Renewable Energy Use In US Hits Low

Citing latest figures released by US Department of Energy, the newspaper said in a report that in 2001, renewable energy accounted for only 6 percent of the overall energy consumption in the country.

The department attributed much of the decline to a drought that caused a 23-percent cut in generation of hydroelectric power, which converts energy contained in falling water into electricity.

For the first time since 1992, biomass, including burning of wood or similar renewable products to produce energy, overtook hydroelectric power as the most important source of renewable energy in the United States, accounting for 50.4 percent of the total with hydroelectric down to 41.9 percent.

The number of solar collectors, which gather the sun's heat for uses, surged 34 percent in 2001 and the use of photovoltaic cells, which generate electricity with sunlight, is also growing in the country with domestic installations up 80 percent last year.

Even though shipments of new equipment has increased sharply in the last few years, solar equipment was being retired faster than new equipment was being built and the base of installed equipment is shrinking, Fred Mayes, who handles data on renewable energy at the Energy Department's energy information agency, was quoted as saying.

According to the department's estimate, the total amount of solar energy gathered in the United States has fallen three years in a row.