Energy Efficiency

Trevor Craig

Energy Science 110

Energy Efficiency, 19

11/15/11         

This lecture was about energy efficiencies and how we can improve energy consumption and other optimize our current energy systems to try and to avoid all the risks of global warming. The National Academy of Sciences released a report stating that we could reduce our energy consumption by 30% from just simple smart energy consumption technologies. Engines are very inefficient using only about 50% of the energy put into them and the rest is lost to heat, that is the same problem for many other energy systems, for almost all energy systems much of the energy is being lost to heat.

The total United States energy consumption is split up into multiple sectors that are all about equal, transportation takes about 28%, residential buildings use about 22%, commercial buildings use about 19%, and industry uses about 31%. Looking at the numbers above, it is easy to see that buildings use a lot of the energy for the United States and there are other things that we can do to make them more energy efficient. Before we can start talking about ways of saving energy, we first have to talk about potential problems or scenarios that could happen from trying to save energy. If people are saving lots of money on using energy efficient things then they will have more money to spend on products that take energy to make or go on trips with the extra money effectively equaling out the energy saved to the original amount of energy used.

Energy in industry can be saved many different ways; one of the largest gains in saving energy can be through new processes for making concrete. It used to take 200m using a wet kiln technique but now it can take 50m using preheated towers, which would help a lot because the cement industry produces about 5% of the world’s greenhouse gasses. There are multiple other ways to improve our efficiency, for example combined heat and power, using what was the wasted heat for more power, that on top of other techniques would increase efficiency from 25-35% to 50-80% more efficiency.

Buildings are one way that we can drastically improve energy consumption. Using insulation helps keep heat stay in or out, so you will need less energy to heat or to cool your house. Another thing to save energy is using energy efficient windows, using super windows we can get a U of .15 compared to .5, and we can get windows with film on them, these windows cost 10-15% more but will save 30-50% more energy, in the end making them well worth it.

Using more efficient vehicles and other technology will all cut down on our impact on the environment and on how much energy we use. We can make the world a better place by just becoming more efficient.

Aerodynamics- The study of the properties of moving air, and esp. of the interaction between the air and solid bodies moving through it.

Auxiliary Power Units- An auxiliary power unit (APU) is a device on a vehicle that provides energy for functions other than propulsion. They are commonly found on large aircraft, as well as some large land vehicles.

ENSC110 Craig Energy Efficiency 19