Seems kind of silly, but after posting yesterday I realized I wasn't entirely sure what a kWh was. I gave myself some basic schooling today.A watt is the unit electric appliances and utility providers measure electricity usage. A kilowatt is 1,000 watts. A kilowatt hour is the same thing as a kilowatt. How are they different? Um, I don't think they are.
For my purposes, I need only understand the electric company bills me in 1000 increments, those kWh thingies.
Today I took a little tour around my house, paying special attention to items I use most often. Every appliance has their wattage listed on the back. I found one that immediately seemed like a real guzzler -- my coffee machine, listed at 900 watts. What that means is if I leave it on for an hour it will use 900 watts. Or, in the parlance of my electric bill, .9 kWh.
Holy beans, Mr. Coffee! I make coffee every day and leave the pot on for at least an hour. (Do not get between me and the coffee pot in the morning.) That means in a month I use 27 watts (.9 X 30 days) . Sure, that's only $3.30 a month, a pittance compared to Starbucking it. But here's a real kicker for me: it was 10% of my electric usage last month.
Here's another kicker that can be applied to us all: each kWh saved is almost half a kg shaved off your carbon footprint. (See "It's carbon judgment day" on Guardian.co.uk for detailed information on how to calculate your carbon footprint.)
With my mom's help (she's very smart and has done a lot to reduce), I've got a painless solution to save most of those coffee kWhs and most of the 11.61 kg of CO2 I would otherwise emit monthly. After my coffee makes tomorrow, I'm pouring it into a thermos and turning off the pot.
Which makes me think of the refrain, "How low can you go? How low can you go?"
UPDATE: Read Eeyore's comment for an engineer's calm explanation of why I might have over-demonized my coffee pot. Thanks, Larry!
Photo is your author, with my gotta-have-it jo, August 2006.
