Indirect Energy and Your Wallet
By Kenneth P. Green, Aparna Mathur | AEI Online
(March 2009)
(Auszüge):
The average household spends nearly as much on the consumption of indirect energy as it does on direct energy consumption. Understanding how money is spent and who spends it will be important when Congress addresses climate change and our energy infrastructure.
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Indirect energy is the energy embedded in the goods and services we purchase. An example of indirect energy consumption (one that ranks high as a percentage of Americans' indirect energy use) is prescription medication. Energy is required to create a drug, sterilize it, package and transport it safely to pharmacies, repackage it into individual bottles, and so on.
This is distinct from
direct energy consumption, like using gasoline to run our cars, oil to heat our houses, or electricity to keep our televisions on.[
Table 1 (angehängte Datei) shows that the energy component of fuels--by which we mean the energy used (in dollar terms) in the production of fuels such as gasoline and oil, fuel oil, and coal--is more than 40 percent, while
that of nonfuel everyday consumption items, such as airline travel, pharmaceuticals, and food, varies from 2 percent to 18 percent.
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For instance, our calculations show
that 7 percent of the cost of the food produced on farms is from the energy--coal, oil, natural gas, and petroleum--that is used to produce it.
The other 93 percent of the cost comes from things such as the labor needed to grow it and the
fertilizer, pesticides, water, and machinery needed to harvest, process, and transport it to markets.
(Meine Anmerkung: Auch dafür ist ein Energeianteil nötig, der hier nicht eingerechnet wird - eine methodische Schwäche dieser Untersuchung)
Similarly, even the production of fuels such as oil and gas involves the use of nonenergy items like chemical products, metals, and mineral products. This is why the energy component of fuels does not total 100 percent in
table 1, which shows the indirect energy content of consumer goods in 2006.
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Americans have many choices when it comes to reducing their energy expenditures besides cutting back on the direct use of oil, natural gas, and electricity.
Table 7 shows the top ten areas in which Americans display the greatest levels of flexibility in their purchasing behavior, as well as how much the
median household spends on the indirect energy embodied in those goods. Turning to a somewhat simpler, less gadget-filled lifestyle with more dining at home can significantly reduce
the amount of money American households spend buying energy indirectly as part of their use of consumer goods and services. People willing to be flexible in areas usually considered resistant to change, such as the consumption of air travel, medical services, and automobile use, could realize still more significant reductions in indirect energy expenditures.
Quelle: http://www.aei.org/outlook/100017