What uses the most energy? and what percentage does each have. I know buildings use the most but after that...

Question

I'm looking for what uses the most energy and what is the percentage each category uses. For example, buildings use the most energy, but i don't know the percentage or what comes after buildings

Answer 1

depends where you are. in most of developed world;

domestic heating/air conditioning

transport

commercial

heavy industry

building

agriculture

Answer 2

Tough question, you almost need to be more specific.  Buildings don't actually use any energy by themselves.  Heating and cooling them, running appliances, machines etc use the energy.  I'll try it anyways.

For US data.

As of 2004 residential used about 24% of energy, commercial 18%, industrial 33% and transport 28% of energy.

It's hard because most listings are for electrical or heating, which are not directly convertable since the thermal to electric power efficiencies differ dpending on generation methods.

Most electrical energy used in residential goes to refrigerators, followed by air conditioners, space heating, water heating and then lighting.  Dryers, microwaves, dishwashers computers etc are the next ones on the list.

For industrial use there are hundreds of things that use energy.  Chemical, metal paper, petroleum and food production are the highest users in that order.

As for the above comment about not being able to conserve our way into the future, it is correct, although finding renewable sources is probably a better idea than finding more oil.

Answer 3

Since electrical usage fluctuates differently per day, season and year. I'm not sure how you could quantify that into anything meaningful.

In the end it doesn't really matter, we cannot conserve our way into the future, we mush expand available energy sources.