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Michael Lipman's avatar

“By 1930, the US was using 114 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year“

Is this right? The stats I found say we currently use only 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity via the modern grid (the 4 would be closer to 10 before efficiency losses and like 30 if you include non-grid energy, but still less than 100).

Maybe it should be 114 trillion watt hours per year in 1930?

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Tim Small's avatar

More excellent info - thanks again. The stats on growth - both the grid and its components and the parallel economic results of its newly widespread availability in the WWII era - are particularly interesting. We currently take the availability so much for granted that its profound effect on society goes unrecognized.

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