The most sustainable energy sources are renewable bioenergy (wood, biomass, energy crops), geothermal (deep or shallow), solar energy (photovoltaic, solar thermal), hydro and wind energy. Since much more, orders of magnitudes more, solar energy hits the earth than is required for human needs, the total potential of renewable energies seems to be almost infinite. It should be noted that, with respect to our discussion about energy here, the term "potential" is not the same as in physics (see Mechanical Energy). A better term would be "availability". Also, the terms "renewable energy" and "energy sources" do not make sense physically, since in physics the energy conservation law prohibits a source or renewal of energy; only transformations are allowed. From a physical point of view, it would be better to formulate this as "availability of sustainable energies" instead of "potential of renewable energies".
The Short-term Energy Outlook (release January 2026) of the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) describes the sources for the electric power generation in the right diagram below. The renewable energy share is 24% of the total U.S. total utility-scale electricity generation in 2025. The diagram below on the left shows an EIA-diagram for 2023. The share of renewable energies in primary energy is 9%.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA)
International Energy Outlook, release of October 2023,
focus on the factors that shape the
energy system over the long term for the world. The outlooks go now until 2050 and
include the expected potentials of renewable energies. The diagram above shows the different IEO2023 cases.
The increased consumption coupled with current policy drive
non‐fossil fuel sources to gain a larger share of the increasing primary energy consumption worldwide.
Renewable energy consumption grows faster than any other energy source, and the non‐fossil fuel
share of primary energy (note that nuclear is non-fossil in the diagram above)
grows from 21% in 2022 to a range of 29% to 34% in 2050 across the cases.