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American energy use

118 points by yread 10y ago

yread 10y ago
The diagram itself https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2016_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... But I believe the blog adds useful context (starting with the quads)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- adolph 10y ago
  The chart type is known as Sankey: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram https://bost.ocks.org/mike/sankey/ https://bost.ocks.org/mike/sankey/
  - cwal37 10y ago
    Super fun diagrams. I interned at LLNL at one point and did a little work with some Sankey variants visualizing energy and resource flows in urban environments[1]. I think I still have the code lying around somewhere, I'd love to return to it someday. People at the lab who were aware of them were uniformly pretty proud of those main energy figures. I had multiple old hands approach me at the poster presentation who were really enamored of the design, one fellow actually said he thought it was the best figure the lab produced. Of course, I was a pretty dumb grad student and wasn't totally sure what I was doing, so mine don't have the polish of the official ones. They were fun to work on though. [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/albums/72157634234830818 https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/albums/7215763423...
revelation 10y ago
What is the exact criteria by which energy ends up as rejected? That seems very difficult to define and I'm afraid this "America is so inefficient" rant is some misunderstanding of what is an imperfect measure.
- ac29 10y ago
  Things like transmission system losses (for electricity) and ICE efficiency (for vehicles, only about 20% of the energy in fuels is converted to useful things like motion). More or less rejected means "lost as heat before we can do something useful with it".
  - revelation 10y ago
    Sure, but where do we stop? At the customers electricity socket? Behind all power supplies, but before the specific device? Computers will turn essentially all power entering them into heat. But then by that measure we can never make an efficient computer but would have to look at something like flops/W to give us actionable information. What is a measure we can apply consistently to computers and cars and get actionable information?
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Reports such as this address the energy provisioning system: generation and distribution. What happens "past the meter" is a consumption question. Generally.
- diafygi 10y ago
  Whenever you burn something to do work, you are limited by a principle in thermodynamics called the Carnot cycle[1]. It basically says that converting heat to work has a maximum efficiency (depending on the situation). So the rejected energy in this sankey diagram is partly just the consequence of the thermodynamic efficiency limits of the situations. Also, since there are always heat and resistance losses (the real world is not a frictionless surface), the efficiency of converting energy into work is further decreased. All in all, we're actually pretty good at covering heat into energy. The rejected energy here is simply a consequence of the situation and thermodynamics. For other situations that don't involve heat-to-work, such as wind and photovoltaics, the Carnot cycle doesn't apply, and you can have much less rejected energy. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle
evdev 10y ago
When I first saw this, the concept of "rejected energy" from the pink boxes seemed to need some explanation. From the outside view, nothing is "wasted"--there's just the cost and benefit. You compare alternate sources and alternate uses this way. Losses don't really mean anything unless they are comparative, and the only thing that matters is the ultimate value of the work, not what you would get if you ran a science experiment to figure out the joules. Even the losses in electrical transmission don't really mean anything unless compared to an alternative, which will have its own losses, and which can't really be compared kWh but instead relative cost. Someone can correct me if I'm off-base.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Where energy generation is tied to some evil (ie c02 emmissions) then any energy not harvested, or lost in transit to users, is waste regardless of the financials. Even where no alternative exists, the waste lable is appropriate as a description of an area ripe for innovation and improvement.
- olau 10y ago
  Yes, all else being equal, cost is the only thing that matters. But often all else is not entirely equal, and then an analysis like this may be helpful. For instance, if you look at the transportation sector, you don't actually need to supplant all the energy there, only the actually useful part. And batteries + an electric motor is in fact much more efficient than gasoline + an internal combustion engine.
- cjensen 10y ago
  Losses mean something because they demonstrate the efficiency of a particular conversion, and demonstrate the overall size of the inefficiency compared to other problems in the system. Two quick examples: (1) LED light vs incandecent where incandescent's rejected energy is waste heat (2) Natural gas used to heat a house versus natural gas used to generate electricity to run an electric home heater. The direct use rejects far less heat. This is information that can lead to policy. If you see a lot of waste in a particular path that could be substituted with a different path, policy could be used to encourage the more efficient path. For example, due to abundant hydroelectric energy, the Northwest US used to use a lot of electric heating. Once hydro no longer met demand, the government had a commercial campaign to educate consumers about how they could save money by switching to gas.
