Industries Use About One-Third of Energy Consumed in the U.S.

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

September 25, 2012 | 4:49 PM

Industry accounted for more than thirty percent of the nation’s energy usage in 2011, according to a report by the Energy Information Agency. The usage includes everything from mining to food production. Food is one of the most energy intensive sectors, with chemical plants and oil refineries requiring the most power. The EIA says some of the more voracious energy consumption includes packaging food and consumer goods.

“… aluminum cans for soda, iron and steel for canned foods, paper for cereal boxes, glass for pickle jars, bulk chemicals for plastic milk jugs, and plastic packaging for cold cuts and frozen vegetables. The mining industry produces the raw materials for virgin glass and steel, and the petroleum refining, natural gas, and mining industries produce raw materials for bulk chemicals.”

Below is a chart that lays out energy use by each manufacturing sector.