Energy
What Uses the Most Energy in Your Home?
Warren Buffett describes his first rules of investing as: “Rule #1: Never lose money. Rule #2: Don’t forget rule #1”.
But losing money doesn’t just happen in a stock portfolio – it’s also a common occurrence in other facets of life. That’s why Warren Buffett leads such a frugal lifestyle. He knows that every extra dollar spent on something he doesn’t need is wasted capital.
In practically every house in America, capital is being wasted on energy consumption. That’s because the average electricity spend per year is $1,368.36 per year, and 35% of the power used is actually wasted.
This is neither good for your bank account or the environment.
What Uses the Most Energy in Your Home?
Today’s infographic from Connect4Climate shows the breakdown in the energy use of a typical home.
It highlights the average cost per year of different appliances, while also showing what uses the most energy over the course of the year.
Modern comfort comes at a price, and keeping all those air conditioners, refrigerators, chargers, and water heaters going makes household energy the third-largest use of energy in the United States.
Here’s what uses the most energy in your home:
- Cooling and heating: 47% of energy use
- Water heater: 14% of energy use
- Washer and dryer: 13% of energy use
- Lighting: 12% of energy use
- Refrigerator: 4% of energy use
- Electric oven: 3-4% of energy use
- TV, DVD, cable box: 3% of energy use
- Dishwasher: 2% of energy use
- Computer: 1% of energy use
One of the easiest ways to reduce wasted energy and money? Shut off “vampire electronics”, or devices that suck power even when they are turned off. These include digital cable or satellite DVRs, laptop computers, printers, DVD players, central heating furnaces, routers and modems, phones, gaming consoles, televisions, and microwaves.
Warren Buffett would probably agree that a penny saved is a penny earned – and being more efficient with your energy use is good for your pocketbook and the environment.
Energy
How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?
Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the U.S.
How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?
This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email.
The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.
In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).
U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.
Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.
Country of enrichment service | SWU | % |
---|---|---|
🇺🇸 United States | 3,876 | 27.34% |
🇷🇺 Russia | 3,409 | 24.04% |
🇩🇪 Germany | 1,763 | 12.40% |
🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 1,593 | 11.23% |
🇳🇱 Netherlands | 1,303 | 9.20% |
Other | 2,232 | 15.79% |
Total | 14,176 | 100% |
SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.
Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.
In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.
It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.
The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.
As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.
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