dimitar 10y ago
Contrary to what the article claims ("Transportation is a huge, looming, and almost entirely unsolved climate problem") transportation can be a solved problem. If you notice one of the graphs while transportation is the top emitter hasn't increased much since 2005 and it is very sensitive to oil prices. Carbon taxes or excise taxes on fuel are the solution. They are endorsed by most economists (often in addition to emissions trading). Taxes must be imposed on emitting greenhouse gasses or at least on purchasing fuels; in addition a cap must be placed on the total amount of emissions. If you are libertarian and you feel like there are too many taxes already - the carbon tax can either substitute other taxes or the revenue from it can be returned to tax-payers in some form. Vox itself recently had an article about carbon taxes in California, it includes a part where the collected revenue is then redistributed back to citizens: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/5/3/15512258/california-revolutionize-cap-and-trade https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/5/3/15512258...
- OneOneOneOne 10y ago
  > the carbon tax can either substitute other taxes or the revenue from it can be returned to tax-payers in some form I would be surprised if carbon tax payments offset some other taxes.
  - davidw 10y ago
    They're simply saying that in terms of tax policy you can do something like: * Carbon tax forecast for X billion in revenue. * Let's knock X billion off of income taxes (or whatever else you want). This is what Washington State tried, although the measure was sadly opposed by "environmentalist" groups like the Sierra Club.
    - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
      Technically, they didn't oppose it, but they didn't support it either, as members had mixed feelings about the approach, which I'll paraphrase as it partly being a disguised tax cut for the wealthy rather than a revenue neutral carbon fee. http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-carbon-washington-ballot-initiative-732 http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-ca... I personally support offsetting carbon taxes against other taxes, but since it would be regressive, I'd lean towards mitigating that in whatever compensatory tax cuts were introduced.
hodgesrm 10y ago
Phenomenal pictures! The article makes the point that we could save a lot of energy by designing less wasteful systems. Does anyone know of general numbers on the practical efficiency of particular energy generation mechanisms as well as the consuming apps? It's obviously a lot less than the thermodynamic limits. David MacKay's wonderful 'Without Hot Air' [1] has some numbers but it's hard to relate them directly to the LLNL diagrams. [1] https://www.withouthotair.com/c22/page_155.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c22/page_155.shtml, for example.
- olau 10y ago
  On the power plants side, it's about costs. I don't think it makes sense to compare different plant types. But you could take solar as an example - is it better to use up twice as much roof space/desert if the overall design is cheaper that way? Probably. Yet, all else being equal, the more efficient design is of course preferable, less stuff to install, less material usage, so technological advances tends to push for higher efficiency, I think. On the consumer side, just look up the efficiency in what interests you. It should be easy enough to find numbers online. If you're in the EU, most household appliances have a mandatory rating from G to A, with the least efficient appliances having a disturbing red G, while the best have a nice green A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label As you can see in the example in Wikipedia, the differences between the ratings are significant. When this thing started, you could buy a G fridge - I think those may have been the norm. I looked up an internet dealer right now, and the lowest rating I could find for sale is A+, with A++ being the norm. In a year or two, A+++ is probably the norm. It has worked like the MHz wars on PC, amazing really. As long as there's competition and someone puts energy efficiency in the spotlight, things can actually change.
cowardlydragon 10y ago
33% efficiency? Does that include generation heat loss / Carnot inefficiencies, or is that transmission and idle generator/engines?
deleted 10y ago
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the_gastropod 10y ago
It's weird how infrequently Agriculture is ever mentioned when talking about CO2 emissions. Transportation is _always_ brought up, but agriculture (which is responsible for significantly more greenhouse gas emissions) is conveniently left out.
- philipkglass 10y ago
  According to the EPA, as of 2015 agriculture is responsible for 9% of American GHG emissions and transportation is 27%. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Maybe you're thinking of the global level, where agriculture is comparable to transportation and the IPCC grouping "agriculture, forestry, and other land use" (AFOLU) is greater: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_technical-summary.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a... I would venture that the reason that latter figure doesn't come up much in American policy discussions is because American policies can do a lot more about American transportation emissions than American policies can do about foreign agriculture or deforestation.
