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from the you-can-almost-hear-the-juice-being-sucked-down-the-wires dept.
Gizmodo has a story showing just how much energy the US is consuming:
In 2012, American homes consumed 3.65 billion kilowatthours (kWh) worth of electricity up from 720 million kWh in 1950 - more than double per household than our British counterparts, and second only to China. How did the American home become such an energy hog, despite so many advances in efficient appliances and construction? Blame the American Dream. That 3.65 billion kWh is just part of America's total annual energy consumption, but it is overwhelmingly employed by the residential and commercial sectors. According the the US Department of Energy, the residential sector alone consumes 37 percent of the total electricity production that's an average annual consumption of 10,837 kWh, or 903 kWh monthly. Louisiana residents consumed the most electricity in 2012 with 15,046 kWh, while Maine consumed the least, just 6,367 kWh, though this is due partly to LA's ubiquitous electrically-driven A/C units and Maine's opposing reliance on heating oil.
(Score: 5, Informative) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @01:40AM
I'm not so sure those numbers are using consistent denominators or time periods.
The US being double the UK can be explained by average residence size, where the US average residence is more than twice the size as the average UK home./ 2013/04/Percapita.gif [shrinkthatfootprint.com]
See: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads
But why then is the US per household usage less than China? Their average residence size is just over a quarter as big as the US average, and yet they use more electricity than the US? This seems unlikely. China doesn't have the transmission grid to support that. I suspect total production crept into the summary in place of per-household usage.
Somewhere the reference base shifted.
Further, when you count the number of residences in the US, and compare that to the amount of commercial space and manufacturing space, you will see that the residential space is vastly larger than the other two combined. Yet it only uses 37% of the electrical production? Sounds good to me!
And, while focusing on the doom and gloom, TFA fails to notice that the average usage of US homes is dropping every year [eia.gov], even as homes get bigger.
In short, it seems rather easy to make the case, that home use of Electricity isn't the problem, and significant improvement in energy efficiency over the years is first seen in the home.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khchung on Monday April 21 2014, @01:52AM
Because it was NOT, the sentence was either deliberately misleading, or the editor was not doing his job editing, or they were pulling numbers out of their asses.
The US per household usage is 8 times that of China, even with the fact that China being 5x more populous, you still won't get a total with China using more!
Only if you compare the TOTAL consumption (i.e. including industrial use), would you get China using more than American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by _electricity_consumption).
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Clev on Monday April 21 2014, @02:46AM
The punitive electricity pricing doesn't help, at least in California. Businesses pay about 10 cents per kWh regardless of how much they use. Residences, on the other hand, get a fixed allotment without regard to family size or house size. That allotment starts at "only" 13 cents/kWh and quickly escalates to 31 cents/kWh.
Meanwhile, ag pays 3 cents/kWh for irrigation pumping stations and cities pay less than 2 cents/kWh for street lighting.
(Score: 1) by GmanTerry on Tuesday April 22 2014, @07:19AM
I'm retired from the U.S. Dept of Energy and also from the largest Electric Utility in the State. I live in Arizona. In 1950 there was no A/C here. People had swamp coolers (evaporative coolers). Houses were smaller and we frequently slept outside at night because it was cooler. Now, houses are larger and have A/C. People want to escape the heat during the summer so they spend more time indoors. For example today April 22, it reached 98 degrees. With the thermal lag of the house, the interior temperature will exceed 85 degrees at 8PM. The outside temperature didn't drop below 80 degrees until 10 PM. Working people are usually in bed before that. Therefore in the middle of April people have their A/C units cranked up. That's about 3.5 KWH until for about two hours to bring a 1500 square foot house down to 77 degrees. I know because that's what I did tonight. That's a lot more electricity than the zero we were using in 1950. This isn't rocket science it modern reality and technology.
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday April 21 2014, @09:20AM
US houses being twice the size of UK houses doesn't account for using twice as much energy. Average occupancy is similar and just because a house is bigger doesn't mean it needs 2x as many TVs or refrigerators. A reasonably well insulated house doesn't need heating and cooling to scale linearly with size either.
It's good that domestic consumption is dropping in the US, and also unsurprising as appliances get more efficient. It's still like saying "well, I pissed in the pool a bit less this year, so good for me" though.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @04:53PM
A larger house, even a well insulated one, DOES indeed use much more heating and cooling. Talk to an HVAC engineer, he will set you straight in about two seconds flat. Volume is the very FIRST term in their equations.
Further, larger houses mean more TVs, computers, one for every room, instead of one for the entire family in the living room. Each room needs lighting. Light is very volume dependent.
As the graphic I posted indicates, US residences are MORE than twice as big. US has 2.6 persons per household, the UK 2.3.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Monday April 21 2014, @06:22PM
The amount of cooling needed is determined by the surfaces leaking heat to the outside. That is basic physics.
Having all that equipment in every room while there are no more residents is indicative of the real problem: americans just waste to much.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @07:05PM
There are more residents. (The difference between 2.3 and 2.6 per household is quite significant, especially when you take into account the number of people living alone and empty nesters.)
And you leap to conclusions about waste, and are quick to blame Americans for waste, (which I suggest was your intent all along) while totally ignoring the facts of latitude.
Do look at a map sometime and notice that all of the UK is further north than all of the US, except Alaska. Air conditioning systems almost always use electricity.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by pe1rxq on Monday April 21 2014, @09:28PM
And you are ignoring the facts of climate.
Although the UK may be a bit higher on the globe it actually has quite a nice climate thanks to the gulf stream.
Besides you can subsitute pretty much any country in Europe (some of them quite hot) for the UK and the comparison is still an embarassment.
0.3 persons and latitude is the best you can do?
(Score: 2) by mojo chan on Monday April 21 2014, @08:19PM
Of course larger houses need more heating and cooling, but my point was that it doesn't scale linearly with interior volume. Maybe it's normal in the US to turn the lights on in every room, turn on all your TVs so you don't miss a second of the adverts as you walk to the bathroom, power up a load of computers for no reason... No matter how you try to spin it, the US uses far more energy per person.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @08:34PM
First, the gif I posted ( http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2013/04/Percapita.gif [shrinkthatfootprint.com] ) was square meters of floor space. It wasn't volume.
In warm climates you tend to have higher ceilings. Greater volume. All of that air has to be cooled by air conditioning.
And again you prefer to cast aspersions rather than look at a map.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Monday April 21 2014, @04:01PM
Another reason will be that in the UK, domestic AC is very rare.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday April 21 2014, @04:57PM
Yup, and a glance at the globe of the world will tell you why.
The whole article made nonsense comparisons.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.