Where in Europe? There's a variance in the average consumption of over 400% depending on the weather. France uses much less energy than the US on average, but Sweden uses more.
We see the same variance regionally within the US as well. Canadians use more energy per capita than folks in the US. Cold and hot states dominate energy consumption per capita.
The US does have larger homes and more wealth and does tend to consume more energy per capita across similar environments -- but regional weather patterns create far, far larger differences in energy consumption than any other factor.
We could just as easily say that Europe shouldn't be used as a benchmark as the weather is too nice, on average.
We see the same variance regionally within the US as well. Canadians use more energy per capita than folks in the US. Cold and hot states dominate energy consumption per capita.
The US does have larger homes and more wealth and does tend to consume more energy per capita across similar environments -- but regional weather patterns create far, far larger differences in energy consumption than any other factor.
We could just as easily say that Europe shouldn't be used as a benchmark as the weather is too nice, on average.