About This Project
Visualizing 200 years of U.S. energy history to understand our path forward through the lens of past transitions.
Our Mission
The U.S. Energy History Visualization project is motivated by proposals to transform the world's energy and our belief that history matters: past U.S. energy transitions can help us understand our potential future path.
The interactive visualization shows 200 years of evolving energy use in America as an animated Sankey diagram. Line widths represent per capita energy flows each year from primary energy sources to final uses.
The Project
An effort of University of Chicago's Center for Robust Decision-making on Climate and Energy Policy (RDCEP), this platform combines historical data with modern visualization techniques to make energy patterns accessible and understandable.
By tracking energy flows from wood-burning households to modern renewable systems, we provide insights into the infrastructure, policy, and societal changes that shaped our energy landscape.
Interactive Features
Explore energy history through our visualization tools
Mouse over the flows for values of individual fuel streams and detailed breakdowns
Drag the timeline slider to control the animation and explore specific years in detail
Black circles mark milestone years of special interest with additional historical context
Toggle between fractional, per capita, or absolute usage views across different sectors
Data & Methodology
Understanding our visualization approach
Energy Units
Energy flows are given in per capita units, as Watts per person of primary energy. This approach is more informative than absolute units since the U.S. population grew by 60× over the 200-year period.
Waste Heat Tracking
The default animation accounts for all energy used, tracking waste heat from electricity generation with steam or gas turbines. We allocate this proportionately to sectors to ensure the total area of left and right sides of the diagram are equal.
Renewable Energy Efficiency
We assign all non-thermal electricity generation (hydro, wind, and solar PV) an efficiency of 100% (zero waste). These primary energy flows should be interpreted with care, since each produces roughly 3× as much electricity per unit primary energy as thermal sources.
Our Team
The people behind the visualization
Open Source License
Licensed for public use under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You may not use this file except in compliance with the License. Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an as-is basis, without warranties or conditions of any kind, either express or implied.