Making It Personal

To estimate my own personal energy use over 3 days is no easy feat. Trying to record every single time I use (or think I do?) energy suddenly seems daunting. Basically, I realized that I use energy (on average) about 20/7; save for a few hours each day.

To begin this task, here's a list of things that use energy. I'll make my best guess as to how long I used each one...

Day One- Monday 10/5

lamp- 20 minutes

bathroom light- 20 min

phone- 2 hours use, 4 hours "use-lite" (listening to music)

phone charger- 2 hours

computer- 4 hours

comp charger- 1 hour

classroom/academic building lights- 8 hours

food prep-3 hours? 

dining halls- 2 hours 

lampposts-30 min

shower (hot water)- 15 min

string lights- 20 min

Day Two- Tuesday 10/5

lamp- 40 minutes

bathroom light- 20 min

phone- 2 hours use, 4 hours "use-lite" (listening to music)

phone charger- 2 hours

computer- 2 hours

comp charger- 1 hour

classroom lights- 6 hours

food prep-3 hours 

dining halls- 2 hours 

observatory (flashlights, dim light)- 1 hour

lampposts-30 min

hoop- 2 hours

shower (hot water)- 15 min

string lights- 30 min

fan- 8 hours

Day Three- Wednesday

lamp- 40 minutes

bathroom light- 20 min

phone- 2 hours use, 4 hours "use-lite" (listening to music)

phone charger- 2 hours

computer- 4 hours

comp charger- 2 hour

classroom lights- 4 hours

food prep-3 hours 

dining halls- 4 hours 

library- 2 hours

lampposts-20 min

auditorium- 1.5 hours

string lights- 2 hours

fan- 8 hours

I didn't account for energy used for less than 1 minute...such as walking through a building to get somewhere else. One of the trickiest parts was estimating how much time I used with my phone, as I play music constantly and check the screen on and off all day. Also, for food prep energy use I took a completely wild guess. I don't eat a lot of hot food on campus, and really have no idea how to estimate something like this...

Estimations:based on a typical lightbulb and typical LED light

>assume typical lightbulb uses ~60 Watts per hour

>assumes typical LED light uses ~6 Watts per hour

Averages for 3 days

lamp ~30 min > 30 Watts

phone(~ 2 LED)~ 3 hours > 36 Watts

computer (~1 lightbulb) ~ 3 hours > 180 Watts
charging (~1 lightbulb)~ 4 hours> 240

all public lighting( equiv. of 2 lightbulbs)~ 11 hours > 1,320 Watts

food prep~ 2 hours > 240 Watts

string lights (~30 LED)~ 1 hour > 180 Watts

lampposts (~2 lightbulbs)~ 30 min > 60 Watts

hot water~ 15 min > 30 Watts

fan (1/2 lightbulb)~ 5 hours > 150 Watts

Total Daily Use Estimation ~2,500 Watts

Estimations!

Estimation is hard. I worked with Callie on some of these, and between the two of us, we figured some things out.

For the TV, I assumed the voltage to be 120V as it would plug into a basic electrical outlet. I then tried to draw on knowledge of an LED light to estimate current. Using the basic P=IV function, I came up with 85 watts.

I used basically the same process for the computer, as it still might use an electrical outlet (120 V), so the power would be about the same.

For the car, it was a bit more difficult as I tried to first determine work in Joules, then used a random unit of time (1 hour), as we weren't given anything to go on. I assumed the mass of a car to be about 2000 kg. to find acceleration, I just estimated values based on what I know about driving...

For the motorcycle, I used the same process, but changed the mass to be about 500 kg.

For the fridge, I used a similar process as for the TV, but since the fridge is a larger appliance, I used 220V for the voltage.

Since a standard microwave is around 1000 watts, it's probably safe to estimate an oven is between 1000 and 5,000 watts, as it is a lot bigger.

For the radio, I assumed it was around the same as the computer, but its power might be a little less, as the computer does a lot more tasks. From what I determined earlier, I estimate the radio is about 50 watts.