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Waste reduction fast facts: Energy

Garbage and recycling  ›  Recycle at school  ›  Fast facts about waste reduction  ›  Energy

This resource is not exhaustive nor is it all-inclusive, but can be cited and dated from primary and secondary sources. To find out more about the methodology or accuracy, contact the referenced source.

Metro does not validate nor endorse any of these facts.

• People in the United States and Canada consume 2.4 times as much energy at homeas those in Western Europe. –Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 Special Focus: The Consumer Society, January 2004,I SBN: 0-393-32539-3
• The average American consumes five times more energy than the average global citizen, 10 times more than the average Chinese, and nearly 20 times more than the average Indian. –Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 Special Focus: The Consumer Society, January 2004,I SBN: 0-393-32539-3
• If the average Chinese consumer used as much oil as the average American uses, China would require 90 million barrels per day – 11 million more than the entire world produced each day in 2001. –Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 Special Focus: The Consumer Society, January 2004, ISBN: 0-393-32539-3
• With less than five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. consumes 26 percent of global oil, 25 percent of coal, and 27 percent of natural gas. –Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2003
  http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2003/10/29/
• During 2004, 50 percent of the nation’s electric power was generated at coal-fired plants. Nuclear plants contributed 19.9 percent, 17.7 percent was generated by natural gas-fired plants, and 3.0 percent was generated at petroleum-fired plants. Conventional hydroelectric power provided 6.6 percent of the total, with other renewables and miscellaneous sources making up the balance. –Energy Information Administration U.S. Department of Energy, “Electric Power Month, March 2005”, DOE/EIA – 0226 (2005/03), 2005
  http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ftproot/electricity/epm/02260503.pdf
• Data from 2000 shows that the U.S. electricity industry was responsible for 67 percent of U.S. sulfur dioxide emissions that contribute to acid rain, 21 percent of U.S. nitrous oxides emissions that contribute to urban smog, and 40 percent of U.S. carbon emissions that contribute to global climate change. –Environmental Defense, “Electricity Generation and Pollution,” November 2002
  http://www.environmentaldefense.org/documents/1041_FactSheet_Electricity.pdf
• In 1998, 90 percent of the total U.S. coal consumption was used to generate electricity. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Coal Supply and Demand: 1998 Review”
• From 1990 to 1999 the U.S. increased its consumption of electricity by 21.5 percent. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Electric Power Annual Report, Volume 1,” 2000
• In 1997, the U.S. consumed 12,133 kilowatt-hours per capita of electricity, as compared to 1,381 kilowatt-hours per capita consumed by the rest of the world. –Calculated by dividing world consumption (minus U.S.) by the 1997 world population (minus U.S.) at the U.S. Census Bureau, Grist Magazine, March 2001
  www.gristmagazine.com/counter/counter031601.asp
• Almost half of the average home's energy consumption is used for heating. Another 17 percent is used for water heating, 6 percent for cooling rooms, and 5 percent for refrigeration. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Energy Information Administration, 2001 Residential Energy Consumption Survey,” 2001
• Home appliances are the world’s fastest-growing energy consumers after automobiles, accounting for 30 percent of industrial countries’ electricity consumption and 12 percent of their greenhouse gas emissions. –Worldwatch Institute, State of the World 2004 Special Focus: The Consumer Society, January 2004,I SBN: 0-393-32539-3
• About 80 percent of the energy used by a clothes washer is used to heat water. –Rocky Mountain Institute, Home Energy Brief #5 Water Heating,” 2004
  http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E04-15_HEB5WaterHeat.pdf
• Using the "sleep-mode” on a desktop computer and monitor could save about 900 kilowatt-hours per year in electricity and 1,500 pounds in carbon dioxide emissions (assuming the energy saved displaces coal-generated electricity). That is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted from driving a medium sized car over 2,000 miles. –Rocky Mountain Institute, Home Energy Brief #7, Electronics , 2004
  http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E04-17_HEB7Electronics.pdf
• Almost one-fourth of the energy used in homes is used for lighting and appliances. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Energy Information Administration, 2001 Residential Energy Consumption Survey,” 2001
• The incandescent light bulb is so inefficient that about 90 percent of the energy it consumes is given off as heat, while only 10 percent is converted to light. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Energy Information Administration, 2001 Residential Energy Consumption Survey,” 2001
• An incandescent light bulb costs 75 cents or less at the store, but it will typically cost six to 10 times that for electricity over its relatively short (750-hour) life. –Rocky Mountain Institute, 2002
  www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid352.ph
• The average American household has 2.5 incandescent light bulbs on for 4 or more hours each day. If every household replaced those bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs, the nation would save nearly 32 billion kilowatt hours every year, or about 35 percent of all electricity used for lighting homes. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Residential Energy Consumption Survey,” 1993
• Halogen lamps can be up to 50 percent more efficient that standard incandescent bulbs and last twice as long. –Rocky Mountain Institute, Home Energy Brief #2 Lighting,” 2004
  http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E04-12_HEB2Lighting.pdf
• In 1998, the U.S. consumed 7.5 percent of its total energy from renewable sources. –U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Renewable Energy Consumption,” March 2000
• Every day more solar energy falls to the Earth than the total amount of energy the planet’s 6.1 billion inhabitants would consume in 27 years. –National Renewable Energy Laboratory, March 2000
  www.nrel.gov/documents/solar_energy.html
• In 1998, the U.S. used more than 74 trillion BTU of solar energy to provide electricity and heat to homes, businesses, and utilities. This amount of energy is equivalent to that in 3 million tons of coal or 600 million gallons of gasoline. –National Renewable Energy Laboratory, March 2000
  www.nrel.gov/documents/solar_energy.html
• Wind, while still a very small portion of the energy sector, recorded an average annual growth rate of 33 percent between 1998 and 2002. –Worldwatch Institute, Vital Signs 2003
  http://www.worldwatch.org/features/vsow/2003/10/29/
• In 2000, the national recycling rate of 30 percent saved the equivalent of more than five billion gallons of gasoline, reducing dependence on foreign oil by 114 million barrels. –Environmental Protection Agency, "Resource Conservation Challenge: Campaigning Against Waste," EPA 530-F-02-033, 2002
• In 2001, residents of the Portland metro region source-separated 230,000 tons of wood, tires, oil, paint and solvents that went to the fuel market. These materials generated 2.1 trillion BTU for industrial use. –Metro, internal report, 2003
• Residents and businesses in the Portland Metro region recycled 859,000 tons of paper, glass and plastic in 2002. This saved almost 19.9 trillion BTU of energy, enough to power nearly 197, 000 homes for a year. –Environmental Benefits of Recycling In the Metro Region for 2002, Steve Apotheker, Metro

Related Links

Recycle at school

Teach your students about recycling. Metro develops and maintains a wide selection of materials and programs for schools in Multnomah, Washington and Clackamas counties.

Find a recycler

Use the directories or the recycler locator tool to find organizations that accept electronics, plastics, metal and many other materials.

Sustainable living

Make the region greener at home, in your garden, at the store and on the road. Sustainable living renews rather than depletes the planet's resources and Metro can show you how.