U.S. energy use dropped in 2006, didja notice?

[skids]

...I thought that would have made a bigger splash here. The last time that happened was in 2001 (which oddly started to happen before 9/11, not after as one might assume, but during Q2)

Unfortunately it's not all good news. It looks like we will be back to our old energy hog habits in 2007 based on the first 5 months of estimated 2007 data:

                           Residential Commercial  Industrial   Transport     Total Grid    Wgt Total
2007 5-Month Total ....... 3,804/9,635 2,104/7,790 8,959/13,332 11,707/11,745 15,927        -8  42,494
2006 5-Month Total ....... 3,555/9,123 2,006/7,453 8,804/13,227 11,520/11,556 15,474        -12 41,347
2005 5-Month Total ....... 3,890/9,428 2,189/7,484 9,214/13,698 11,539/11,572 15,352        -4  42,178

(Thats non-electric-energy/total-energy, the "Wgt" is a fudge factor for efficiency by-sector used to estimate the total)

...and the latest official estimate:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/steo/pub/a1tab.html

However, we are in the middle of another economic crash, so the story may change for the rest of the year as Joe and Jane house-flipper find themselves downgrading from their McMansion and wishing someone made houses without that expensive swimming pool. Gonna be a lot of empty mansions. That happens when only a small percentage of people can afford them. Hope the pipes don't freeze.

The sectors are interesting, though. It does not look like most of the numbers will be back up to 2005 levels this year, the reason we will end up using more total energy in 2007 is increased use in transportation, and increased use in residential and commercial electricity (not oil or gas, just electricity.) In other words, we can't keep our ass out of our cars (sometimes our bosses fault for relocating rather than ours for forgetting to buy milk on the way home), and we can't remember to turn the lights out when we leave work or the house. Plus we all seem to need air conditioning these days even in mild heat, not just the elderly and sick. I wonder how much energy properly treating clinical obesity would save.

[zabet]

1. Could

the loss of manufacturing have had anything to do with the
less energy consumed during those periods? I also think the
near record high temps are driving usage up faster than normal.

[skids]

2. Most certainly...

...loss of manufacturing would impact the "Industrial" sector, which as we see only that and the home heating (which is most of the non-electrical residential sector use) were big reductions. Whereas home heating is picking back up, industrial is still lagging behind 2005 this year in both heat and electrical use.

Another thing to note is that this is total, not per-capita use, so with a population increasing as fast as ours via immigration, declines are more significant.

[kestrel91316]

3. We need a whole lot of years where our energy use drops, and

keeps dropping, before we will have anything to crow about. Somehow, I find that scenario unlikely - given current American attitudes toward self-restraint.