Did you know?

Climate Change:

• The pre-industrial carbon dioxide level in Earth’s atmosphere was 280 ppm (parts per million).
• In August 2009, the carbon dioxide level in Earth’s atmosphere was 385.9 ppm – an increase of 1.8 ppm over the previous 12 months and a 37.8% increase over the pre-industrial level cited above.
• In 2004, anthropogenic (human caused) carbon dioxide equivalents of 49 billion tons were released into the air.  That compares to 28.7 billion tons released in 1970 – a 70% increase.
• The total mass of Earth’s atmosphere is 5.2 million billion tons of air.
• Since 1990, carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. energy needs increased an average of 0.8% per year.
• The U.S. energy related carbon dioxide emissions in 2008 declined by 2.8% relative to 2007.
• 56.6% of the 2004 release of greenhouse gases was due to carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels.
• In 2000, the U.S. accounted for 19% of all fossil-fuel related emissionscompared to 14% for China.  By 2004, the US accounted for 22% of all emissions vs. 18% for China.  Due to its more rapid growth, China became the largest emitter in 2006.

Follow this link to calculate your carbon foot print

Electric Power:

• The U.S. generated 4,110,259 thousand MWh of Power in 2008.
• Of the above generated power in 2008, 48.5% was from coal, 21.3% was from natural gas, 19.6% was from nuclear, 6.0% was from hydroelectric, 3.0% was from other renewables and 1.1% was from Petroleum.
• Power generation from the category other renewables, which includes wind and solar, was 21,525 MWh in the first two months of 2009.  That is an increase of 11% relative to the same period in 2008.  Power generation from other renewables for 2008, over the same two month period, was 17.4% greater than in 2007.
• Based on 2008 numbers from the EIA, each and every American emitted 14,000 lbs of carbon dioxide just from American utilities burning coal to generate our electric power.

Petroleum and Transportation:

• In 2008, the U.S. consumed 19.4 million barrels of oil each day.
• In 2007, the U.S. consumed 20.7 million barrels of oil each day.
• In 2008, the world consumed 86 million barrels of oil each day.
• In 2007, the world consumed 86.6 million barrels of oil each day.
• 43% of each barrel of oil in the U.S. goes towards gasoline. Other major uses: 21% for diesel, 8.5% for jet fuel, and the balance for other products.
• For each mile driven, the average U.S. car emits 1 pound of carbon dioxide.  To calculate, the emissions per mile of your vehicle use the approximate formula:  lbs of CO2 emitted per mile = 19.3/mpg.  Insert your vehicle’s mpg in the formula.
• For the passenger cars sold in the U.S. in 2008, the average fuel efficiency was 31.2 mpg.  This represents an improvement of 8.9% over the year 2000.
• For the light trucks sold in the U.S. in 2008, the average fuel efficiency was 23.6 mpg.  This represents an improvement of 10.8% over the year 2000.

American Habits:

• The average American uses 6 times as much energy than the world average.
• About 1/3 of a typical American home’s heat loss occurs through the windows and doors.
• The average car in the U.S. consumed 554 gallons of gasoline in 2007, traveling 12,400 miles at an average of 22.4 mpg.
• The average home in the U.S. consumed 11,476 kWh of electricity in 2007.  Based on an estimated 111.1 million homes, that corresponds to 31% of total electricity consumption in the U.S.

Lighting:

• Lighting consumes 38% of electricity needs for commercial buildings.
• Lighting consumes 9% of electricity needs for residences.
• Lumens per watt, or lpw, is the term lighting engineers use to describe the efficacy of a light source.  The higher the lpw of a light source, the fewer watts needed to generate the same amount of light, corrected for eye sensitivity to different colors in the spectrum.
• For incandescent light sources, lpw ranges between 10-15.  For compact fluorescent (CFL) light sources, the lpw is typically 60 to 70.  That is why a 60 W incandescent can be replaced by a 13 W CFL, saving 47 W.

B-Green Collaborative Educational Links

B-Green Collaborative believes today’s youth will be the most severely impacted by climate change, as they will live to see the implications if our fossil fuel addiction is not ended.

Our educational system, from elementary school through college, needs to prepare young minds to understand the importance of renewable energy as a potential solution to this impending crisis. Hopefully , you will find these links to be good study and classroom presentation material on subjects like climate change, renewable energy and energy efficiency.

For solar, wind and other renewables:

• U.S. Department of Energy
  • Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
  • Energy Information Agency for Kids
  • National Renewable Energy Laboratory Learning

  If your particular interest is teaching about solar and photovoltaics to students, consider the link to Schools Going Solar. Also the RevGen Group posts excellent presentations on photovoltaics on their site.

For Geothermal Energy:

• Geo 101

For Climate Change:

• Climate Change – The Physical Science Basis
• National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) offers great material for teaching.
• Interested in calculating your carbon foot print ? Follow this link.

Energy Production and Use:

• Energy Teachers.org, has many interesting links suitable for teaching energy production and use

Footnote:  The most common source for our Energy Facts page is the site, www.eia.doe.gov, the official site for the Department of Energy’s, Energy Information Agency.  Other similarly, reliable sources are used.