Top Ten Facts About Your Hungry Building

Did you know?
It took our entire nuclear fleet to illuminate America in 2001!

The Three Mile Island nuclear generating station, which suffered a partial meltdown in 1979. The reactors are in the smaller domes with rounded tops (the large smokestacks are the cooling towers).

Ten Facts You Probably Didn’t Know About Your Building:

1. In 2001, lighting consumed 756 Billion kWh – America’s 104 nuclear generating units produced 769 billion kWh, while operating at a capacity factor of 89 percent. It took our entire nuclear fleet to illuminate America.

2. Buildings now use 72 percent of all electricity and account for 80 percent of all electric expenditures.

3. “Internal gains” account for as much as 27 percent of a home’s cooling load.

4. There are now 113 million households in the US.

5. One-third of all households rent their homes.

6. The average new single-family home has increased in size by about 700 square feet since 1980.

7. In 2006, 50 percent of all new homes completed were completed in the South. Cooling load management emerges as a priority.

8. U.S. buildings carbon dioxide emissions (630 million metric tons of carbon) approximately equal the combined emissions of Japan, France, and the United Kingdom.

9. Lighting uses more energy than cooling in the residential sector. This underscores the importance of breakthrough lighting technologies.

10. Buildings account for 39% of all US carbon emissions and 9% of global emissions [2005 US Building emissions = 630.3 MMTCE. 2005 US emissions = 1,623 MMTCE. 2004 Global emissions = 7,348 MMTCE]

[MMCTE: Million Metric Tons of Carbon Equivalent]

Source: Hungry Buildings

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