How Much Energy Do We Spend?

Powering our
life

• This is a calculator

How much
energy do we
spend?

Category 1: travel by car/by plane

Category 2: Home
heating/cooling/appliances

Category 3: food and goods

Fuel Energy

• The energy per unit of fuel 10

kWh/liter (gas or diesel)

Math Response

The energy per unit of fuel 10 kWh/liter (gas or diesel)

How many liters would you use to run the dryer for a year?

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 55.8

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Math Response

My car drives 10km/liter.

I drive about 30km every day.

How many kWh of energy do I use per day?

Reminder: 10 kWh/liter (gas or diesel)

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 30

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Math Response

Personal usage per day for electric car

Tesla Model S uses 15kWh of electrical energy per 100km.

How many kWh per day would I use?

30km x 15kWh/100km

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 4.5

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Math Response

Energy use associated with flying

Boeing 767 caries 360 passangers

It uses about 1 gallon (4 liters) of fuel every second.

Say, we want to go from Boston to Paris. Length of flight is 7 hours.

Assuming 10kWh are contained in 1 liter of fuel,

How many kWh of energy is spent per person to go to Paris?

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 2800

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Category 2: heating, cooling, etc. Electricity:

~10kWh/day for 6 people

Gas (heating, hot water), 1 therm = 30kWh

~2therm/day for 6 people

Category 3: Goods

• Extraction and delivery of materials

• Production of the devices

• Using the devices

• Removal and disposal

Computer energy

The energy to produce a typical
computer is 2000kWh. But it
lasts two or three years, so they
contribute 2.5kW/pd to our
personal energy budget.

Category 3: Food

•Energy for getting food from production to the table can be taken apart into stages: production, processing and packaging, grocery store with shipping in between.

•There is also waste management and recycling.

•Based on research paper, I calculated that 30kWh/pd is the energy consumption

Math Response

Let's Sum Up:

10kWh/pd for driving

11kWh/pd for home

Let’s add 5kWh/pd for new goods

30kWh/pd for eating

Total kWh/pd

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 56

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Math Response

We need 56kWh

300 Watt Solar cell is about 1m by 2m. You get about 1.5kWh out of it. How many do you need? (Let's round up)

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 38

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Math Response

A cyclist outputs 300Watts of power. How many hours would it take to produce power of 56kW? (Round up to an integer)

Type answer here

Correct Answer: 187

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Rad

​Link: https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/

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