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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

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cement industry produces about 5% of the worlds 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 theair 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.