  - the_gastropod 10y ago
    Yea, I was thinking of the global level. Focusing on US policy is a fair point. There are definitely things the US can do to address deforestation internationally, but maybe it's a more difficult task than focusing on domestic transportation.
  - podiki 10y ago
    The US also imports quite a bit of food (I'm not finding a definitive figure right now, but seeing 15% in several places), so that complicates the calculation a bit. Also, you'd want to see a breakdown of how much transportation comes from agricultural activities as well, to get a better idea of the full picture. Still, agriculture is a big player no matter how you cut it, and your own eating habits are a lot easier to control than overall policy or law changes (and probably even your transportation, given the strong need for cars).
fulafel 10y ago
Was expecting to see American energy use compared to other countries. It's not a pretty picture per capita.
- moneytalks 10y ago
  Yeah, you have to feel bad for those countries where the average person can't afford to keep the lights on on. Not pretty at all.
  - fulafel 10y ago
    I'm not sure if you're trolling, but countries like Germany and Japan are at nearly half the US figure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...
- llsf 10y ago
  Iceland is the world champion when it comes to energy consumption per capita. And at the same time, Iceland has 100% clean energy (geothermal and hydro). That is why Icelanders keep their windows open, and why the country is trying to attract aluminium industry (very energy hungry). I still wish that US would promote better standard when it comes to thermal insulation, water preservation, etc. I recently visited Las Vegas, and the whole city could be case study (from freezing AC'ed hotels/casinos/cars, to law being watered during the day).
  - antisthenes 10y ago
    It definitely does not have 100% clean energy. They import petrol for cars at the very least.
    - badosu 10y ago
      I think parent was referring to electricity energy consumption. It is true that this is a fraction of total energy use, but this lays the groundwork for reaching clean energy for transportation, specially if Iceland follows on Norway's trend for electric vehicle usage (29% market share for 2016, Iceland's on 4.6%).
philipkglass 10y ago
I think that the LLNL methodology has changed over time. That, rather than "we've become so much more inefficient," seems a more plausible explanation for changes in useful/rejected energy since 1970. I was recently reviewing the recent LLNL charts. It seems impossible that 2011 and 2016 are using the same methodology: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2011_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2016_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... They both show 97.3 quads of primary energy use, but in 2011 the chart shows 41.7 quads going to energy services while that dropped to 30.8 in 2016. The US use of energy lost over 25% efficiency in just 5 years? While keeping primary energy use totally flat? The only way to make that work, mathematically, is if people are reducing their use of energy services and preferring inefficient ones for their remaining use. I return to a simpler explanation: the chart methodology for identifying rejected energy and energy services has changed, so you can't compare two arbitrary charts. I wish they would keep the original charts around but also produce a time series showing each year's results with the latest methodology. EDIT: the 2015 chart seems to be the one that introduced new methods; compare to 2014. There's a big shift in just one year.
- Retric 10y ago
  Just to add the methodology is rather flexible as for example passive solar heating is ignored.
r00fus 10y ago
At some point one has to do some regression analysis, and wonder - if there's money to be made in being more efficient, why has this efficiency virtious circle not happened - and come to a rational conclusion. The petroleum industry has complete dominance over government policy to the point where we go to war. The Petrodollar and world reserve currency status is a mighty powerful incentive to stay dirty.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  A few points: 1. The Jevons paradox. Increased efficiency, by itself increases utilisation of a resource. If you want to reduce consumption, you need to INCREASE costs. In the context of fossil fuels, this means carbon and other taxes, generally. 2. Efficiency gains are typically overestimated and underrealised. More generally, more efficient systems tend to require tighter integration and coordination. 3. Much efficiency within the US has to do with basic infrastructure and land use. Housing, commercial, and industrial building design. Land use, more than anything else, which drives transportation patterns. Appliance design, education, and more. 4. Le Chatlier's Principle probably also applies (and the Jevons Paradox may well be a special case / instance of this). Changes to a system in one direction tend to lead to compensatory response in the opposite. 