[HN Gopher] History of energy consumption in the United States, ... ___________________________________________________________________ History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775-2009 (2011) Author : adamnemecek Score : 36 points Date : 2022-01-05 20:52 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.eia.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.eia.gov) | aquova wrote: | I was rather confused by this until I saw the 2011 date. Things | have changed quite a bit, it doesn't appear at all on this chart, | but the US now consumes 3.0 quadrillion Btu from wind energy in | 2021, more than any other renewable.[0] | | [0]: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=48396 | vlovich123 wrote: | Where does plastics manufacturing fall under here? Is it | industrial + electrical? | | Also, according to that chart, 0% of the US energy comes from | nuclear but [1] has it at 20%. What's going on? | | [1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3 | OldManAndTheCpp wrote: | Are you asking about the feedstock input to plastic, or the | energy input? I doubt that the Energy Information | Administration tracks feedstock inputs, as they are not | consumed as energy. | lqet wrote: | I was expecting something as impressive as this: | https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co84189... | burntoutfire wrote: | The chart is missing food as energy source (converted to work by | animals and people who ate it and used the energy it gave them to | do manual labor). It's probably insignificant now, but should | dominate the XVIII century part of the chart. | tobyjsullivan wrote: | I was curious so I estimated. If we take daily intake at 8000 | BTUs (~2000 calories), then we get 0.015Q BTUs in 1800 (US | population: 5M[0]), 0.22Q BTUs in 1900 (US population: 76M), | and 0.82Q BTUs in 2000 (US population: 223M). | | That's only humans. Factoring in all working animals, maybe we | assume some multiple of that. 2x? 10x? 100x seems too much. | | In the end, I'm not convinced it would be significant enough to | warrant inclusion - even if only because US population was so | relatively small. | | This does lead me to wonder what the graph looks like for | energy consumption per capita. | | [0] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_Uni... | burntoutfire wrote: | Wood at the beginning of the period covered by chart is at | 0.2 Q BTUs, so, using the 10x factor, food would be on the | same order of magnitude. | adamnemecek wrote: | It's also missing the amount of sunlight Earth gets from the | Sun that's not used as solar energy. Also the energy that | plants receive as nutrients from soil and air. It's also | missing the energy that a mother transfers to her child in the | form of love. | burntoutfire wrote: | I assume the chart is only counting energy important for | human economy (and not whatever it is that you're bringing | up). Food as energy source was crucial part of the energy mix | before fossil fuels - food-powered animals were tilling | fields, hauling goods, powering machinery etc. (not to | mention less savory aspects of it like slavery - slaves were | essentially food-powered machines for picking cotton, | harvesting sugar cane etc.). Nowadays majority of that work | is done by machines powered by fossil fuels, and food is used | mostly for us to sustain ourselves (i.e. prevent starvation) | and not as an economically-productive resource. | | I suspect food was the biggest energy source in the economy, | above wood and renewables (i.e. watermills and windmills | powering various machineries and pumps). | Manuel_D wrote: | Food as an energy source is actually an important aspect. | Things like domesticated animals represent significant | sources of energy, on the order of thousands of calories per | day. More nutritious crops also confer a significant boost to | available energy. This had significant impact on the | disparate levels of development between Eurasia and the | Americas before the early modern period. | | "The Measure of Civilization" by Ian Morris is a book I'd | recommend on this topic. | z8rHZM8Svhu8hE2 wrote: | In this context, the old lecture on the exponential function of | energy consumption comes to mind. | | Arithmetic, Population and Energy - a talk by Al Bartlett: | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O133ppiVnWY | rob_c wrote: | it's asif one generation got used to the good times about 50 | years ago in data... ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-01-05 23:00 UTC)