Total renewable energy has declined in use in the US since 1996.

[NNadir]

In 1996, the United States produced 7.137 Quads (7.55 exajoules) of renewable energy, dominated by just two forms, hydroelectric power and wood.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5a.html

In 2004, the United States produced less renewable energy: 6.11 quads (6.47 exajoules).

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page/trends/table5b.html

The energy generated by solar energy declined slightly since 2000, but solar electricity is - in spite of what you may have heard - still a very esoteric and largely trivial form of energy.

Two forms of energy that seem to be growing are wind and ethanol.

[Ezlivin]

1. That's why Bush is helping to depopulate the Earth

The math is simple: Less people means less draw on the resources.

I love the idea of wind power. The only concern I have with it is the number of bird kills. Apart from that, it seems like a good alternate energy source.

Ethanol has a poor EROEI and I suspect will only have a limited scope of use. And I've yet to see one self-powered ethanol plant; they all require petroleum inputs.

[NNadir]

2. Everyone loves wind energy in theory.

There have been some NIMBY issues with it though.

I think it is reasonable to expect wind to become a big contributor to the renewable profile. As of 2004 though, it wasn't a significant contributor.

[megatherium]

3. I have trouble believing the solar PV numbers.

I cannot understand why they've dropped given that we are told PV is growing by 30% per year (or some such). But even SolarBuzz.com reports these numbers. I suppose the growth in PV is international (Japan and Germany) but not here.

[NNadir]

4. Some large solar thermal plants may have shut down.

We are told lots of things about solar energy, but it is wise to keep a sense of perspective and scale.

According to solarbuzz, there will be/were 290 MW of grid connections in 2006:

http://www.solarbuzz.com/USGridConnect2006.htm

Given that this is "peak" power and not average (physicist) power, the quantity is trivial, less than a single small gas plant.

Some of the solar thermal plants operating in California produce more solar energy than the entire planned PV installations for 2006. If one of these plants went down for maintainence or some other reason, it is easy to see how solar output would decline.

http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/power_databook/docs/pdf/db_chapter02_csp.pdf

I suspect that solar electricity generation will reach an all time high in 2006, but of course we don't have the figures. All of the solar energy produced in the US will still not represent a single exajoule, though.