So yesterday I wrote a bit about the amount of water we use and looked at it in a different way.
So I thought, might as well do the same for electricity as well right?
Ok so my utilities bill says that I use 241 kWh.
Some sites state 1 liter of petrol gives 9.7 kWh. So I'll use that as an estimate.
So this means that to power my whole house for 1 month, I will be burning the equivalent of 24-25 liters of petrol.
My electricity bill is $49.94 so I'll use $50 for calculation.
Every week, I pump $50 worth of petrol for around 24 liters of petrol. At the current price of $2.11 per liter. ($36.50 after all my discounts.)
That's quite cool. The price is similar.
I spend $50 on electricity, which could be generated using 25 liters of petrol.
And I get 25 liters of petrol when I pump $50 worth.
Anyway, I get less than 400 km per week for 25 liters of petrol.
Ok let's look at it daily. As it usually gets more fun.
241 kWh per month, means 8 kWh per day.
This is less than 1 liter of petrol to power my whole house per day.
This includes my fridge, air con, tv, Internet, rice cooker, electric heater, fan, etc. those are a lot of conveniences.
Alternatively, with 1 liter of petrol, I could travel around 14-15 km in a car with my air on on.
I can't even send my wife to work. Cos the journey is around 20km.
Just for fun, a Tesla, apparently can do 3.5 miles per kWh according to a Tesla driver in the forums. (5.6km)
Assuming 1 liter of petrol could give 9.7 kWh, this means a Tesla can drive 54 km with the power charge of 1 liter of petrol.
I'd recommend readers to take this post with some salt, cos these are all estimates. I'm no engineer and I know that power efficiency differs how you use it, like in a power generator you can get more kWh than burning it in a car, so... These numbers are pretty much for fun and for a light comparison.
I also apologize for the lack of resource links. Typing on the iPad is pretty inconvenient.
Well, the thing is, driving a car really wastes resources. Cos the petrol burnt also needs to carry all that metal at the same time for the whole journey.
So I get around 14-15 km/l.
Whereas when I read some scooter sites, apparently, they can get 35 km/l.
So it's quite insane, cos I'm driving with all that metal around me.
So your smart phone... Well it consumes 1 kWh for the whole YEAR.
That's like 100 ml of petrol. Less than a glass of wine. (Standard glass of wine is 125ml)
Ok so quick recap.
1 liter of petrol costs $2.11 at current pump prices win no discounts.
With that, you can,
- power my house for 1 day
- drive 14-15 km in a conventional car
- drive 7-10 km in an expensive BMW or high performance car
- drive 54 km in a Tesla
- drive 35 km on a scooter
- power your smart phone for 10 YEARS
As always, this isn't mutually exclusive, we are consumers and we pay for the service. So I believe everyone should have the choice to consume when they want.
Just wanted to highlight the different perspective of what our resources can do in a comparable way.
Side note. I recognize climate change is very real, but since we live in a capitalistic global economy, changes from the top need to be handled first, else, the effects of the individual will be muted by the actions of organizations. In a capitalistic society, I believe, once he incentives are set right by the respective Governments/organizations, the incentives will move society in the right direction.
Example. Bhutan is a carbon negative country. Meaning, they absorb/sequester more carbon than they produce. But their efforts pale in comparison to the pollution produced by US and China.
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