This is an attempt to characterize all the energy consumed by the United States. I find this a very helpful way to look at energy use and production, and endlessly fascinating.
Some definitions and observations:
A "Quad" is a Quadrillion BTU. 1 Quad is about 293 Trillion KiloWatt/Hours.
"Rejected Energy" is that lost to inefficiency, including heat and entropy.
Total energy demand has shrunk by more than 4% in those 4 years. For the preceding decades it had only risen, flattening in the mid 2000s.
Solar and wind have substantially more than doubled in 4 years. Those numbers are on track to double again by 2016, but 2012 is the most recent year for which LLL has produced these charts.
Coal as an energy source has gone down by about 5 Quads, over 22%. Natural Gas has only increased by 2.2 Quads. Almost all of this is in the generation of electricity.
Electric transportation is only .02 Quad, rising slowly. I'm guessing the largest share of this in these reports is stuff like subways and trolleys. We have seen a big increase in electric cars since 2012...I suspect this will see a more visible increase in the 2013 report once it's available.
I'm surprised at how much Biomass is used in industry. I suspect it's substantially burning of agricultural waste. The use of ethanol in transportation is visible.
I'm not sure why Rejected Energy has increased while total demand has dropped. The largest piece of this (over half) is electrical transmission losses and generation efficiency, but that's improved. Most of the gain "Industrial".
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