5. Many efficiency technologies or adaptations are not themselves highly lucrative, or have greater costs than the apparent economic benefits. On that last: Proper tyre inflation and regular tune-ups. The first ... simply has to be done regularly. Tune-ups are pricy relative to energy savings. Replacing incandescent lights with LED (Do this!!!). Start with high-use fixtures. Proper insulation (easy) and weatherproofing (harder) of homes and building. Increasing ceiling insulation makes a tremendous difference. Blocking and stopping drafts and other leackages is much more intensive, and is often hampered by poor initial construction and standards. Wrapping water and HVAC pipes and conduits. Thermal loss within the structure from water and space heating/cooling is another easy win. Understanding your home's energy-use cycles and dependencies. In cold-weather climates, thermal stratification and hot/cold zones within the structure often lead to overheating (or cooling). Increasing insulation efficiency may exacerbate this as blower fans run for shorter periods of time, and hence mix interior air less completely. Counterintuitively, having high-efficiency, low-speed fans within rooms to mix floor and ceiling air, or running central blowers for longer periods of time, even when heating or cooling aren't being applied, may significantly increase overall comfort.
falseEconomy 10y ago
For a global view, projected for 2050, take a look at this tool from the UK government and others: http://tool.globalcalculator.org http://tool.globalcalculator.org Select Energy (at the top) -> Sankey (on the left) and optionally apply policy scenarios.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  The IEA has a drill-down / interactive Sankey diagram for all countries: https://www.iea.org/sankey/ https://www.iea.org/sankey/
wefarrell 10y ago
I'm assuming they aren't counting mass transit as transportation because there is no link between electricity and transportation. As a resident of NYC the bulk of my transportation is powered by electricity. All of the subways, buses, and commuter rail are electric.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Total electrical energy use in transportation is minuscule. All energy other than petroleum, natural gas, and biofuels, is 3%. https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transportationg https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transpor...
  - wefarrell 10y ago
    You're right, it is in the visualization but it's so minuscule I didn't see it. I guess it's just so efficient relative to the other sources.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      That's a paradox of efficient or effective practices: they can simply fall out of measurements. GDP is notorious for this.
dredmorbius 10y ago
This report is on the US DoE and Lawrence Livermore National Labs "energy flow" Sankey diagrams, released annually. This is a modelling estimate of provisioned (rather than passive) energy generation, distribution, and utilisation. It doesn't address end-use efficiency, particularly in electrical, heating, and cooling appications. For similar worldwide usage patterns, see the IEA's (International Energy Associaton) Sankey chart: https://www.iea.org/sankey/ https://www.iea.org/sankey/ David Roberts makes a large point about decreasing efficiency of US energy use since the 1970s. This may be somewhat misleading as the chart is based on overall statistics (fuel imports and production, power-plant generation statistics) and engineering models of processes, rather than direct measurements. As models change, estimates of wasted energy may also increase. I'd pay more attention to the input side, and overall usage, where the story becomes more interesting. In particular, renewable sources such as wind and solar are now being broken out individually, a major change from earlier years (though this has been happening in recent years as I recall). If you look at overall energy usage trends (not immediately apparent from the Sankey diagrams), what's most telling particularly since the 1970s is how the current usage of energy is declining relative to earlier projections. This is mostly good news. If you're interested in making sense of the numbers, or converting them to different forms, I highly recommend the GNU units utility. This is a units-aware console calculator, with some very useful and underappreciated capabilities, including the ability to conver between, say BTUs and the equivalent solar panel area you'd need to provide the same energy: You have: 100 quadrillion btu / (1 kW/meter^2 * 0.2 * .3 * 365 days) You want: km^2 * 55759.336 / 1.7934216e-05 That is: the solar-cell equivalent of 100 Quads of energy would require 55,760 square kilometers of solar panels, a region about 236 km on a side. This is available on Linux, OSX (via homebrew), and Windows (via Cygwin). Note that OSX includes the BSD Units utility, which does not have the additional definitions provided by the GNU utility. You can convert quads to TJ, or millions of barrels of oil, or tonnes of coal. You can compute the size of a tank or scuttle, in cubic kilometers, required to deliver this energy. You can estimate how many solar panels, or windmills, or hydro plants, would be necessary to provide the same energy. You can estimate cropland and biofuel equivalents (this ... doesn't look promising given present energy use). More mash-notes on GNU Units here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1x9u0f/gnu_units_utility_and_energy_resource_calculations/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1x9u0f/gnu_uni...

