compare with the BTUs in fuel required to get the same average BHP. Then you could compare oil vs solar/wind in transportation (of course adjusting for refining, transportation, etc.). If we really want to compare delivered energy of solar/wind/etc vs fossil fuel, we'd need to separate electricity, heating, and transportation, then compute production and consumption in units of delivered TWhe, TWht, or TWhm for comparison individually.Also, we shouldn't compare old existing resistance heating, with a new substitution of a mini-split heading/cooling unit for a gas-fired furnace. (I just listened to an article where heat pump retrofits in public housing are negative cost.) I am curious now how wind, solar, hydro compare against fossil energy sources based on equivalence with heat pumps and battery vehicles. An important aspect not covered is economics. It would be interesting to compare the LCOE (levelized cost of electricity/energy) or Power Purchase Agreements of new solar, wind, etc. vs coal, oil, gas, etc. between 2006 and 2018. For certain areas, battery storage is now cheaper than a gas peaker plant, with costs expected to decline. From another article I heard, the expectation is solar costs will go below the cost to keep existing fossil plants running in the next 5 years. If you do a piece on economics, it would be important to include at least measurable costs of pollution. (It may be hard to measure, but we can at least put a floor on costs we are paying.) Subsidies are a complex factor, pollution being just one. One of the reasons solar and wind are growing so rapidly (look at the annual capacity additions, not just current total usage) is the cost has come down. Same reason for the decline of coal-- cost not regulation. I am looking forward to your 2029 video! Thanks for making this one.

What do you think of energy consumption once EVs begin to take over large portions of the automobile market? Won't we be drawing more power from our electrical grids to recharge the batteries at night? I'm assuming that will place an increased demand for natural gas and a reduced demand for oil.

I gotta be honest with you, I miss the squeak. (Still great content though)

So how are the plants now going to get their CO2?

Professor Ruzic states that renewables cannot replace fossil fuels (4:45). Is then it accurate to claim that the only path forward for global society is Nuclear Energy? All the online debate seems to be people talking past each other, one side claiming solar can power the future and the other claiming it can't.