Perspectives on household electricity use

There is a great set of graphs on the EIA site today that emphasizes a topic that is usually absent in popular discussions on energy.

Efficiency.

Two perspectives on household electricity use - Today in Energy - U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA):

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Annual Energy Review 2011, Table 2.1b.

Electricity and natural gas now account for approximately equal amounts of the energy consumed on site in U.S. households. But because it takes on average nearly three units of energy from primary fuels such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear fuel to generate one unit of electricity, increased electricity use has a disproportionate impact on the amount of total primary energy required to support site-level energy use. Electricity-related losses explain the difference between energy consumption in the residential sector as measured by energy consumption on site (left) and energy consumption of primary fuels (right).

Continue Reading at the U.S. Energy Information Administration

This graph is a very nice offshoot of a classic from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory