Facts about electricity consumption

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

12,133 -- per capita annual electricity consumption (kilowatt-hours) in the
U.S. in 1997

1,381 -- per capita annual electricity consumption (kilowatt-hours) in the
rest of the world in 1997

21.5 -- percent increase in U.S. electricity consumption from 1990 to 1999

43 -- percent decrease in utility funding for energy efficiency from 1993
to 1998

90 -- percent of total U.S. coal consumption used to generate electricity
in 1998

33 -- percent of all mercury emissions in the U.S. that came from coal
power plants in 1999

30,000 -- number of lives cut short in the U.S. each year due to pollution
from electric utilities

37 million -- number of cars necessary to produce the amount of
smog-forming pollution that comes from U.S. coal power plants each year

7.5 -- percent of total U.S. energy consumption from renewable sources in 1998

94 -- percent of total U.S. renewable energy consumption from hydropower
and bio-mass (trash and wood incinerators)

$216.7 billion -- revenue of the U.S. electric utility industry in 1999

$124 billion -- approximate combined revenues of all the governments in
Africa

90 -- percent of total electricity used by a standard incandescent
lightbulb that is wasted as heat

1,000 -- reduction in pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere
by replacing one incandescent lightbulb with a compact fluorescent bulb,
over the bulb's lifetime


Statistics and sources are available at:
http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/counter/counter031601.stm



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org