Food for Thought, Pulp Edition, and a ‘Peace Dividend’

Tim Taylor (via Mark Thoma) reads part of President Obama’s Proposed Budget and finds this gem:

The share of electricity generation from renewable sources was 19.7% of the total in 1960, fell to 9.4% by 2000, and had risen to 13.2% of the total in 2014.

I assume that means almost 1/5 of the U.S. energy supply 55 years ago was from lumber. Erik Loomis can tell you what happened next.

ETC: bob in Comments notes that I managed to ignore hydroelectric as a renewal power source. Anyone still taking advice from my 2008 article about water investments in Institutional Investor is appropriately cautioned.

ETA:

My favorite data point in a quick perusal: From its 2010 peak to 2014, DoD-Military spending dropped from $690,469,000,000 to $581,456,000,000. Even if you assume the lowest-range economic estimate of waste for military spending, that’s a real economic gain of around $32.7 billion, or just under half of the total spending on Education.