118 points by yread 10y ago

yread 10y ago

The diagram itself https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2016_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... But I believe the blog adds useful context (starting with the quads)

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
adolph 10y ago
The chart type is known as Sankey: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankey_diagram https://bost.ocks.org/mike/sankey/ https://bost.ocks.org/mike/sankey/
- cwal37 10y ago
  Super fun diagrams. I interned at LLNL at one point and did a little work with some Sankey variants visualizing energy and resource flows in urban environments[1]. I think I still have the code lying around somewhere, I'd love to return to it someday. People at the lab who were aware of them were uniformly pretty proud of those main energy figures. I had multiple old hands approach me at the poster presentation who were really enamored of the design, one fellow actually said he thought it was the best figure the lab produced. Of course, I was a pretty dumb grad student and wasn't totally sure what I was doing, so mine don't have the polish of the official ones. They were fun to work on though. [1] https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/albums/72157634234830818 https://www.flickr.com/photos/23215983@N02/albums/7215763423...

revelation 10y ago

What is the exact criteria by which energy ends up as rejected? That seems very difficult to define and I'm afraid this "America is so inefficient" rant is some misunderstanding of what is an imperfect measure.

ac29 10y ago
Things like transmission system losses (for electricity) and ICE efficiency (for vehicles, only about 20% of the energy in fuels is converted to useful things like motion). More or less rejected means "lost as heat before we can do something useful with it".
- revelation 10y ago
  Sure, but where do we stop? At the customers electricity socket? Behind all power supplies, but before the specific device? Computers will turn essentially all power entering them into heat. But then by that measure we can never make an efficient computer but would have to look at something like flops/W to give us actionable information. What is a measure we can apply consistently to computers and cars and get actionable information?
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Reports such as this address the energy provisioning system: generation and distribution. What happens "past the meter" is a consumption question. Generally.
diafygi 10y ago
Whenever you burn something to do work, you are limited by a principle in thermodynamics called the Carnot cycle[1]. It basically says that converting heat to work has a maximum efficiency (depending on the situation). So the rejected energy in this sankey diagram is partly just the consequence of the thermodynamic efficiency limits of the situations. Also, since there are always heat and resistance losses (the real world is not a frictionless surface), the efficiency of converting energy into work is further decreased. All in all, we're actually pretty good at covering heat into energy. The rejected energy here is simply a consequence of the situation and thermodynamics. For other situations that don't involve heat-to-work, such as wind and photovoltaics, the Carnot cycle doesn't apply, and you can have much less rejected energy. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_cycle

evdev 10y ago

When I first saw this, the concept of "rejected energy" from the pink boxes seemed to need some explanation. From the outside view, nothing is "wasted"--there's just the cost and benefit. You compare alternate sources and alternate uses this way. Losses don't really mean anything unless they are comparative, and the only thing that matters is the ultimate value of the work, not what you would get if you ran a science experiment to figure out the joules. Even the losses in electrical transmission don't really mean anything unless compared to an alternative, which will have its own losses, and which can't really be compared kWh but instead relative cost. Someone can correct me if I'm off-base.

sandworm101 10y ago
Where energy generation is tied to some evil (ie c02 emmissions) then any energy not harvested, or lost in transit to users, is waste regardless of the financials. Even where no alternative exists, the waste lable is appropriate as a description of an area ripe for innovation and improvement.
olau 10y ago
Yes, all else being equal, cost is the only thing that matters. But often all else is not entirely equal, and then an analysis like this may be helpful. For instance, if you look at the transportation sector, you don't actually need to supplant all the energy there, only the actually useful part. And batteries + an electric motor is in fact much more efficient than gasoline + an internal combustion engine.
cjensen 10y ago
Losses mean something because they demonstrate the efficiency of a particular conversion, and demonstrate the overall size of the inefficiency compared to other problems in the system. Two quick examples: (1) LED light vs incandecent where incandescent's rejected energy is waste heat (2) Natural gas used to heat a house versus natural gas used to generate electricity to run an electric home heater. The direct use rejects far less heat. This is information that can lead to policy. If you see a lot of waste in a particular path that could be substituted with a different path, policy could be used to encourage the more efficient path. For example, due to abundant hydroelectric energy, the Northwest US used to use a lot of electric heating. Once hydro no longer met demand, the government had a commercial campaign to educate consumers about how they could save money by switching to gas.

