Amidst a worsening climate crisis, LLNL’s 2016 energy update confirms that we continue to waste 68% of the raw energy we use. We’ve increased efficiencies, but the big waste culprits are still burning stuff to generate electricity and driving gasoline or diesel cars, which waste about 80% of the fuels’ energy content.
Here is the latest “energy spaghetti” chart from Lawrence Livermore National Labs:
In 2016 the total consumption was 98.0 quads, so we’ve grown GDP while reducing energy consumption. But the fact remains that our grossly inefficient infrastructure must be rebuilt, especially shutting down all fossil-fuel generation of electricity and running our transportation on clean electricity or carbon-neutral biofuels.
LLNL spaghetti charts over the years and by state are here.
