Outline

In my final project, I will explore energy in the United States. Specifically, I want to examine type of energy generated and type of energy consumed, with an emphasis on regional impacts, from 2001-2024. Pointedly, I want to investigate how our energy mix is shifting away from fossil fuels to renewable energy. I want to depict this data using a map of the United States that changes according to the year, so that the change in energy mix is shown smoothly with an interactive aspect.

Some people may be unconvinced that we are moving away from fossil fuels, but I think that a visualization showcasing the shifts over the course of 20 years will inspire optimism and encourage the audience to think about how they can advocate for increased generation and utilization of cleaner energy sources. Additionally, I feel that peoples’ perception of clean energy in the United States has become clouded by partisanship: after working in the energy sector in a public affairs capacity, people tend to associate clean energy with more liberal regions, and fossil fuels with more conservative regions. When when we actually break down the energy mix into types of energy produced/consumed by region, we can see that there’s a pretty heathy energy mix emerging across the United States, with the most interesting developments occuring in places like Texas that are commonly associated with fossil fuels: Texas actually produces a lot of renewable energy!

On a personal level, I’m interested in this topic because I have worked in public affairs in the energy sector, and I want to explore creating data-driven narratives and visualizations relating to the energy sector rather than platitudes or simply staying on-message for industry narraticves.

Initial sketches

Sketch I of Final Project depicting a map of the United States, the title "The Energy Flip: Top Producers of Fossil Fuels Moving to Renewable Production, Consumption 2001-2024" “Sketch I”

The data

For my project, I am planning on using data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA). The EIA is an independent, non-partisan administration that collects data and applies statisical analyses for use by policymakers and the public alike. The datasets I will use are publicly available, and consist of two spreadsheets: the first of which details Net Energy Generation in the United States, broken down by year/state/type of energy, and the second of which details Consumption broken down by year/state/type of energy. Below are the links to my data.

The data I will use span many more years than I will show. I want to start with data in 2001 because there are several geopolitical factors that would skew the visualization that is otherwise unhelpful for the purpose of the story of a shift to renewables. Additionally, I will only include up to 2024, even with data available for some months of 2025, because this is the most recent, complete year of data available on both spreadsheets, and I do not want to make an inconguent comparison in my visualization that would show an incomplete story. In terms of logistics, I will clean the data myself in Tableau to exclude certain years, as well as join the two tables for ease of use, but that will take a couple of tutorials to reorient myself with Tableau!

Name	URL	Description
Existing Nameplate and Net Summer Capacity by Energy Source, Producer Type, and State	https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/	Details Type of Energy Consumption broken down by Year, State, and Energy Type. First Excel Link on website.
Net Generation in United States all Sectors Monthly	(https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/state/)	Details type of energy generated, amount of energy generated broken down by state, year. Second link on the website.

Method and medium

I plan on using Tableau to generate my data visualization, utilizing methods that we learned in class specifically to acheive the “sliding scale” passage of time, and the mapping representation of the United States’ energy mix concentrations. I also want to use Shorthand to showcase the story, because I like the interactive component of scrolling down the site to gain more information. I wonder if there’s a way to integrate the “sliding scale” effect into Shorthand? I will try to explore this avenue to make my presentation interesting, kind of in the same vein as the wealth-comparison website that we saw in class earlier.

References

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AI acknowledgements

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