When I think back on energy use in the 1970s, I tend to remember long lines at the gas pump as a result of the OPEC oil embargo. For a while there, it seemed as if the TV news stations hammered home the idea that, as a nation, we were suffering for our dependence on foreign oil. 

Over the next four decades, our national energy policy has shifted and changed, allowing for greater integration of renewable energy along with more domestic fossil fuel production (in the form of natural gas) and greater emphasis on demand management and energy efficiency. On the face of it, if asked to guess, I’d have said quickly—and rather confidently—that compared to the 1970s, US energy policy today has pushed our nation to smarter energy use and increased energy efficiency.

But, to a certain degree, my assumption would be incorrect—at least in terms of economic energy use.

In a surprising twist, it turns out that in the last four decades, the US has managed to become increasingly energy inefficient. According to a report recently released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, in 2012 the US wasted 61% of all energy input into the economy, resulting in a 39% rate of efficiency. To put that number into perspective, “the amount of energy wasted by the US economy in 2012 could power the United Kingdom for 7 years” (http://cleantechnica.com/2013/08/31/us-uses-11-times-more-energy-than-uk-with-only-5-times-more-people/).

In contrast, in 1970, the US achieved a 50% efficiency rating, with the nation’s economy actually using more energy than it wasted. As the Wall Street Cheat Sheet explains, “For the past ten years the National Laboratory has calculated the U.S. energy waste to be in the region of 50 percent-58 percent, but in 2012 this figure jumped to one of the worst levels in decades.”

AJ Simon, a senior researcher at the laboratory, explained to Wall Street Cheat Sheet that “the jump was mostly due to a change in the ways that they calculated the end use of the energy for vehicles and households. After separate studies into the efficiency of household energy use in areas such as heating, air conditioning and lighting, the figure was dropped from 80% to 65%. Likewise, the efficiency of the internal combustion engine was revised down to 21% from 25%.”

And so, once again, it appears that our continued dependence on fossil fuels (and combustion engines) contributes to our inefficiency. For example, as illustrated by Clean Technica, though the UK is the EU’s largest oil producer, “the country’s renewable electricity has quadrupled since 2000, and last year the UK was crowned the world’s most energy-efficient major economy.” 

While acknowledging the difficulty in comparing the apples-oranges energy use polarity of the US and the UK, Clean Technica nevertheless does a good job of outlining some key points, including:

·  In 2012, the US’s primary energy demand was 11 times bigger than the UK’s.
·  The efficiency of electric power generation and transmission is roughly 35% in both countries.
·  The average American household uses 2.7 times more electricity and 1.3 times more natural gas than a British household.
·  Transportation, dominated by petroleum in both countries, is also their largest energy end-use.
·  The countries’ electricity generation portfolios in 2012 were uncannily similar (Coal ~40%, Gas ~30%, Nuclear ~20%, Renewables ~10%).
Read more here. 

But ultimately, the differences seem to be contributable to both disparity of living conditions and local environments, as well as the effectiveness of national energy policy in each country. For example, homes in the UK tend to be smaller (with little need for HVAC systems, for example, due to more a more monolithic climate), and US citizens spend much more time (and energy) on transportation. And while both nations have unveiled national energy policies, the UK—a smaller, more tight-knit nation—has experienced greater success in wide scale implementation of its regulations and benchmarks.

The US has certainly made strides in recent years. While our energy efficiency numbers may not be up to 1970s standards, there has been a downward trend in total and per-capital energy use in the US over the last several years. And the federal government has continued to pledge a strong commitment to increased energy efficiency (and reduced energy usage) at both the federal and local level.

Nevertheless, it appears we still have some lessons to learn since the days of the OPEC crisis: as long as fossil fuels remain the mainstay of our energy production, our ability to intelligently manage demand and increase efficiency will continue to be hog tailed and hampered. We must reduce what we use, but we must also commit to other energy generation alternatives.