Vital Stats On Energy
February 8th, 2008
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First, I just want to apologize to international visitors and give an explanation for the fact that this comes across as blatantly Ameri-Centric. The fact is that energy sources and end use varies widely around the world and some countries do not have the best data avaliable. The US has very good data avaliable from the Energy Information Agency, which is part of the Department of Energy. World use of energy is also heavily skewed by a few countries, such as Middle Eastern countries, which use enormous amounts of oil for power generation, desalination and running refineries. The United States is a pretty good example of an industrial country. The numbers are similar to those in Canada, although Canada uses less air conditioning, more heat and uses more natural gas for heating and less heating oil. The numbers are similar to most of Europe, although much of Europe uses proportionately more gas for electrical generation. Australia is also similar, although the power generation there is even more coal intensive and they use slightly more energy for transportation. Hopefully this will be worthwhile to use as an example, even if it fails to offer a world perspective.
Energy is important not only for the economic and national security concerns but it also produces most of the pollution, especially greenhouse gases.
First, a nifty Chart from the US Department of Energy which sums up the flow of energy:
Now, some breakdowns of exactly what this means. Primary sources of energy show petroleum to be the single largest source of energy, although it does not make up the majority of energy used in the US. Much is domestic, but more than half is forign. The single largest country for imports is Canada. However, middle eastern countries also produce a large share of US Oil imports.
End use of energy can be divided into several methods of energy delivery and use:
Or by end user:
Electricity:
Electricity immediately jumps out as one of the most important energy sectors. Not only is it the single largest, but it also will become increasingly important if cleaner transportation and industrial systems are to be utilized. Electricity is the foundation energy sector to which such areas will become increasingly dependent. Here’s how we generate it in the US:
The US is typical of much of the world. Coal is the single largest source of electricity worldwide and natural gas is the second. Canada and a few other countries have been able to make fossil fuels only a secondary source of electricity, primarily due to hydroelectric reserves. Others have transitioned to nuclear energy. France leads the way with nearly all electricity generated from clean nuclear energy. Oil is used primarly for “peak” electrical generation in the US due to its expense. It is a primary electric baseload source in many Middle Eastern and African countries. Isolated areas, island nations and others with only limited electrical supplies also use oil-based electrical generation as it is more economical for such small operations.
Electricity end use varies widely, however, like total energy, considerably more is generally used for commercial and industrial purposes than for residential. This is not always the case, however, and in areas with less industry it may be more skewed toward residential. The one factor which makes the biggest difference is heat. Areas with high summer temperatures tend to see a much greater proportional demand from residential and commercial use of air conditioning. Industrial use is less effected.
One thing to bare in mind is that generating and transmitting electricity involves a net energy loss. About 65% of the energy in most systems is lost to waste heat. This is not due to poor system design and cannot really be fixed. It is an inherent aspect of any thermal engine that a large portion of energy is lost to waste heat. The highest effeciency power plants are combined cycle gas-fired and have a thermal effeciency of up to 60%. Most power plants do not reach this. Energy is also lost in transmission as well as in the process of phasing, voltage regulation and conversion. Better transmission systems can cut this down, but the only way to improve thermal effeciency in most power plants is to reuse the waste heat for other purposes, such as structure heating.
This is the reason why most heating is done on-site by burning of fuels. The return of energy is better because nearly all the thermal energy can be used for heating. On site electrical generation, however would not result in savings. Although line loss would be lower, the higher effeciency of large power plants offsets this when compared to smaller units. However, it is worth noting that using a certain amount of energy to heat a site versus an equal amount of electrical energy is actually less energy intensive. For each watt of electricity used, about three watts of energy is consumed.
Fuel Use breakdown:
Hydroelectric and Nuclear energy are obviously used nearly entirely for electrical generation.
Coal is used mostly for electricity but also for industry, especially metal smelting, cement and other processes that need a lot of heating.
About two thirds of oil is used as a fuel for transportation. The remainder is mostly used directly by industry. Some is used for electricity and the remainder for heating. Use of oil heat is found primarily in the Northeastern US, where gas service is not as widely avaliable. It is used more for homes and small commercial applications than for large buildings.
Natural Gas is used heavily by industry as well as for power generation. In industry, natural gas is used for heat, as in metal working. It is also heavily used by the chemical industry as both an energy source and a raw material for chemicals like methanol. In commercial and residential settings it is used mostly for heating and hot water, but it also is used for cooking.
