Play audio:
On this episode of Spark:
- Luke Closs measures his energy use with his Kill-a-watt
- The Ottawa Public Library lends Kill-a-watt meters
- Michael Bhardwaj fights vampire power
- Alex Steffen blogs bright green at Worldchanging (full interview)
- Nora mentions the Spark Wiki
- Bruce MacDougall poses an energy riddle
- Tom Howell investigates obsolete armoires
- Bill St. Arnaud explains how the Internet causes carbon emissions (full interview)
This episode features Creative Commons music and sound effects:
- “Oslodum 2004” by DJ Dolores
- “Bongo Avenger” by Eric & Ryan Kilkenny
- “OrganLoop2.ogg” by MisterTood
- “Birthday Party” by Kim & Buran
- “airtone/mere-blips/”>mere blips” by airtone
- “turnontv.wav” by THE_bizniss
- “talk to me (nodea’s silent remix)” by nodea
- “Karen – Hello Everybody“
- “OxyMoron” by KCentric
Download the MP3, or subscribe to the podcast.
The OPL link doesn’t work.
It’s working for Liz and I. What seems to be the problem?
Regarding Michael Bhardwaj’s vampire power discussion, I couldn’t agree more and add that manufacturers really need to cater design to provide full off capability during ‘away’ periods for many devices. We’ll have to wait and see if ‘Energy Star’ ratings are revised to include for this kind of requirement.
One thing that surprised me was that there was no mention of domestic heating considerations for winter. Given that during heating season, or any time that the temperature difference between the outside and inside is cause for a thermostat to switch on, it matters not where the heat to maintain room temperature comes from. Save for a some factor for the most efficient placement of heating sources, our computers, lights and various other vampires around the house directly offset the ‘on time’ for baseboard or other heating devices in the home. When the energy balance dust settles, you’ll pay either way. Summertime is a different story to be sure.
I think your electrical engineer Dave needs to re check his figures.
By my reckoning, 5 Watts running 24 hours a day for 60 days works out to 7.2kWh. At 10.67 cents per kWh, that will cost 76 cents for two months.
I would like to know how the it was calculated that 2 months of a 5 watt draw would cost $5… as my math works out a lot differently, but I may be doing something wrong.
5w x 24 hr = 120WH/day
61days x 120WH/day = 7320W hrs / 2 months
7320WH / 1000 = 7.32 kWH
using my electricity rate of 5.3 cents/kWH, the cost equals:
38.796 CENTS in 2 months of vampire power.
Our “Kill-a-Watt” showed the power-bar for our TV, stereo & DVD player drew 25 Watts with all the units off. That’s more than the lighting for the room now that we’re using compact fluorescents!
I see other listeners already jumped on the arithmetic error — the $5 for 5 Watts would be the annual cost, not 2 months.
Great show today.
I work for a non-profit organization called EnviroCentre, located in Ottawa. We were part of the local initiative to have wattmeters available for borrow through municipal libraries. We continue to offer a variety of services that help people discover ways of reducing their energy consumption, which is good for the planet but also your wallet.
Here is a summary of our PowerPlay program from our website:
An EnviroCentre audit of your electricity use can help you keep the power in your pocket! For only $100 a Certfiied Energy Advisor will provide you with a customized report (pdf) outlining what costs you the most on your power bill and what you can do about it. You will see, for example, if a new fridge will pay for itself within a few years or if you should focus more on other things. If you have a hot water tank, we also provide a free reflective tank jacket that you can easily install. It could save you over $25 per year if you heat your water with electricity and a little if your hot water is heated with gas.
For more information on our programs and services visit http://www.envirocentre.ca
Link works fine now!
surely the issue at heart is a little more than a math error…I know on the show the engineer overstated it by quite a lot, but there are still 7.2 kw being wasted.
It happens to be cheap right now (although I noticed it costs Derek twice what it cost John), but that will change. James Howard Kunstler noted that the price of oil doubled (per barrel) in 2007. If that happens again in 2008, and again, and again, it won’t be long before it will be $5 to leave your TV on for 2 months.
