Household Energy Usage and Conservation :: Environmental Essays

Household Energy Usage and Conservation Household energy conservation is a very practical and realistic approach to conserving energy within our society. US households consume a tremendous amount of natural gas as well as electric energy. It has been calculated that the amount of energy consumed within the US increased exponentially from about 1850 to 1975. If energy continued to increase at this rate, we would be experiencing severe energy shortages in our current society. Luckily, steps towards conservation, including various energy regulations, have curbed that growth somewhat, brining the predicted 160 Qbtu/yr for the year 2000 down to around 93.8 Qbtu/yr by the year 1996. However, household energy usage is still a major issue as households consume about 38% of the total consumed energy and contribute greatly to natural gas consumption and issues such as global warming. Therefore, it is important that people understand how we use energy in the household and what steps can be taken to conserve that energy. One process within households that contributes greatly to energy consumption is space heating. Space heating simply refers to the heating of the air throughout the house. It has been calculated that space heating consumes about 5.3 Qbtu per year. About 3.7 Qbtu come from natural gas and about .9 Qbtu come from Fuel oil. Only about .4 Qbtus of electricity are consumed by space heating. There are various ways which one can space heat their house. The most common way is to use a furnace, however, stoves, fireplaces, electric resistance heaters and electrically powered heat pumps can also be used to heat the house. Furnaces run mostly off natural gas and tend to be around 60-90% efficient. Older units can be as low as 50% efficient. Electric resistance heaters are usually around 100% efficient at producing heat. However, this statistic is slightly misleading when thinking about total efficiency because you must account for the electric energy being consumed by the heater. Power plants are only able to produce electric energy from natural gas at about 35% efficiency. Consequently, electricity is more expensive than natural gas to produce, making electric resistance heaters more expensive to operate. This energy cost must also be accounted for when adding up the total cost of electric resistance heating. Another way to heat ones house is to use a fireplace.