Washington's Blog highlights one of my core beliefs, that smaller, more disparate generating stations are needed. If only we could get some safe, small, easy to use and clean plants which could power a town or a county, and cut down on the transmission losses, we wouldn't need to generate as much power. As his post lays it out:
America uses 39.97 quads of energy, while it wastes 54.64 quads (i.e. "rejected energy").Ouch, that is brutal.
As CNET noted in 2007:
Sixty-two percent of the energy consumed in America today is lost through transmission and general inefficiency. In other words, it doesn't go toward running your car or keeping your lights on.Put another way:
- We waste 650% more energy than all of our nuclear power plants produce
- We waste 280% more energy than we produce by coal
The Department of Energy notes:
- We waste 150% more energy than we generate with other petroleum products
Only about 15% of the energy from the fuel you put in your tank gets used to move your car down the road or run useful accessories, such as air conditioning. The rest of the energy is lost to engine and driveline inefficiencies and idling. Therefore, the potential to improve fuel efficiency with advanced technologies is enormous.According to the DOE, California lost 6.8% of the total amount of electricity used in the state in 2008 through transmission line inefficiencies and losses.The National Academies Press notes:
By the time energy is delivered to us in a usable form, it has typically undergone several conversions. Every time energy changes forms, some portion is “lost.” It doesn't disappear, of course. In nature, energy is always conserved. That is, there is exactly as much of it around after something happens as there was before. But with each change, some amount of the original energy turns into forms we don't want or can't use, typically as so-called waste heat that is so diffuse it can't be captured.
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