US Energy & Carbon Flows

July 28, 2013 9:45 PM

Estimated US Energy Use in 2012: 95.1 Quads - "Energy flow charts show the relative size of primary energy resources and end uses in the United States, with fuels compared on a common energy unit basis." (via)

Estimated US Carbon Dioxide Emission in 2012: 5290 Million Metric Tons (previously)

posted by kliuless (12 comments total)

I was a bit surprised by the size of the biomass input, but then I realized that's because of the fuel ethanol mandate.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 9:49 PM on July 28, 2013

What is "rejected energy"?
posted by Now there are two. There are two _______. at 10:04 PM on July 28, 2013

What is "rejected energy"?

From this forum post:

Rejected energy is energy loss - mainly as heat, and it makes up more than half of all the energy we produce. In the commercial sector, 1.72 Quadrillion Btu's are lost yearly due to inefficiencies.

From this blog post:

Despite the positive growth of energy efficiency and renewables, an enormous amount (more than half) of U.S. generated energy is rejected. Nearly all rejected energy comes from electricity generation and the transportation sector, which still run mostly on coal and petroleum. Improving efficiency of transportation technologies as well as electricity generation and transmission will reduce the amount of rejected energy. Achieving this will further diminish the U.S.’s energy consumption.

posted by bergeycm at 10:13 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

What is "rejected energy"?

Let's leave my marriage out of it. {rimshot}

I was a bit surprised by the size of the biomass input, but then I realized that's because of the fuel ethanol mandate.

I was actually surprised there wasn't a separate accounting for agricultural use of petroleum (i.e. as fertilizer) and how it stacked up, in this chart's terms, against the biomass output (which is according to some roughly equivalent to the petroleum investment, at least when the totality of the creation-extraction-processing-transportation-usage continuum is considered). I suppose technically that's part of "Industrial" but it would be nice to see it broken out.
posted by dhartung at 10:18 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

TIL: A quad is a unit of energy equal to 10^15 (a short-scale quadrillion) BTU, or 1.055 × 10^18 joules (1.055 exajoules or EJ) in SI units.
posted by cosmic.osmo at 10:26 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

tl;dr: we waste more than we use.
posted by double block and bleed at 10:41 PM on July 28, 2013 [3 favorites]

It'd be nice if they could try to estimate the amount of energy inputs in producing the energy itself. In particular my impression is the 4.32 quads of biomass take about 3.5-5 quads of energy to produce.
posted by crayz at 11:56 PM on July 28, 2013 [1 favorite]

I was actually surprised there wasn't a separate accounting for agricultural use of petroleum (i.e. as fertilizer) and how it stacked up, in this chart's terms, against the biomass output

I came in here to say exactly the same thing.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:00 AM on July 29, 2013

5290 Million Metric Tons?

5.29 Billion Tonnes.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:10 AM on July 29, 2013

Bit more info: July 2013 Monthly Energy Review.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 6:23 AM on July 29, 2013

I'm actually surprised that NOBODY directly heats their house with coal anymore, even solar, biomass, and geothermal register some blips, but coal is just gone. I assumed that there were some folks somewhere that hadn't upgraded that million year old furnace!
posted by The 10th Regiment of Foot at 8:09 AM on July 29, 2013

One thing that does stand out about these graphs is the efficiency in which they convey information. The large lines with distinct colors and labels communicate both significance and direction of energy generation & consumption in one image.
It reminds me of the chart of Napolean's failed Russian campaign produced by Charles Joseph Minard.
With the avalanche of information the average human mind receives every hour, it is an ever more difficult task to deliver that data in a compact & useful manner. Methinks everything should be told with graphs & charts...

oh, wait... they already are.
posted by coachfortner at 1:04 PM on July 29, 2013