• Question: What is the least important thing that uses up energy?

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      Asked by 652eneg34 to Megan, Mzamo, Ola, Olivia, Weiyi on 14 Nov 2016.
      • Photo: Megan Seymour

        Megan Seymour answered on 14 Nov 2016:


        As well as the obvious things that I’m sure you already know about, like making sure you switch of lights when you don’t need them, a very large proportion of energy is wasted by heating/cooling badly insulated buildings.

        Overall, we use more energy in our homes than is used for things like farming and by factories, and in developed countries like ours the largest uses of energy in our homes are heating and air conditioning.

        Although making sure we are warm enough (or cool enough in hot weather) is very important, better insulation in buildings would hugely reduce the need for both heating and air conditioning- and that’s why modern buildings are built with plenty of insulation.

      • Photo: Ola Michalec

        Ola Michalec answered on 15 Nov 2016:


        I think the fact that fossil fuel production , transportation and extraction uses up 1/3 of the energy it produces is crazy – such an inefficient system.

        Moving to locally produced renewables with improved long term storage (batteries) would require much less energy!

      • Photo: Olivia Ashton

        Olivia Ashton answered on 15 Nov 2016:


        That will change depending on the person you talk to. I know there are important things that use up energy that we could make more efficient – like heating and cooling of buildings with better insulation, turning lights off, leaving electricals on, using LEDs instead of normal light bulbs etc.

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