Electricity is used as fuel by railway networks in many countries. Electricity is also used to charge batteries for electric vehicles. As many countries frame policies to contain environmental pollution caused by burning of fossil fuels in transportation, vehicles that run on batteries are gaining prominence.
So, electricity is seen as a major contributor in the transition to greener transportation. According to an International Energy Outlook report published by the EIA, the share of electricity used in transportation is projected to double between and , led by increase in the number of plug-in electric vehicles and rise in electricity usage for rail networks.
Image: Brussels-South, overhead wires suspended across multiple tracks. Photo courtesy of Smiley. Commercial buildings: Electricity finds its vast usage in commercial buildings that include offices, hospitals, schools, police stations, warehouses, hotels, and shopping malls, among others.
It is used for lighting, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. The commercial sector includes government facilities, service-providing facilities and equipment, and other public and private organizations. This sector accounts for more than a third of U. As the graph shows, on average, the biggest single uses of electricity in the commercial sector are lighting and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.
Electricity demand in the commercial sector tends to be highest during operating business hours; it decreases substantially on nights and weekends. Data on specific end-uses are available from a broad nationwide survey of manufacturing facilities, which found that more than half of the electricity used in manufacturing goes to powering various motors machine drive. Other sizable uses include heating, cooling, and electro-chemical processes in which electricity is used to cause a chemical transformation for example, the processes that produce aluminum metal and chlorine.
Electricity use in the industrial sector tends not to fluctuate through the day or year as in the residential and commercial sectors, particularly at manufacturing facilities that operate around-the-clock. As another often-used appliance, your water heater comes in second at 14 percent of your home's energy usage.
An average water heater will run about 3 hours a day and uses watts, adding up to Use these tips to take the heat off your energy bill:. Your home appliances account for about 13 percent of the typical electric bill. Below are some tips on how to save on your major appliances' energy use:. An average refrigerator uses watts, and assuming you use your refrigerator all day, you'll use kWh per month.
Although we can't turn our refrigerators off or use them less, there are other ways to save:. Washers and dryers collectively use about 5 percent of your home's energy.
These appliances cumulatively use watts. If you used each for one hour per day, your laundry appliances would use about 91 kWh per month. Keep these tips in mind when you do laundry:. At 2, watts for an oven and 1, for a stove on medium-high heat, using these for one hour a day results in 75 kWh and 45 kWh a month, respectively.
These appliances, particularly your oven, can also make your home warmer and increase the load on your AC. Reduce the electricity load from these appliances with these tips:. Read more kitchen tips: Tips to Save Energy in the Kitchen. An average dishwasher uses watts.
Used for one hour each day, that's almost 10 kWh per month. Your dishwasher can also affect how hard your AC has to work since it can heat up your home. Use these tips to reduce your dishwasher's primary and residual energy use:. Lighting accounts for about 9 percent of a typical home's energy use. Light bulbs' energy use can vary widely based on bulb type and usage. A watt incandescent bulb left on for two hours a day uses about 0.
The largest batteries cannot operate for days, let alone the weeks that would be required to back up renewables in order to ensure the supply of round-the-clock electricity. In order to ensure a steady supply of electricity, gas plants are increasingly providing backup services to renewables electricity. Natural gas plants emit large amounts of carbon dioxide during operation, and significant amounts of methane are often released during the extraction and transport of gas, both of which contribute to climate change.
A biomass plant operates in a very similar way to gas- and coal-fired power plants. In , biomass generated 2. Biomass production can require a lot of energy, both in terms of production of biomass itself and in terms of transport. Due to this, the energy required can be greater than the energy value in the final fuel, and the greenhouse gas emissions can be as high, or even greater, than those from equivalent fossil fuels.
Additionally, it can take more than years for the emitted carbon dioxide to be absorbed, which leads to a short-term emissions increase. Other environmental impacts related to land use and ecological sustainability can be considerable.
Additionally, as with coal, the use of biomass can contribute to air pollution, and thus has negative health impacts for populations local to biomass plants.
Electricity is growing in importance. If we are to address climate change and reduce air pollution, we will need to increase the use of all low-carbon energy sources, of which nuclear is an important part. This would mean that nuclear generation would have to triple globally by then.
In order to drastically reduce the levels of fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables need to work together to secure a reliable, affordable and clean future energy supply. Where does our electricity come from? Coal, gas and oil Fossil fuel power plants burn coal or oil to create heat which is in turn used to generate steam to drive turbines which generate electricity. The Cottam power station in the UK, which uses both coal and gas for electricity generation Image: EDF Energy The burning of fossil fuels for energy causes considerable numbers of deaths due to air pollution.
Hydroelectric power Most large hydroelectric power plants generate electricity by storing water in vast reservoirs behind dams.
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