1. Energy, Environment, and Climate
By Richard Wolfson
Chapter 2
Art PowerPoints

2. Turning a hand-cranked electric generator, the average person can sustain a power output of about 100 W. Here the energy ends up lighting a 100-W lightbulb.
Tad Merrick.

3. It would take 100 energy servants working around the clock to supply the energy needs of the average American.

4. Per capita energy consumption rates since 1800
Per capita energy consumption rates since In the early twenty-first century, energy consumption in the United States is about 11 kW per capita, equivalent to some 110 energy servants working around the clock. This rate is about five times the world average.
Energy data from Vaclav Smil, “Energy in the Twentieth Century: Resources, Conversions, Costs, Uses, and Consequences,” Table 1, p. 24 in Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 2000, vol. 25 (Palo Alto, CA Annual Reviews, 2000) and International Energy Annual (2003), Table E1; Population data from United Nations,

5. Energy consumption in the United States, by sector, in the first decade of the twenty-first century.
Data from Annual Energy Review (Washington, DC: U.S.
Department of Energy) (2004), Table 2.1a (2004 data).

6. Sources of U. S. energy in the early twenty-first century
Sources of U.S. energy in the early twenty-first century. Fully 85 percent comes from fossil fuels. The “other” category includes geothermal, wind, and solar energy.
Data from Annual Energy Review (2004), Table 1.3.

7. Sources of world energy in the early twenty-first century
Sources of world energy in the early twenty-first century. More than 85 percent comes from fossil fuels. Here the “other” category includes biomass, geothermal, wind, and solar energy.
Data from International Energy Annual (2003), Table 1.8.

8. Per capita GDP (in thousands of U. S
Per capita GDP (in thousands of U.S. dollars per year) versus per capita energy consumption for ten countries. The six countries that fall near the straight line have approximately the same energy intensity, or energy required per unit of GDP. Japan and Switzerland are more energy efficient, and Russia and Saudi Arabia less so. Multiplying the numbers on the horizontal axis by 10 gives the number of energy servants per capita.
Data from International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics 2004 (Paris: International Energy Agency, 2004), 48ff.

9. Energy intensity in the United States (and in many industrialized countries) fell substantially through the twentieth century, with less change in the world as a whole. Intensity is measured in watts of average power needed to produce $1 of GDP each year (based on the value of one U.S. dollar in the year 2000).
U.S. energy 1900–1945 from Annual Energy Review (2005), Table E1; 1950–2004 from Annual Energy Review (2005), Table 1.1. U.S. real gross domestic product (in 2000 dollars) from Economic History Services, World energy and gross world product (in 1990 dollars) from Vaclav Smil, “Energy in the Twentieth Century: Resources, Conversions, Costs, Uses, and Consequences,” Annual Review of Energy and the Environment 2000, vol. 25 (Palo Alto, CA: Annual Reviews, 2000), Table 1, p. 24, adjusted to 2000 dollars using conversion factor 1.23 obtained from Economic History Services calculator at using GDP deflator.

10. Life expectancy compared to energy consumption for the six countries that lie near the straight line in Figure 2.7. Only at very low energy-consumption rates is there a correlation; at higher energy-consumption rates the life expectancy curve saturates. Many other quality-of-life indicators show similar behavior in relation to energy consumption.
Energy data from International Energy Agency, Key World Energy Statistics 2004 (Paris:
International Energy Agency, 2004), p. 48ff. Life expectancy data from Human Development Report 2005 (New York: UN Development Programme, 2005), Table 10, p. 250ff,