An Energy Diet for a Healthy Planet–Part II
How do we get to 100 kwh/person/day, and where are we now?
I’ve written before about how efficiency is not the enemy of resiliency and the benefits of going all-electric. In Part I, I mentioned a few ways to cut our energy diet from 230 kwh /person/day to 100 kwh/person/day. I also pointed out that 56 kwh/person/day of our energy consumption is lost as waste heat in thermal generation of electricity. (One of the reasons Denmark is so energy-efficient is that they use cogeneration and district energy systems to turn this waste heat into heat for homes and commercial buildings.)
This means just converting our electrical generation to solar, wind and hydro, which have no heat losses, will give us a big jump in reducing our energy consumption. Solar and wind are also not 100% efficient in turning potential energy into electricity, but the sun shines and the wind blows whether we turn it into kilowatt-hours or not, so there’s no waste. Whereas the coal, natural gas, oil and uranium that turn into unused heat are gone forever, not to mention all the polluting by-products.
These thermal energy losses in electricity generation are part of the reason Wyoming and Montana are such energy guzzlers. Both states burn coal to create electricity, far more than their state consumes. They then export this electricity to other states. However, the heat losses (2/3rds!) involved in this electricity generation are still part of their state’s consumption. This is also a factor in why energy consumption in California, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island is as low as it is. These states import a lot of their electricity but aren’t apportioned the associated waste heat losses because the fuel wasn’t burned in their state. (Note: there’s no point saying you’re importing “green” energy if the state you’re importing it from is burning coal or natural gas to provide for their own electricity needs.)
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