CHRISTINA WALKER GUEST COLUMNIST
This month, we Wartburgians are entering into a noble competition against Luther: an energy conservation battle. When I heard about this, I wanted to know how much energy my roommate and I use.
I used a Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the amount of energy coming through each of the three outlets in our room. For each outlet, I plugged everything into a power strip, which I then plugged into the meter.
In our first outlet, I measured 1.41 kilowatt hours (kWh) being used a day. In the second, 0.69 kWh was used and in our third, we used 1.29 kWh.
Added up, my roommate and I use 3.39 kWh per day. In 2005, the average monthly residential electricity consumption was 938 kWh, according to the Energy Information Administration.
My roommate and I used 3.39 kWh in a day. That would be 1,237.35 kWh per year and that’s not even including the energy spent on wash machines, dryers or our heater!
After this experiment, I realized that there are a few objects that seem to use a lot more energy than others, such as our refrigerator and the TV we left on for hours.
I decided to see how much energy these individual objects used. I plugged each item in for one hour to see how many kilowatts it used in that hour.
My laptop used .02 kWh, the refrigerator used .05 kWh and the TV used .04 kWh. This showed the refrigerator and TV used up a lot of energy on their own and the laptop used a decent amount as well!
America only accounts for 5 percent of the world’s population, but it consumes 23 percent of the world’s energy. That’s more than China and Russia consume together!
India’s population is four times greater than the American population, but America uses 20 times more energy per capita, according to Worldpopulationbalance.org.
So what can you do about it? As seen in my experiment, every item plugged in uses energy whether the item is in use or not.
One simple way to conserve energy is to unplug things when you’re not using them. Try not to overheat your room, wear warm clothing and turn your heater down. Make sure the seal around your refrigerator door is tight.
Work hard this month Knights! The real battle isn’t against Luther; it’s against our own energy-consuming selves!