The Energy Squid

A Simple Way to Understand the Energy Transition

Most of us don’t think much about the energy system. We flip on the lights, charge our phones, and assume the power will be there — kind of like we assume our devices will just work. It’s only when something breaks that we pay attention. But the truth is that the energy system, as it exists today, isn’t working as well as it could. And we need people to think about it because it matters for affordability, for climate change, and for reliability.

That’s why I love the energy squid (not its real name). I’ll explain. I first encountered the energy squid back in 2008 thanks to Dave Kopans as part of an energy market overview he was providing for a program I was facilitating. Since then, I’ve relied on the diagram to explain the energy transition to people outside our industry.

So what is this energy squid? It’s an energy flow chart, created annually by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In one diagram, it shows estimated energy consumption by resource type (supply) and use (demand). But the part that grabs people isn’t the boxes or the lines. It’s the “rejected energy” (rejected is technical talk to mean wasted).

When I show the chart to non-energy folks, the reaction is always the same: shock. And for good reason. The footnote tells us that, on average across all sectors, about half of the electricity we generate in the U.S. is wasted. Half! Imagine brewing two cups of coffee every morning and pouring one straight down the drain. Or filling up your car with gas and watching half of it spill out onto the pavement. Or cooking a full meal and throwing away half before anyone takes a bite. That’s essentially what our energy system is doing at scale.

The squid also makes the bigger picture clear. If we’re going to make a transition to a cleaner, more efficient energy system, we need all the little boxes on the left (solar, nuclear, hydro, wind, biomass, and geothermal) to get bigger. At the same time, the big boxes (natural gas, coal, and petroleum) need to get smaller. And while we’re at it, we need to shrink the waste through efficiency programs, demand response, battery storage, and distributed generation (placing power closer to where it’s used).

That sounds like a lot, and it is. But here’s the good news: it’s already happening. Companies are deploying batteries that can power entire cities overnight. States like California and Texas are getting more and more of their electricity from renewables. Communities across the country are cutting waste with efficiency upgrades. The momentum is real.

What we need now is for more people to see the challenge clearly and support the solutions. That means talking with friends and neighbors, backing clean energy programs in your community, and urging leaders at every level of government to help make the little boxes bigger and the big boxes smaller.

Because once you’ve seen the squid, it’s hard to unsee it. And harder still to ignore what it’s telling us.