Energy waste is not where you’d expect it

Sean Casten recently blogged that the U.S. wastes 60 percent of the primary energy it consumes. An amazingly large number.

When you think waste, you probably visualize the trash in your garbage cans and the “material” flushed down your toilet. Yet the energy in this solid waste and sewage accounts for only 3 percent of the total. The most profligate sector is electricity generation, accounting for a full 44 percent. We’ve noted before that the average U.S. power plant takes take three units of fuel to produce just one unit of electricity, an efficiency rate that has not improved since Eisenhower occupied the White House.

Add in industries and the percentage rises to 63 percent (almost two-thirds) of the nation’s total energy waste. RED views this waste as both a problem and an opportunity since so much can be captured and recycled – saving money and cutting pollution.