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Global Climate Change Digest
A Guide to Information on Greenhouse Gases and Ozone Depletion
Published July 1988 through June 1999

FROM VOLUME 12, NUMBER 5, MAY 1999

U.S. Electricity Demand Increases as Fuel Costs Decline

Item #d99may48

According to a press release from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epav1/epav1_sum.html), electric utilities paid 25% less for petroleum in 1998 than in 1997. It was the lowest price in more than 20 years. Prices paid for natural gas and coal also dropped. Total generation by utilities was 3,212 billion kWh, 3% above 1997 electricity production. Higher demand and lower fuel prices, combined with less hydro generation, pushed oil generation up 42%, gas up 9%, and coal up 1% (911 million tons of coal). Seven nuclear reactors restarted in 1998, returning nuclear generation to 674 billion kWh, back to the record level of 1996.