US Energy Consumption

Ezra Klein:

Julio Friedman considers why it’s so hard to talk about energy:

Energy is the largest economic activity on earth (much larger than agriculture) and the industry with the highest capitalization (much higher than car manufacturing). Energy units are confusing (megawatts, kilowatt-hours, tons of carbon, CO2 equivalents, BTUs and Gigajoules), but the scale of the system makes these units even more remote (terawatt-hours, exajoules, gigatons, quadrillion BTUs). This makes it hard to bring the discussion home — the discussion starts in a rarified, almost other-worldly place.


Let’s talk gigatons — one billion tons. Every year, human activity emits about 35 gigatons of CO2 (the most important greenhouse gas). Of that, 85% comes from fossil fuel burning. To a lot of people, that doesn’t mean much — who goes to the store and buys a gigaton of carrots? For a sense of perspective, a gigaton is about twice the mass of all people on earth, so 35 gigatons is about 70 times the weight of humanity. Every year, humans put that in the atmosphere, and 85% of that is power. Large actions, across whole nations and whole economies, are required to move the needle.

Two things amaze me.  One is the 35 billion tons of CO2 in human activity, 85% which is fossil fuel burning.  That is why I think global warming is real and man-made.  The other is how inefficient the electric generation and transmission systems and the transportation system actually are.  42% overall efficiency.  Damn you, laws of thermodynamics.