The Electrification of US Energy Consumption
As can be seen in this graph, there has been a steady increase in the % of energy that is consumed as electricity in the commercial, residential and industrial sectors in the US from 1949-2006. Transportation on the other hand has completely missed out on this, actually decreasing from 1.38% to .29%. I believe this century will see transportation follow the other three sectors and finally become electrified.
Total electricity usage by sector: commercial 18%, residential 21%, industrial 32%, and transportation 29%.
I should note that I included electrical energy system loses as part of electricity %. The loses are typically twice as high as the actual electricity consumed, so only 1/3 of the energy is actually consumed by end users as electricity. It also doesn't take into account the % of energy in a car that is converted to electricity by hybrids, or by the alternator to run air conditioning, the radio and all other electronic gizmos in the car.
The EIA has a similar graph showing major sources of energy consumption.
Data from the EIA and graph generated from this Google Doc spreadsheet.
RSS Feed
2 comments:
Losses as in the fact that power plants are 40% efficient, or losses like transmission losses? I'd find it hard to believe the latter.
Rebelfish,
Yes, like plants are 40% efficient. I think there is about 10% of losses due to distribution, but the majority of the losses are in the power plant as lost heat.
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.