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where the energy goes
One hundred and three exajoules. That's how much energy was produced in the United States in 2002. In the process, 5,682,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide were released into the atmosphere. This I learned from a printout taped to a door I passed by while moving a big laser from one building to another today at Caltech. I found the figures from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's Energy and Environmental Directive interesting, and maybe you will too. Sixty one percent of the energy produced in the country is wasted. I don't think that even includes thermodynamic inefficiencies in generation. Sixty eight percent of electrical power is lost in transmission, between the generating plant and the user.
It's also interesting to see that energy consumption is divided roughly into equal thirds: residential/commerical, industrial, and transportation. This is interesting because the "residential" and "transportation" uses are the sort of things directly influenced by your personal choices. What to eat. Whether to drive. Do you commute? I had this idea that probably lots of our energy was gobbled up by this abstract blob of "industry". But there it is. Nearly one third of our CO2 production comes from transportation, and nearly all of that comes from oil. Want to burn less coal? Use less electricity. Current use of renewable resources? Negligible.
It's also interesting to see that energy consumption is divided roughly into equal thirds: residential/commerical, industrial, and transportation. This is interesting because the "residential" and "transportation" uses are the sort of things directly influenced by your personal choices. What to eat. Whether to drive. Do you commute? I had this idea that probably lots of our energy was gobbled up by this abstract blob of "industry". But there it is. Nearly one third of our CO2 production comes from transportation, and nearly all of that comes from oil. Want to burn less coal? Use less electricity. Current use of renewable resources? Negligible.
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I could be way off, but a further break-down would be great to see.
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If you look at the site, though, they have a linked report that goes with the figures that probably clarifies these issues. There's lots of other goodies on the site too.
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http://www.eia.doe.gov/
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2nd: From the charts alone, plus just a little logic, it looks to me like the losses shown *do* approximate thermodynamic (+ other) inefficiencies in generation--roughly 25%. Roughly 5.6/27.9 or 20% for transportation, and 12.5/40.3 or 31% for power. The thermodynamic efficiency of internal combustion engines really is that bad. Power transmission really isn't that bad.
My bottom line take on this data is the usual: biggest bang for the buck is in conservation. Thermodynamic inefficiency for nuclear vs. fossil would be an interesting breakdown to see, but that's sort of an apples/oranges equation.
Improvements in thermodynamic efficiencies will be slow in coming and ultimately very limited unless there are some far more efficient technologies on the horrizon that are practical. (fuel cells???) These figures will also be in flux as we begin to tap into more an more expensive fossil sources--the more expensive sources generally corresponding to less energy efficient extraction methods.
The thing that scares me is that the amount of non-oil fossil energy still in the ground--this inefficient, expensive (yea!), dirty stuff--dwarfs the oil, both current known and likely potential. I hate to say it, but with CO2 levels in the atmosphere being higher than *at least* the last 430,000 years, we have a landslide comin' down the mountain that nobody's stopping.
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California energy flow in 1993:
http://eed.llnl.gov/flow/pdf/UCRL-ID-18991-93.pdf
This shows a distribution loss of 7% (i.e. 93% efficiency).
These are interesting
States with small populations have high per capita energy use. Not too surprising. But why does texas use so much?
* Federal energy use by Agency (http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_24.pdf)
Unsurprisingly, the department of defense uses the vast majority of energy consumed by government agencies.
Re: These are interesting
I think per capita use is a function mostly of typical driving distances, fuel prices, and occupations. Wealth would figure too, but is probably not that different from other states. Prices would also be a function of taxation, etc., and TX is pretty oil friendly.
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