The sources for locating energy data will vary depending on the type of energy and the spot on the source-to-consumption continuum that interests you.
The US Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) Energy Information Administration (EIA) has a nice outline of energy sources, with explanations of each, in their Energy Explained web pages. These include nonrenewable sources such as petroleum, gas, gas liquids, coal, and nuclear. The EIA also discusses a number of renewable sources such as hydropower (e.g., dams, tidal, or wave action), biomass (e.g., waste or wood), biofuels (e.g., ethanol or biodiesel), wind, geothermal, and solar. Hydrogen is another fuel source discussed on these pages.
Besides renewability, a you might be interested in a source’s carbon footprint. Note that some of the sources the EIA lists as renewables may be carbon creating (such as biomass or biofuels), and some non-renewables may be carbon neutral (such as nuclear). Any type of energy source clearly has environmental implications, and the Union of Concerned Scientists has a discussion of the Environmental Impacts of Renewable Energy Technologies.
The US Geological Survey’s Energy Resources Program measures resource potentials for all types of energy sources. The Survey is a great place to find data relating to their traditional focus of fossil fuel reserves, but also for some renewables such as geothermal. The EIA provides access to GIS layers relating to energy, not only reserves and renewable potentials, but also infrastructure layers.
For more on renewables, check out the NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), which disseminates GIS data relating to renewable energy in the US (e.g., wind speeds, wave energy, solar potential), along with some international data. The DoE’s Open Data Catalog is also particularly strong on datasets (tabular and GIS) relating to renewables. The data ranges from very specific studies to US nationwide data.
For visualizing energy-related map layers from selected non-US countries, the Renewable Energy Data Explorer (REexplorer) provides an online mapping tool. Most layers can be downloaded as GIS files. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) also has statistics on renewables. Besides downloadable data, summary visualizations can be viewed online using Tableau Dashboards.
At the right, the REexplorer shows wind speed in Kenya.
