solarray

From void into vision, from vision to mind, from mind into speech, from speech to the tribe, from the tribe into din.

Saturday, June 07, 2014

It Ain't How Much Energy We Generate, It's How Much We "Reject" (for the USA at least)

Every year, I look at the US annual energy budget chart and figure out a rough percentage of how energy efficient our economy is, the percentages of "useful" and "rejected" energy (the terms Lawrence Livermore National Labs uses).  Recently, I went back and looked at each year from 1991 to 2013 to see what the trends have been.  

Three things stand out: we "reject" or waste over half the energy we produce;  we haven't improved that efficiency over the last 22 or 23 years;  and we have spent the last 15 years or so at an energy plateau between 95 and 100 quadrillion btu's.

At some point, I might take a look at the growth rates of the economy since 1999 till now to get an idea at how US economic production fares under a relatively steady state energy regime.
 
1991 - 81 quads 
                         30.3 useful [37.40%]
                                                         44.4 rejected [54.81%]
1992 - 82 quads 
                         31.6 useful [39.01%]
                                                         44.4 rejected [54.81%]

1993 - 84 quads 
                         31 useful [36.90%]
                                                        46.9 rejected [55.83%]
1994 - 86.25 quads 
                        31.37 useful [36.37%]
                                                        47.67 rejected [55.269%]
1995 - 90.99 quads 
                        34.4057 useful [37.81%]
                                                        49.47 rejected [54.37%]

1996 - 93.83 quads 
                        35.44 useful [37.77%]
                                                         50.99 rejected [54.34%]

1997 - 93.83 quads 
                        35.7327 useful [38.08%]
                                                         51.8455 rejected [55.25%]

1998 - 94.78 quads 
                        34.3109 useful [35.14%]
                                                         52.0351 rejected [54.90%]

1999 - 97 quads 
                        36.8 useful [37.93%]
                                                         53.2 rejected [54.84%]

2000 - 98.5 quads 
                        34.3 useful [34.82%]
                                                         57.8 rejected [58.68%]

2001 - 97 quads 
                        35 useful [36.08%]
                                                         55.9 rejected [57.62%]

2002 - 97.8 quads 
                       42.40 useful [43.35%]
                                                          55.36 rejected [56.60%]

2003 - 98.1 quads 
                       42.65 useful [43.47%]
                                                          55.48 rejected [56.55%]

2004 - 100.2 quads
                         43.43 useful [43.34%]
                                                          56.75 rejected [56.63%]

2005 - 100.4 quads 
                         42.93 useful [42.75%]
                                                          57.47 rejected [57.24%]

2006 - 99.8 quads 
                        42.32 useful [42.40%]
                                                         57.43 rejected [57.54%]

2007 - 101.5 quads 
                         43.04 useful [42.40%]
                                                          58.47 rejected [57.60%]

2008 - 99.2 quads 
                       42.15 useful [42.48%]
                                                        57.07 rejected [57.53%]

2009 - 94.6 quads 
                       39.97 useful [42.25%]
                                                        54.64 rejected [57.75%]

2010 - 98 quads 
                     41.88 useful [42.73%]
                                                      56.13 rejected [57.27%]

2011 - 97.3 quads 
                       41.7 useful [42.85%]
                                                      55.6 rejected [57.14%]

2012 - 95.1 quads 
                       37 useful [38.90%]
                                                    58.1 rejected [61.09%]

2013 - 97.4 quads 
                     38.4 useful [39.42%]
                                                    59.0 rejected [60.57%]

Data from https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/archive.html#energy_archive
More data at the Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Review page here:
http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/index.cfm