Figure 2

Declining Energy Consumption  

per Household

130

50

126

Per Household

120

45

45.3

110

40

Per Capita

38.4

38.5

100

101

101

35.7

35

Million Btu per Capita

92

Million Btu per Household

90

80

30

1978 1980

1990 1993

1997

2001

Year

Sources: 

1. Rawlings, Steve W. and Arlene F. Saluter. 1995. Household and Family Characteristics: March 1994, p. A 1,

table A 1.U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

2. U.S. Census Bureau. 2002. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2001, No. 54 , p. 49. U.S. Census

Bureau, Washington, DC.

3. U.S. Census Bureau. 2004. Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2003, No. 66, p. 61. U.S. Census

Bureau, Washington, DC.

4. Energy Information Administration. 2003. Annual Energy Review 2002, p. 53, table 2.5. EIA, Washington, DC.

5. Energy Information Administration. 2004. 2001 Residential Energy Consumption Survey: Household Energy

Consumption and Expenditures Tables, table CE1 1c, EIA, Washington, DC.

+

consumption provides system wide savings throughout the energy supply chain; for instance, lowering

household electricity consumption reduces the amount of fossil fuel consumed at power plants as well as

the transmission and distribution losses associated with delivering the electricity to the consumer. This

energy supply chain savings is particularly relevant in the building sector, which accounts for 70 percent

of U.S. electricity consumption (excluding industrial buildings).

The United States has made remarkable progress in reducing the energy use and carbon intensity

+

of its building stock and operations. These improvements are largely the result of advances in the energy

efficiency of U.S. buildings that followed the 1973 1974 OPEC oil embargo. Since 1972, building

energy use overall has increased at less than half the rate of growth of the nation's gross domestic

product (GDP). And since the late 1970s, when detailed energy use data first became available,

2

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Towards a Climate Friendly  

Built Environment