A pleasant surprise about energy consumption
Daily Data: Peak energy is a lot farther away than you think
energy peaked when youβd least expect it
efficiency, offshoring or something else?
data centers already showing up in the power grid
but if got efficient once, why not twice?
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A pleasant surprise about energy consumption
So Random Walk learned something new about energy consumption that seems too crazy to believe.
Before you look at the answer, try to guess when US energy consumption peaked:
Did you guess?
Behold, the answer!
According to the EIA, US energy consumption peaked in 2007, with 99 quadrillion British thermal units consumed:
Current energy consumption is about the same as it was back in the late 90s.
Thatβs incredible.
To repeat, as a nation, weβre consuming about the same amount of energy as we did 25+ years ago (according to the EIA). I knew that growth and oil usage decoupled a while back, but I wasnβt expecting this.
Putting aside the additional ~30 million people weβve added since then, if you think of all the electronics, and networked devices, and stuff, and second-homes, and all of that, itβs just a remarkable observation.
How is it possible that weβve managed to reduce energy consumption by quite so much?
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