Hi all,
Thanks for the heads up; that’s an embarrassing error! FYI, we’re just tracking down what happened, and we’ll get back to you with a clarification. That said, I agree with Kirby that I don’t think it changes the overall point.
Update to follow.
Ok Dracula, if we are not saving significantly how much carbon are Canadians creating for these minor convinces?
At least the $30 gaffe had us pondering the cost, which brought me to your site. By the way Vancouver’s rate is 6.15 cents/Kwh. Not a major source of blood $ucking here either. Wow, John’s price is lower then our hydro electric source. Bet you are in Quebec.
Your story on Internet storage was enlightening. More information on carbon sources like these need to be brought to our attention. Knowing the true demands we are making on the planet remains a foggy picture for most.
I think your Wiki production will take off. Best of luck I enjoyed your show.
Hi-
Thanks for your notes and your math! We regret that the miscalculation was not caught.
We’ve done the math again, and it seems that the cost of a TV drawing 5 watts would be approx 72 cents on your 2 month bill. To get this we used 10 cents per KWH. This is a number that takes into account various rates across the country, and extras charges that appear on your bill.
FYI: we’ve re-recorded the item, the miscalculation has been corrected for tomorrow’s broadcast.
Thanks again.
Elizabeth
Producer
I am just listen to your show and Nora was interviewing Alex Steffen, and started talking about Cradle to Cradle. William McDonough & Michael Braungart jointly wrote a book on this very subject, and he not only talks about products but also buildings and cities.
http://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
perpective ?
The prog took it for granted that people buy for more new goods, but failed to emphasise that although goods might consume watts in use Mega Watts might have been consumed in manufacture. Large house + kids = lots of watts
- the segment on borrowing rather than buying was understated
- I thought the seg on internet energy was overstated I’d question his figures. It’s a mathematical fallacy to say that something that’s the “fastest growing” now will be big in the future. (The original data comes from environmental charity Global Action Plan : I could find no other independent scientific study corroborating it). In these things you can often select your data & spin the story either way. Follow the maths again :Was your last internet bill $1000 ? what about your house improvement or car or printed materials ? My guess is more energy is consumed in the concrete for the building than the server ever uses in it’s lifetime.. if they used so much energy then most would have been moved to colder climates.
@ David, I interviewed Michael Braungart a few years ago. Totally fascinating individual. He talked about his conceptual shift around consumption…how, as a member of the Greens he was always telling people to ‘cut down’, and finally thought, what if you could get people not to reduce their footprint but, effectively, turn their footprint into a useful byproduct.
Not only that, but consider the amount of energy that the internet (and other communications technologies) actually saves. Lots of people and material no longer need to be physically transported. For example, I now work from home, conferencing and collaborating on-line with colleagues and customers – no more driving!
I know that the Internet saves energy because Mrs. Ball says I don’t seem at all energetic while I’m sitting in front of the Web.
This is for Nora or Dan;
Just wondring if you get your music from a DJ site or not. I recall joining a DJ site and some of the names are very recognizable. I am a ‘rookie’ DJ, but am a full fledged guitar player. Just curious as to where you get your msuic from.
Cheers!
@Jason: Almost all of the music we use on Spark is Creative Commons. Links to every piece of music are in the show notes.
As you’ll see if you poke around in the archives, I have a few main sources for music: Jamendo, CCmixter, and Splice come to mind. I also try to pay attention to Netlabels that release CC music.
Sometimes people in the Spark community suggest CC music to me as well. If you have a suggestion, I’d love to hear it.
Hope this helps. As I said, all of the music is linked in the show notes, and most of those links point to where I found the music originally.
My wife told me about your program where the interviewee said leaving your computer on all year used about the same amount of energy, as did driving an SUV for a year. My UPM energy meter tells me that right now my system is using 143 watts. If I use an efficiency of less than 25% to generated that electricity, that is about 600 watts. Converting that to kWh-hrs to Btu’s and then to gallons (US) of gasoline, I find that my 600 watts/hr, all day for a year is equivalent to about 163 US gallons. So my question is, where can I buy one of these SUV’s that I can drive all year on less than 4 tankfuls of gasoline?