dimitar 10y ago

Contrary to what the article claims ("Transportation is a huge, looming, and almost entirely unsolved climate problem") transportation can be a solved problem. If you notice one of the graphs while transportation is the top emitter hasn't increased much since 2005 and it is very sensitive to oil prices. Carbon taxes or excise taxes on fuel are the solution. They are endorsed by most economists (often in addition to emissions trading). Taxes must be imposed on emitting greenhouse gasses or at least on purchasing fuels; in addition a cap must be placed on the total amount of emissions. If you are libertarian and you feel like there are too many taxes already - the carbon tax can either substitute other taxes or the revenue from it can be returned to tax-payers in some form. Vox itself recently had an article about carbon taxes in California, it includes a part where the collected revenue is then redistributed back to citizens: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/5/3/15512258/california-revolutionize-cap-and-trade https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/5/3/15512258...

OneOneOneOne 10y ago
> the carbon tax can either substitute other taxes or the revenue from it can be returned to tax-payers in some form I would be surprised if carbon tax payments offset some other taxes.
- davidw 10y ago
  They're simply saying that in terms of tax policy you can do something like: * Carbon tax forecast for X billion in revenue. * Let's knock X billion off of income taxes (or whatever else you want). This is what Washington State tried, although the measure was sadly opposed by "environmentalist" groups like the Sierra Club.
  - ZeroGravitas 10y ago
    Technically, they didn't oppose it, but they didn't support it either, as members had mixed feelings about the approach, which I'll paraphrase as it partly being a disguised tax cut for the wealthy rather than a revenue neutral carbon fee. http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-carbon-washington-ballot-initiative-732 http://www.sierraclub.org/washington/sierra-club-position-ca... I personally support offsetting carbon taxes against other taxes, but since it would be regressive, I'd lean towards mitigating that in whatever compensatory tax cuts were introduced.

hodgesrm 10y ago

Phenomenal pictures! The article makes the point that we could save a lot of energy by designing less wasteful systems. Does anyone know of general numbers on the practical efficiency of particular energy generation mechanisms as well as the consuming apps? It's obviously a lot less than the thermodynamic limits. David MacKay's wonderful 'Without Hot Air' [1] has some numbers but it's hard to relate them directly to the LLNL diagrams. [1] https://www.withouthotair.com/c22/page_155.shtml https://www.withouthotair.com/c22/page_155.shtml, for example.

olau 10y ago
On the power plants side, it's about costs. I don't think it makes sense to compare different plant types. But you could take solar as an example - is it better to use up twice as much roof space/desert if the overall design is cheaper that way? Probably. Yet, all else being equal, the more efficient design is of course preferable, less stuff to install, less material usage, so technological advances tends to push for higher efficiency, I think. On the consumer side, just look up the efficiency in what interests you. It should be easy enough to find numbers online. If you're in the EU, most household appliances have a mandatory rating from G to A, with the least efficient appliances having a disturbing red G, while the best have a nice green A: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label As you can see in the example in Wikipedia, the differences between the ratings are significant. When this thing started, you could buy a G fridge - I think those may have been the norm. I looked up an internet dealer right now, and the lowest rating I could find for sale is A+, with A++ being the norm. In a year or two, A+++ is probably the norm. It has worked like the MHz wars on PC, amazing really. As long as there's competition and someone puts energy efficiency in the spotlight, things can actually change.

cowardlydragon 10y ago

33% efficiency? Does that include generation heat loss / Carnot inefficiencies, or is that transmission and idle generator/engines?

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

the_gastropod 10y ago

It's weird how infrequently Agriculture is ever mentioned when talking about CO2 emissions. Transportation is _always_ brought up, but agriculture (which is responsible for significantly more greenhouse gas emissions) is conveniently left out.

philipkglass 10y ago
According to the EPA, as of 2015 agriculture is responsible for 9% of American GHG emissions and transportation is 27%. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Maybe you're thinking of the global level, where agriculture is comparable to transportation and the IPCC grouping "agriculture, forestry, and other land use" (AFOLU) is greater: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_ar5_technical-summary.pdf https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg3/ipcc_wg3_a... I would venture that the reason that latter figure doesn't come up much in American policy discussions is because American policies can do a lot more about American transportation emissions than American policies can do about foreign agriculture or deforestation.
- the_gastropod 10y ago
  Yea, I was thinking of the global level. Focusing on US policy is a fair point. There are definitely things the US can do to address deforestation internationally, but maybe it's a more difficult task than focusing on domestic transportation.
- podiki 10y ago
  The US also imports quite a bit of food (I'm not finding a definitive figure right now, but seeing 15% in several places), so that complicates the calculation a bit. Also, you'd want to see a breakdown of how much transportation comes from agricultural activities as well, to get a better idea of the full picture. Still, agriculture is a big player no matter how you cut it, and your own eating habits are a lot easier to control than overall policy or law changes (and probably even your transportation, given the strong need for cars).

