Electricity powers the modern world—unfortunately, it’s pretty inefficient.
Some 700,000 circuit miles of transmission lines and another 5.5 million miles of distribution lines make up the U.S. electric grid, but those aluminum and copper wires, while being extremely good conductors, are far from perfect. Because electric current meets some small measure of resistance while traveling through those wires, lots of energy is lost as heat. According to the National Defense Research Council, five percent of the energy produced in the U.S. is completely wasted during this electrical journey. While that may seem like a small slice of the electron pie, that’s enough juice to power all of central America four times over.