What % of US' commercial energy is wasted, and what's the breakdown of that?

In the United States, approximately two-thirds of the energy produced from combustible fuels is wasted as heat. This includes energy from fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) and nuclear power. This wasted energy is typically released into the environment as heat rather than being utilized in a useful way.

The breakdown of wasted energy is as follows:

- Heat losses from power plants and industrial facilities: 40%
- Losses from transmission, distribution, and storage of energy: 7%
- Losses from inefficient consumption of energy by households, industries, and commercial buildings: 27%
- Losses from fuel production and refinement: 1%
- Other losses: 25%

84% of all commercial energy in the US is wasted - 41%: unavoidably lost b/c of the degrad. of energy quality imposed by 2nd law of thermodyn. - 43%: wasted unecessarily (mostly due to the inefficiency of incandescent lightbulbs, furnaces, industrial motors, most motor vehicles, coal & nuclear power plants) **AND it is also wasted unnecessarily b/c people live & work in leaky, poorly-insulated, and badly designed bldgs that require excessive heating in the winter & cooling in the summer. Uneccessary energy waste costs the US an avg of $570,000/minute!