Course: REEC 120 Sustainability and Renewable Energy

Unit 8 Overview

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Looking on page 70 of the text you see a list of items and general energy usage.  A typical desktop computer uses 55w.  In my home in central Illinois, we have a desktop the kids use to surf the web and cause general grief for my wife and I. That ‘puter never goes off.  It is idle 18 hours a day 365 days a year. We pay $.12 per kWh in fees, delivery and cost to make the electricity.  In one year that ‘puter uses (18 hours * 365 days * 55W) = 361350Wh which is 361.35kWh. That is $.12 per kWh or a total of $43.36 a year for its electricity.

Let us take it further! In the area I live there are 98 homes. If each home has one device that draws that same amount of energy, there is 35412kWh used in 1 year.  $4249.  Put another way 35.4MWh.  Ouch, it gets worse. In Bloomington / Normal, there are about 100,000 folks.  So let us go very simple and say 50,000 homes and apartments with this energy draw. That is 18,067,500 kWh, or 18,067MWh, or $2,168,000 to run that item.

What started off small has grown into a huge amount of electrical energy.