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Re:History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775–... by vlovich123 on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @05:11PM (#29815785)
Where does plastics manufacturing fall under here? Is it industrial + electrical?

Also, according to that chart, 0% of the US energy comes from nuclear but [1] has it at 20%. What's going on?

[1] https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re:History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775–... by OldManAndTheCpp on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @05:19PM (#29815895)
Are you asking about the feedstock input to plastic, or the energy input? I doubt that the Energy Information Administration tracks feedstock inputs, as they are not consumed as energy.
Re:History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775–... by thedudeabides5 on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @06:11PM (#29816533)
Yes that's my understanding as well.

Only the parts that are consumed in energy production (aka not physical elements in other products). Then the EIA kind of makes judgement calls where it's messy.

The difference is one is measuring ELECTRICITY (where 20% nuclear would make sense), and the other is TOTAL ENERGY (which is electricity + transportation + energy used in heating physical processes etc)

In terms of nuclear this link says 8 Quad BTU (out of who knows how many units in TOTAL ENERGY) https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10

and the other says 20% of electricity

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

Re:History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775–... by nostrademons on Wednesday January 05, 2022 @07:17PM (#29817285)
GP's link is renewables only. Nuclear isn't considered a renewable energy source. Neither are plastics or the petroleum products they're made from.

GP's chart should be considered a blow-up of the 20% of U.S. energy that your link shows from renewable sources. Within that context the numbers match up pretty well, except that biomass is much more heavily represented in [0] than in [1].

Re:History of energy consumption in the United States, 1775–... by xyzzy21 on Thursday January 06, 2022 @05:54AM (#29821995)
It's BOTH.

You can't run a plastic industry without high density energy - fossil is the best for that short of nuclear. Simple matter of Carnot. No way to fake it or break it.

Feedstocks also ONLY can come from oil. Not even coal works as well. You must have carbon in the supply chain.

Sadly a lot of Soviet-style propaganda and erasure of "inconvenient" information is absolutely happening with every .gov site these days.