A New Way to think about Energy

In my opinion, the way energy is discussed today is unnecessarily abstract and muddles together several separate activities that really should be kept separate. In today's post I'm going to introduce a new way of thinking about energy which will make it easier to think about long term plans for our energy future.


As a first approximation I will divide energy use into Transportation fuels, Electrical generation fuels and Everything else. I'm in the US, so I'm going to deal with this from a US perspective. I may get around to the international picture in a later post. All data is from 2005.



Transportation Fuels

Transportation fuels are gasoline for cars, diesel for trucks and railroads, jet fuel for airplanes and residual fuel oil for large ocean going ships. Note that all these fuels come from oil. Is there any transportation that doesn't run on oil? Not a lot. There are electric rail systems, mostly outside the US. There are a few natural gas powered trucks and buses. Finally, some pipelines are electrically powered and natural gas pipelines are usually powered by natural gas. That's pretty much it. Everything else, freeways, cars, trucks, airplanes and container ships runs on oil. To a good approximation:


Transportation fuel = Oil


The reverse is also pretty much true. In the US, 69% of oil goes into transportation fuels. Another 3% goes into asphalt to pave the roads. 1% goes into lubricants, many of which are used by vehicles. Another 4% is used to power the refineries. About 5% emerges as petroleum coke, which is a low value waste product of refining.

It's fair to say that over 80% of oil in the US is used to enable transportation. Some of the rest is supplied as heating oil and propane. About 2-3% is used for Electrical generation. Only 4% is used for chemicals and plastics.



Electrical Generation Fuels

There are several important energy sources which are exclusively used for electrical generation. Nuclear, hydroelectric, geothermal, and wind are never used for anything else. Wind and solar are not a solution to running out of oil, unless transportation switches to electric vehicles. 92% of all coal is used for electrical generation and coal accounts for 50% of all electricity generated. Adding up these "Power generation fuels":

• Nuclear generates 19% of electricity


• Conventional hydro generates 6.6% of electricity


• Other renewables generate 2.3% of electricity


• Coal generates 50% of electricity

These total to 78%.

Electrical generation fuel = Coal + nuclear + renewables

Most of our electricity is generated from fuels which are dedicated to power generation. Only 3% comes from oil. The remaining 19% comes from natural gas.

As a percentage of total energy use:

• Transportation = 35% (including asphalt and energy used in refining)
• Electrical Generation = 40%
• Everything else = 25%

In my next post, I will take a closer look at "Everything else."