U.S. homes and businesses receive natural gas mostly from local distribution companies

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) Natural Gas Annual Respondent Query System, 2,022 natural gas delivery companies delivered natural gas to end-use customers in the United States in 2018. A delivery company is defined as any entity that delivers natural gas directly to end users. In 2018, local distribution companies (LDCs) primarily served homes and businesses, delivering approximately 90%, or 22 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d), of end-use natural gas to the residential and commercial sectors. Pipeline companies deliver the highest volume of natural gas to end-use consumers in the United States, predominately to electric power and industrial customers. Natural gas distributers operated by municipalities, referred to here as municipal companies, are the most common type of natural gas distributor in the United States, but they deliver relatively small volumes of end-use natural gas. More »

Most U.S. utility-scale geothermal power plants built since 2000 are binary-cycle plants

Utility-scale geothermal power plants in the United States use either steam power or a binary cycle to generate electricity. Of the 2,558 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power plant capacity currently operating in the United States, 1,826 MW of capacity is from steam-powered plants and 731 MW of capacity is from binary-cycle powered plants. Unlike steam-powered geothermal power plants, which use steam directly from a geothermal well to spin a turbine and generate electricity, binary-cycle geothermal power plants use a heat exchanger to take heat from the hot water to heat a secondary fluid that then spins a turbine. More »

U.S. energy consumption in April 2020 fell to its lowest level in more than 30 years

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) most recent Monthly Energy Review, the United States consumed 6.5 quadrillion British thermal units of energy in April 2020, the lowest monthly energy consumption since September 1989. Energy consumption in April 2020 was 14% lower than in April 2019, the largest year-over-year decrease in EIA's monthly total energy consumption, a data series that dates back to 1973. More »

2019 U.S. coal production falls to its lowest level since 1978

In 2019, U.S. coal production totaled 706 million short tons (MMst), a 7% decrease from the 756 MMst mined in 2018. Last year's production was the lowest amount of coal produced in the United States since 1978, when a coal miners' strike halted most of the country's coal production from December 1977 to March 1978. Weekly coal production estimates from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show the United States is on pace for an even larger decline in 2020, falling to production levels comparable with those in the 1960s. More »

Early 2020 drop in crude oil prices led to write-downs of U.S. oil producers' assets

According to publicly filed financial statements, 40 U.S. oil producers collectively wrote down $48 billion worth of assets in the first quarter of 2020, the largest quarterly adjustment since at least 2015. Low crude oil prices contributed to significant declines in revenue and the value of these companies' proved reserves. Write-downs reflect negative adjustments in asset values, for example, when a producer acknowledges the value of an oil property has declined to less than the cost of developing it and the company updates its estimate of the oil's value. More »

EIA now estimates biodiesel production and consumption by state

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently released new biodiesel estimates in the State Energy Data System (SEDS), EIA's comprehensive source for annual state energy statistics. Previously, EIA published national-level biodiesel data as well as state- and plant-level biodiesel plant production capacity. New SEDS estimates include annual biodiesel production and consumption data by state for 2001 through 2018. More »