Mr. Electricity is your guide to saving energy in your home.
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Related sites:
Watt Watt. News about efficiency and conservation, written by readers of the site.
Home Power Magazine. All about renewable energy for the home.
Thin House. Blog about a family committed to cutting its energy use by 80%.
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If you like this site, you might also like some of my
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Battery
Guide
Which battery is best? We cover
rechargeable and alkaline batteries to show you what's hot,
what's not, and the best way to charge them. (visit
now)
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The
Military Budget as Cookies
This excellent animation from TrueMajority shows in
graphic detail (using Oreo cookies) how ridiculously, large
the military budget is, and how we could solve many domestic
problems with a modest 12% cut. A must-see. (watch
it now)
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Carbon
Calculator:
sources, references, and
limitations
Here's what's behind the carbon
footprint calculator.
Sources &
References
All figures for "CO2" are
actually for CO2 + CO2
equivalents (CO2E).
All figures are for the U.S., and all tons are U.S.
tons (short tons) unless otherwise noted.
(1 short ton = 2000 lbs.)
Handy conversion factor: 1 g/km = 0.003545
lbs/mi.
Household energy
use
- Average
household electrical use, (920kWh/mo.),
(Dept. of Energy, 2006,
"Electric Sales, Revenue, and Average Price
2006", Table 5: U.S. Average Monthly Bill by
Sector, Census Division, and State
2006)
- Pounds
of CO2 per kWh (1.72)
(EPA, Clean Energy, Calculations
and References, Aug. 2008) Formula given
is 7.78 x 10-4 metric tons CO2 / kWh,
and there are 2205 lbs. in a metric ton. I
didn't use the following figures, but I'm
including them here for comparison and for
possible future reference. The Pennsylvania
Dept. of Env. Protection
(PPT) gives 2214,
1828, and 1425 lbs. of CO2e per MW of
electricity produced by coal, oil, or gas
respectively, with a weighted average of 2137,
considering the mix of these fuels in the U.S.
electricity diet. By "MW" I will assume they
mean "megawatt-hour". 2137 lbs./MWh is 2.137
lbs./kWh, which is close to the EPA's
figure.
- Tons of CO2 per household per
year, electricity component (7.1)
(920 kWh/mo. x 12
mo. x 1.34 lbs./kWh ÷ 2000 lbs./ton) This
is an oversimplification because different parts
of the country use a different energy mix to
produce electricity, some dirtier than others.
This is, of course, an average.
Natural Gas usage
- Natural
gas used by U.S. residences (PDF) (4.4
million-million cf)
(DOE, "Natural Gas
Consumption by End Use",Natural Gas Delivered to
Consumers by Sector 2007)
- Number
of households using natural gas (PDF) (64
million) (Ibid.)
- Natural gas per household per year (68,750
cf) (4.4
million-million cf / 64 million
households)
- Natural gas per household per year (688
therms) (68,750 cf x
1
therm /
100cf)
- Natural gas per person per year (14,667 cf)
(4.4 million-million
cf ÷ 300 million people)
- Natural gas per person per year (147 therms)
(14,667 x 1 therm /
100cf)
- Price
of gas ($15.00/mcf)
(DOE, August 2008,
Short-Term Energy Outlook) I'm
estimating the customer's gas usage as
[Price per month - $10 fixed charge]
÷ $15.00 = Mcf (thousand cubic feet) of
gas. Then, 1 mcf x 1 therm / 100cf = 10 therms.
WARNING: In the industry, "Mcf" confusingly
means thousand cubic feet, not
million cubic feet.
Natural Gas pollution
- Metric
tons per therm (0.005)
(EPA, Clean Energy, Calculations
and References, Aug. 2008)
- (Short) tons per therm (0.0055)
(0.005 metric
tons/therm x 2205 lbs/metric ton x 1 short ton /
2000 lbs.)
- CO2 per household (3.8 tons)
(688 therms * 0.0055
tons/therm)
- CO2 per person (0.8)
(147 therms * 0.0055
tons/therm)
Or the hard way:
- Natural
gas, pounds of CO2 per million
BTU (117)
(Dept. of Energy,
2007; Electric Power Annual: "Carbon Dioxide
Uncontrolled Emission Factors"; also in
Voluntary Reporting of Greenhouse Gases
Program, "Fuel
and Energy Source Codes and Emission
Coefficients")
- BTU
per therm (100,000)
(EPA,
1997)
- Natural gas, pounds of CO2 per
therm (11.7) (117
lbs / 1,000,000 BTU x 100,000 BTU
/ therm)
- Natural gas, tons of CO2 per
therm (0.00585)
(11.7 lbs. ÷
2000 lbs./ton)
Fuel oil
- Total
fuel oil used by households annually (7.2B
gallons) (Dept. of
Energy, 2000, Fuel Oil Use in U.S.
