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Real Prospects for Energy Efficiency in the United States
BOX 1.5
Forms of Primary EnergyConsumption Included in EIA Statistics
Coal consumption; coal coke net imports
Petroleum consumption (petroleum products supplied, including natural gas plant liquids and crude oil burned as fuel, but excluding ethanol blended into motor gasoline)
Dry natural gas consumption—excluding supplemental gaseous fuels
Nuclear electricity net generation, converted to British thermal units (Btu) using the heat rate for nuclear plants
Conventional hydroelectricity net generation, converted to Btu using the heat rate for fossil-fueled plants
Geothermal electricity net generation, converted to Btu using the heat rate for geothermal plants, and geothermal heat-pump energy and geothermal direct-use energy
Solar thermal and photovoltaic electricity net generation, converted to Btu using the heat rate for fossil-fueled plants, and solar thermal direct-use energy
Wind electricity net generation, converted to Btu using the heat rate for fossil-fueled plants
Wood and wood-derived fuels
Biomass waste (municipal solid waste from biogenic sources, landfill gas, sludge waste, agricultural byproducts, and other biomass)
Fuel ethanol and biodiesel; losses and co-products from the production of fuel ethanol and biodiesel
Electricity net imports, converted to Btu using the electricity heat content of 3412 Btu/kWh.
Source: EIA, 2007, p. 34.
the two can be large. (For example, about two-thirds of the fuel energy used in a thermal power plant is lost in generating electricity. About 9 percent of the generated electricity is lost during transmission and distribution of the electricity. So the amount of electricity entering a building or facility represents only 30 percent or less of the original fuel energy.) The EIA distinguishes primary energy from delivered energy only for electricity. For other fuels, delivered energy consumption is assumed to equal primary energy consumption. For these fuels, the energy used to transform fuels from one form to another, such as from crude oil to gasoline, is counted as energy consumed by the industry that performs the transformation—in this case, petroleum refining.
