Energy Consumption

Assignment: personal daily energy consumption: document all energy you use over the course of 3 different days.

That's a mighty yet unclear assignment! I interpreted the assignment to mean record the amount of electricity you use. I further made the decision to NOT include any electricity that I couldn't turn off. Therefore, I did not include any energy I used from:

          -building lights other than my room, including dining halls and academic buildings.

          -food preparation (and meals in general).

          -heating/cooling.

If I couldn't turn it off, I didn't count it (with a few exceptions):

Sunday, 9/29
Laptop	8.5 hrs or 30600 s	19.6V x 3.34A = 65.13W	30600 s x 65.13W = 1992978 J
Room light	5 hrs or 18000 s	60W	18000 s x 60W = 1080000 J
iPod charge	9 hrs or 32400 s	5W	32400 s x 5W  = 162000 J
Printer	30 min. or 1800 s	400W	1800 s x 400W = 12000 J
Clock-Radio	24 hrs or 86400 s	28.8W	86400 s x 28.8W = 2488320 J
			Total = 5,735,298 J

Monday, 9/30
Computer in Sci. Cen.	1.5 hrs or 5400 s	~200V x 1.5A = 300W	5400 s x 300W = 1620000 J
Printer	1 hr or 3600 s	400W	3600 s x 400W = 14400 J
Laptop	5.5 hrs or 19800 s	65.13W	19800 s x 65.13W = 1289574 J
Room light	2 hours or 7200 s	60W	7200 s x 60W = 432000 J
iPad charge	3.5 hrs or 12600 s	10W	12600 s x 10W = 126000 J
Clock-Radio	24 hrs or 86400 s	28.8W	86400 s x 28.8W = 2488320 J
			Total = 5,970,294 J

Tuesday, 10/1
Computer in Sci. Cen.	1 hr or 3600 s	~200V x 1.5A = 300W	3600 s x 300W = 1080000 J
Bus	1.5 hrs or 5400 s	180 hp x 746W = 134280W (Thanks to Kalyani and Debbie for the idea to use horsepower)	5400 s x 134280W = 725112000 J
Room light	15 min. or 900 s	60W	900 s x 60W = 54000W
			Total = 726,246,000 J

Grand total = 737,951,592 Joules, or 737, 952 kJ

I admit my method is flawed. Obviously I didn't include food preparation or heating/cooling, which is a major energy/power drain for most households. I also excluded elevatorusage and things like charging my phone, which I didn't need to do during these three days. I also just remembered all the machines I used in the shop during Monday's EXTD 120 class. For everything I forgot, here are nifty websites for looking up wattage.

I did, however, start to make little changes. My room does not have great natural lighting, and I like to have my room light on most of the time, even during the day. Since I started documenting my electricty usage, I started to keep the light off and work in the sunnier part of my room. I've also considered parting with my clock-radio. I unplugged it, as a trial, on Tuesday, but I became really uneasy. An alternate to an electric clock-radio is a battery-powered one, but I figure those are worse. I'm seriously considering this SolarPower Digital Clock by IDEA international.

Transportation uses a surprising amount of energy! Riding the bus in and out of Boston vastly overshadowed any other use, and now I feel guilty about traveling by any vehicular means. I don't think there's much I can change at this point in time; when I need to get into Boston, I need to take the bus. When I get home, though, and I have my own car, I'm going to finagle more carpooling and fewer extraneous trips into town.