fulafel 10y ago

Was expecting to see American energy use compared to other countries. It's not a pretty picture per capita.

moneytalks 10y ago
Yeah, you have to feel bad for those countries where the average person can't afford to keep the lights on on. Not pretty at all.
- fulafel 10y ago
  I'm not sure if you're trolling, but countries like Germany and Japan are at nearly half the US figure: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_co...
llsf 10y ago
Iceland is the world champion when it comes to energy consumption per capita. And at the same time, Iceland has 100% clean energy (geothermal and hydro). That is why Icelanders keep their windows open, and why the country is trying to attract aluminium industry (very energy hungry). I still wish that US would promote better standard when it comes to thermal insulation, water preservation, etc. I recently visited Las Vegas, and the whole city could be case study (from freezing AC'ed hotels/casinos/cars, to law being watered during the day).
- antisthenes 10y ago
  It definitely does not have 100% clean energy. They import petrol for cars at the very least.
  - badosu 10y ago
    I think parent was referring to electricity energy consumption. It is true that this is a fraction of total energy use, but this lays the groundwork for reaching clean energy for transportation, specially if Iceland follows on Norway's trend for electric vehicle usage (29% market share for 2016, Iceland's on 4.6%).

philipkglass 10y ago

I think that the LLNL methodology has changed over time. That, rather than "we've become so much more inefficient," seems a more plausible explanation for changes in useful/rejected energy since 1970. I was recently reviewing the recent LLNL charts. It seems impossible that 2011 and 2016 are using the same methodology: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2011_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Energy/Energy_2016_United-States.png https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/content/assets/images/charts/Ene... They both show 97.3 quads of primary energy use, but in 2011 the chart shows 41.7 quads going to energy services while that dropped to 30.8 in 2016. The US use of energy lost over 25% efficiency in just 5 years? While keeping primary energy use totally flat? The only way to make that work, mathematically, is if people are reducing their use of energy services and preferring inefficient ones for their remaining use. I return to a simpler explanation: the chart methodology for identifying rejected energy and energy services has changed, so you can't compare two arbitrary charts. I wish they would keep the original charts around but also produce a time series showing each year's results with the latest methodology. EDIT: the 2015 chart seems to be the one that introduced new methods; compare to 2014. There's a big shift in just one year.

Retric 10y ago
Just to add the methodology is rather flexible as for example passive solar heating is ignored.

r00fus 10y ago

At some point one has to do some regression analysis, and wonder - if there's money to be made in being more efficient, why has this efficiency virtious circle not happened - and come to a rational conclusion. The petroleum industry has complete dominance over government policy to the point where we go to war. The Petrodollar and world reserve currency status is a mighty powerful incentive to stay dirty.

dredmorbius 10y ago
A few points: 1. The Jevons paradox. Increased efficiency, by itself increases utilisation of a resource. If you want to reduce consumption, you need to INCREASE costs. In the context of fossil fuels, this means carbon and other taxes, generally. 2. Efficiency gains are typically overestimated and underrealised. More generally, more efficient systems tend to require tighter integration and coordination. 3. Much efficiency within the US has to do with basic infrastructure and land use. Housing, commercial, and industrial building design. Land use, more than anything else, which drives transportation patterns. Appliance design, education, and more. 4. Le Chatlier's Principle probably also applies (and the Jevons Paradox may well be a special case / instance of this). Changes to a system in one direction tend to lead to compensatory response in the opposite. 5. Many efficiency technologies or adaptations are not themselves highly lucrative, or have greater costs than the apparent economic benefits. On that last: Proper tyre inflation and regular tune-ups. The first ... simply has to be done regularly. Tune-ups are pricy relative to energy savings. Replacing incandescent lights with LED (Do this!!!). Start with high-use fixtures. Proper insulation (easy) and weatherproofing (harder) of homes and building. Increasing ceiling insulation makes a tremendous difference. Blocking and stopping drafts and other leackages is much more intensive, and is often hampered by poor initial construction and standards. Wrapping water and HVAC pipes and conduits. Thermal loss within the structure from water and space heating/cooling is another easy win. Understanding your home's energy-use cycles and dependencies. In cold-weather climates, thermal stratification and hot/cold zones within the structure often lead to overheating (or cooling). Increasing insulation efficiency may exacerbate this as blower fans run for shorter periods of time, and hence mix interior air less completely. Counterintuitively, having high-efficiency, low-speed fans within rooms to mix floor and ceiling air, or running central blowers for longer periods of time, even when heating or cooling aren't being applied, may significantly increase overall comfort.