Transportation fuel is dominated by petrolium. This is true of most of the world. The only major exception in the US is electric transit, which is relatively small. In other countries this proportion may be larger, but oil remains the primary motor fuel. Only Brazil, which gets much of its fuel from cane sugar ethanol stands out in this respect. In the US, gasoline may contain 5 to 10 percent ethanol, however it’s disputed that this actually saves energy and the amount is small compared to oil used.
Residential energy use is relatively small compared to other sectors. It also varies widely depending on temperature. In hot areas, during the summer, more than 50% of the electricity used may be for air conditioning and cooling and there may be little energy used that is not electricity. However, in colder areas more than half of the energy used may be for heating. In general, this is done by direct burning of fuels. It is more effecient than transporting energy for heat by electricity. As thermal energy often comes from cheaper sources, it may not be as noticed, but home heating can easily exceed 60% of home energy use in the winter. Much of the US uses electricity for heating, but this is generally found in the warmer areas where heat is only occasionally used.
As mentioned, electric use will vary widely based on the temperature and thus the amount of air conditioning used. This means that region to region energy use as well as season to season use can be dramatically different. This is true for much of the world as well. In Northern European countries may use very little electricity for cooling, while Southern European countries may use considerably more. The following chart represents the national average:
If you live in a temperate area, then this chart may be a relatively representative of your energy use at home. However, high temperatures can easily push cooling past the 50% point. Cold does not tend to have the same affect, since most homes in colder areas do not use electricity for heating. For homes in colder areas, heating is often more than 50% of total energy, although when the electric generating losses are factored in, it is rarely more than 30% of the total effective energy.
Commercial use of energy is similar to that of residential in that it also is strongly influenced by temperature. In southern states, air conditioning may be the largest energy use in a commercial building. However, the following is represents the national average and is also a good reflection of the temperate areas:
Industrial Energy Use: I’m still working on the industrial use of energy and electricity. That one turns out to be even more difficult than the others.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_generation http://www.fypower.org/about/faq.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/consumptionbriefs/cbecs/pbawebsite/office/office_howuseelec.htm http://www.gulfcoastchp.org/Markets/Commercial/OfficeBuildings http://www.eia.doe.gov/ http://pewclimate.org/ All charts are original except for the electrical sources one which is from Wikipedia and the above mentioned DOE chart.
Disclaimer:
The data presented here is not guaranteed acurate and should not be cited for research. No, that doesn’t mean I made it up. However, it does mean that I did not do the intensive verification and sourcing which would be necessary to present this kind of data with 100% certainty. So in other words, don’t go thinking you can use this to make a policy decision and then turn around and sue me because I rounded off a number by a few tenths of a percent. These numbers represent avaliable data for the most recent time periods of reliable reporting and do contain values which have been estimated based on avaliable information
This entry was posted on Friday, February 8th, 2008 at 3:32 pm and is filed under Enviornment, Good Science, Misc, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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February 8th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Well, you damn seperationist American, can’t you see there’s more to the world. I happen to live in Turkey, but I summer in Spain and I am originally from Sri Lanka. Most of my family now lives in Panama but I will soon be moving Batswana.
I require you to give me the equal data for these countries as soon as possible. Oh, and also, don’t leave out industry. I want a complete breakdown by end use, fuel and fuel for each end use. Also end use for each fuel. I need losses as well. And historical data on how it’s changed.
So how long till you can have that up?
(just kidding)
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February 8th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
A lot of data up there. Should make for interesting analysis.
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February 8th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
If the US uses petroleum for things other than transport that should be cut down as soon as possible. It’s too valuable for that. Power generation should stop immediately. I understand it’s used for peak, but that still needs to end. The only justifiable use for power is standby or remote generation. Heating of homes? Damn I don’t know. How hard would it be to replace that? And do we have enough gas to do that? Also, what does “Industrial use” constitute? I suppose it has to be used for things like petro-chemical but if it’s used for process heat or something that should stop asap. Cut down oil use by up to a third from non-transport would help a lot.
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February 8th, 2008 at 6:59 pm
Does your analysis of greenhouse gas emissions include water vapor?
Water vapor is a huge component of the burning of hydrocarbons, and water vapor is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
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February 8th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
No it does not. Actually i’ve been wondering a lot about water vapor and the role as a greenhouse gas. Burning does not increase the amount of water on earth signifficantly but it may increase water vapor. However, it’s quite small compared to other activities. Irrigation and water diversion by canals and dams has a much larger total effect on the evaporation rate.
