The 300-trillion-watt question
Dr. Neil Donahue of Carnegie Mellon University holds a 100-watt light bulb during his discussion of how much energy Americans use, during the first installment of Washington & Jefferson College’s 2016-17 Energy Lecture Series.
Dr. Michael Blackhurst
Dr. Neil Donahue had some enlightening facts about how much energy Americans burn as they go about their daily business of living.
Wielding a 100-watt light bulb before a mostly filled lecture hall of students, faculty and local residents gathered for the initial installment Tuesday of Washington & Jefferson College’s 2016-17 Energy Lecture Series in Yost Auditorium, Donahue shed a lot of light on the staggering amount of energy used in America.
As a country with roughly 300 million people, he said, it takes the equivalent of 300 trillion 100-watt bulbs to run the country each day. That breaks down to about 10,000 of the bulbs (100 100-watt bulbs) running nonstop for life for the average American, Donahue said.
The evening’s co-lecturer, Dr. Michael Blackhurst, a research development manager at the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Social & Urban Research, delivered the second part of Tuesday’s one-two punch on the topic of energy use, noting that about 60 percent of the energy the United States produces is wasted – in power generation itself, as well as in factories, cars and homes.
It doesn’t have to be that way, both men asserted, offering several options for cutting use and waste to save money and help to lower pollution.
Donahue, who is professor of chemistry, chemical engineering and engineering and public policy at CMU, noted in his opening remarks that in Western Europe, where the standard of living is similar to that of America, the energy consumption rate is about half.
The two experts noted about 80 percent of the energy generated in the United States comes from fossil fuels – coal, natural gas and petroleum, and as a result, most of the energy generated has high carbon dioxide, or CO2, emissions.
While neither man advocated for any particular type of energy, both discussed ways of using less energy, and in the process lowering the carbon profile.
According to Donahue, who leads a research group at CMU that earned world renown for studying what happens to organic compounds from both natural sources and human activity when they are emitted into the air, standards established at the Paris Agreement on Climate Change late last year were written to attempt to slow the rate of increase in CO2.
Donahue noted the United States and the rest of the world have several options: 1) continue to raise the world’s standard of living through burning of fossil fuels; 2) keep the rate of CO2 emissions constant; 3) make a short-term commitment to reduce the rate; or 4) attempt to achieve a decrease of 2 percent per year over the long term.
He also offered options for achieving a lower carbon future, including using carbon capture and underground storage, a method he said is effective at large-scale concentrations such as power plants; or use of more nuclear, wind and solar energy, which emit no CO2.
“It’s not really my job to pitch (a specific choice), but there are options available,” Donahue said, setting the stage for Blackhurst, whose work focuses on energy and water management in the buildings sector, regional climate change mitigation and adaptation, regional water resource planning and environmental life cycle assessment.
Blackhurst noted in powering all of those “light bulbs” it takes to run the American economy, “a majority of this energy is thrown away, mainly as waste heat.”
According to his research, the loss in producing electricity alone is close to 70 percent, while overall “we waste about 60 percent of the energy we produce.”
Some inefficiencies, he said, can approach 100 percent, such as in the amount of energy it takes to light a residence. Blackhurst said 62 percent of the energy is lost as waste heat at the power plant, another 2 percent is lost in the transmission lines that carry the power and there is 34 percent in waste heat from the light bulb itself, resulting in 2 percent of usable light emitted.
He noted similar inefficiency rates for energy used in combustion engines, where the heat loss from the engine is 62 percent of the amount of energy used, and another 17 percent wasted in idling or at stop lights.
According to Blackhurst, there are a number of ways to create efficiencies to reduce energy loss, including the use of residential LED bulbs, energy-efficient appliances, heating and cooling, insulation and hybrid cars, which taken together could result in a net energy savings of 25 percent.
The biggest savings – up to 75 percent – could come from bigger efforts, including reforestation, more use of solar energy, and carbon capture and sequestration for coal, but Blackhurst acknowledged while most efficiency measures save money, they can be challenging. He stressed, though, that the measures he outlined underscore the fact that efficiency is the most cost-competitive strategy for decarbonization.
While acknowledging that many of the strategies take time, can be complex and can require high upfront costs, Blackhurst said many can be achieved by both monetary and nonmonetary incentives offered by utilities and municipalities, which can also exercise “command and control” through building codes that are written with energy-use reduction in mind.
“Energy efficiency is doable and cost-effective,” Blackhurst said. “It’s up to us to make it happen.”
To Donahue, the savings make sense, even if consumers aren’t doing it for a higher purpose.
“The costs of saving energy will save you money, whether you care about saving the planet or not,” he said.