falseEconomy 10y ago

For a global view, projected for 2050, take a look at this tool from the UK government and others: http://tool.globalcalculator.org http://tool.globalcalculator.org Select Energy (at the top) -> Sankey (on the left) and optionally apply policy scenarios.

dredmorbius 10y ago
The IEA has a drill-down / interactive Sankey diagram for all countries: https://www.iea.org/sankey/ https://www.iea.org/sankey/

wefarrell 10y ago

I'm assuming they aren't counting mass transit as transportation because there is no link between electricity and transportation. As a resident of NYC the bulk of my transportation is powered by electricity. All of the subways, buses, and commuter rail are electric.

dredmorbius 10y ago
Total electrical energy use in transportation is minuscule. All energy other than petroleum, natural gas, and biofuels, is 3%. https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transportationg https://www.eia.gov/Energyexplained/?page=us_energy_transpor...
- wefarrell 10y ago
  You're right, it is in the visualization but it's so minuscule I didn't see it. I guess it's just so efficient relative to the other sources.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    That's a paradox of efficient or effective practices: they can simply fall out of measurements. GDP is notorious for this.

dredmorbius 10y ago

This report is on the US DoE and Lawrence Livermore National Labs "energy flow" Sankey diagrams, released annually. This is a modelling estimate of provisioned (rather than passive) energy generation, distribution, and utilisation. It doesn't address end-use efficiency, particularly in electrical, heating, and cooling appications. For similar worldwide usage patterns, see the IEA's (International Energy Associaton) Sankey chart: https://www.iea.org/sankey/ https://www.iea.org/sankey/ David Roberts makes a large point about decreasing efficiency of US energy use since the 1970s. This may be somewhat misleading as the chart is based on overall statistics (fuel imports and production, power-plant generation statistics) and engineering models of processes, rather than direct measurements. As models change, estimates of wasted energy may also increase. I'd pay more attention to the input side, and overall usage, where the story becomes more interesting. In particular, renewable sources such as wind and solar are now being broken out individually, a major change from earlier years (though this has been happening in recent years as I recall). If you look at overall energy usage trends (not immediately apparent from the Sankey diagrams), what's most telling particularly since the 1970s is how the current usage of energy is declining relative to earlier projections. This is mostly good news. If you're interested in making sense of the numbers, or converting them to different forms, I highly recommend the GNU units utility. This is a units-aware console calculator, with some very useful and underappreciated capabilities, including the ability to conver between, say BTUs and the equivalent solar panel area you'd need to provide the same energy: You have: 100 quadrillion btu / (1 kW/meter^2 * 0.2 * .3 * 365 days) You want: km^2 * 55759.336 / 1.7934216e-05 That is: the solar-cell equivalent of 100 Quads of energy would require 55,760 square kilometers of solar panels, a region about 236 km on a side. This is available on Linux, OSX (via homebrew), and Windows (via Cygwin). Note that OSX includes the BSD Units utility, which does not have the additional definitions provided by the GNU utility. You can convert quads to TJ, or millions of barrels of oil, or tonnes of coal. You can compute the size of a tank or scuttle, in cubic kilometers, required to deliver this energy. You can estimate how many solar panels, or windmills, or hydro plants, would be necessary to provide the same energy. You can estimate cropland and biofuel equivalents (this ... doesn't look promising given present energy use). More mash-notes on GNU Units here: https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1x9u0f/gnu_units_utility_and_energy_resource_calculations/ https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/1x9u0f/gnu_uni...