Water vapor does keep heat in, but clouds (microdroplets of water) reflect the sun.
I’m not sure what the net change is, but any info would be appreciated.
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February 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
More importantly, the amount of water vapor in the air is mostly determined by what temperature the oceans are, so raising the temperature increases the water vapor & then the water vapor makes a further increase in temperature (but increased cloudiness reduces that increase). The *relative* humidity stays nearly constant.
See: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/04/water-vapour-feedback-or-forcing/langswitch_lang/sw
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February 9th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
I seem to remember a Science News article about cloud generation over the ocean (pacific). It turns out it was being driven by the giant floating kelp beds that were generating clouds over the oceans. They had satellite pictures showing the wakes of the giant container ships cutting reverse contrails through the clouds.
Think those beds have been cut to shreds by the shipping in from Asia by now.
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April 10th, 2011 at 8:56 am
Remember the anti-car site which I referenced here?
Well, there was another post on that blog called “A Bazillion Windmills“, where he made the argument that those Americans who live “off grid” consume only 10% as much electrical energy as the general population, which is about the same as the amount of electrical energy already generated from renewables (including hydro).
One obvious howler in his argument that we already have enough renewable energy capacity (and more than enough if you add nuclear as well) is that he only took into account residential usage, and not industrial and commercial uses where large savings are much harder to achieve, but I was wondering what the readership here thinks of this article…
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April 10th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Ultimately the problem is that most of the population simply will not accept the reduction in standard of living that requires (many of the people who are off the grid are ideologues who are willing to make sacrifices normal people just won’t make).
I wouldn’t be all that surprised if most of those off the grid houses have a bunch of propane tanks out the back to run the stove along with a bunch of firewood stockpiled.
Though industrial and commercial users are a much bigger problem for the energy efficiency fanatics.
Still, looking through the rest of what that guy wrote (instead of just what you quoted) he might be open to reason about whether the general public would be willing to live with that little energy.
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April 10th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
I think that Nathan Lewis probably believes a low-energy future is inevitable (albeit somewhat mitigated by nuclear power), and is trying to make the case that a low-energy future isn’t as bad as many people (both doomers on the one hand, and the typical Depleted Cranium reader on the other
) would make it out to be.
Some of the other articles on his blog, such as The Future Stinks (he’s talking about The Future as depicted in science fiction, rather than the real future), Let’s Take A Trip to New York City, and What Comes After Heroic Materialism? are attacks on the aesthetics of industrial society.
He makes the point that the Heroic Materialist aesthetic of industrial society is a very macho one (perhaps that’s why currently men are more pro-nuclear than women). On your Wishing You A High Energy Future page (which in my view is pretty much textbook Heroic Materialism), I looked at the sequence of images after your line:
(Note. Some of these images are real. Others are conceptual. All are entirely possible with enough energy)
the first 7 consecutive images (and some of the later ones) were of big machines that go fast — “boys’ toys” in other words. The 20th century variant of Heroic Materialism was largely defined by its love of speed.
Another interesting article by Nathan is Let’s Kick Around the Sustainability Types, which attacks the back-to-the-land predilections of many Green types, and argues that the most truly environmentally-friendly way of life is to live in a densely populated city (largely because it eliminates the need to own and drive a car).
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September 24th, 2011 at 2:06 pm
Anon said:
Indeed, you can’t really do heating with wind and/or solar power alone.
But even in the field of electricity, I wonder what percentage of off-gridders have a backup generator running on some non-renewable energy source (most likely an internal combustion engine using petroleum-based fuel)…
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September 25th, 2011 at 2:58 am
George Carty said:
You could probably get by with a large solar concentrator for heating (and solar hot water actually does make a lot of sense).
George Carty said:
Probably a very high percentage of them (of course a lot of the people who aren’t connected to the grid are off the grid because they live in a place too remote to have a transmission line, not because they have any problem with the power grid although even the most of people who are doing it for ideological reasons probably have that kind of backup).
The otherpower people (who are pretty close to being the experts on this topic) certainly seem to use fossil fuels.
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September 26th, 2011 at 7:51 am
Anon said:
Oops, of course. I should have read the earlier post properly, when it said the propane tanks would be for [i]cooking[/i].
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