homes)
- Number
of households using oil (8.1 million)
(Dept. of Energy,
2007)
- Fuel oil per household (889 gallons)
(7.2B gallons ÷
8.1M households)
- CO2
from fuel oil (0.0121 tons/gallon)
(EPA, Clean Energy,
Calculations and References, Aug. 2008)
Formula is 462.1 kg/42-gallon barrel, or
1017lbs./42 gallons, or 24.2 lbs./gallon, or
0.0121 tons/gallon
- CO2 per household (10.8 tons)
(889 gallons x 24.2
lbs./gallon ÷ 2000 lbs./ton)
- CO2 per person (0.3 tons)
(7.2B gallons ÷
300M people x 24.2 lbs./gallon ÷ 2000
lbs./ton)
- Price
of oil ($4.00/gallon)
(DOE, August 2008,
Short-Term Energy Outlook) I'm
estimating the customer's oil usage as
[Price per month - $10 fixed charge]
÷ $4.00 = gallons of oil. I assume the user
enters the average winter bill and I multiply by
only 4 months for winter instead of
12.
Driving: Tons of carbon
per household
- Pounds
of CO2 from 1 gallon of gas,
(20.4) (EPA, 2005;
19.4 for CO2 + 5.3% for equivalents
of other gases)
- Number
of U.S. households (99M)
(DOE,
2001 data) The summary shows 107M total
households, but that includes the 8 million who
don't have a car, which I'm excluding.
- Gallons
of gas used by households (113B)
(DOE,
2001 data)
- Gallons per household per year (1,141)
(113B ÷
99M)
- Tons of carbon per household (11.6)
(1,141 gallons
x 20.4 lbs./gallon ÷ 2000
lbs./ton)
Driving: Miles
traveled and gas mileage
- Residential
miles traveled (2.3 trillion miles)
(DOE, 2001
data)
- Miles per household per year (23,232)
(2.3 trillion miles
÷ 99 million households)
- Miles per gallon (20.36)
(23,232 miles
÷ 1,141 gallons)
Average fuel economy is reported
higher, as 22.2 mpg (Dept.
of Transportation,
Table I-1, 2004), because actual performance is
less than the standard set by the government,
and the sticker that appears on the car. I
include this note to let the reader know that I
take this into account when figuring fuel use in
the calculator. The calculator assumes that your
actual fuel economy is 20.36 ÷ 22.2 = 91.7%
of whatever figure you choose for your own
car.
- Miles per month per household (1,936)
(23,232 miles per
household per year ÷ 12
months)
- Miles per month per person (1019)
(1,936 miles per
month ÷ 1.9
cars per
household)
Driving: Tons of
carbon per person
- Number
of drivers (196 million)
(Wikipedia, citing
the DOT, 2003 data)
- Gallons per driver per year (591)
(2.3 trillion miles
÷ 20.36mpg ÷ 196M
people)
- Tons of carbon per driver (6.0)
(591 gallons x 20.4
lbs./gallon ÷ 2000
lbs./ton)
Diet
Energy & carbon from food
production
I found two sources for either the
amount of energy required for each person's
food, and the corresponding amount of CO2e, and
these sources are almost spot-on in agreement
with each othe. I use the first figure.
University of
Chicago
- Energy required to produce & distribute
food per person per year (4x107 BTU)
(Diet,
Energy, and Global
Warming (PDF), Gidon
Eshel & Pamela Martin, University of
Chicago, published in Earth Interactions,
Vol. 10, paper no. 9, 2006, p. 3)
- Pounds of CO2 per million BTU
(156) (Climate
Trust, "2007 RFP
Conversion Factors". Of course the figure is
different for different fuels, but the range is
actually fairly tight, 139 for LPG to 227 for
the dirtiest coal available. The figure I picked
is for automotive gasoline. Note that "Diet,
Energy, and Global Warming" uses a rather
peculiar conversion factor, by looking at the
total energy used in the U.S. compared to the
total GHG generated, according to DOE figures,
as described on page 3. This works out to 154.35
lbs. per million BTU, as evidenced from their
table where 6.8 x 107 BTU yields 4.76
tons of CO2 equivalents. I'm assuming
they're using metric tons since it's a
scientific paper.)
- Tons of CO2 per person per year
from food production & distribution
(3.1) (156 lbs. x 4 x 107 BTU
÷ 1,000,000 ÷ 2000)
Carnegie-Mellon
University
- Tons of CO2 per household
per year from food (8.1)
(Food-Miles
and the Relative Climate Impacts of Food Choices
in the United States,
Christopher L. Weber and H. Scott Matthews,
Carnegie-Mellon University, published in
Environmental Science and Technology,
Vol. 42, No. 10, 2008, p. 3512)
- Number
of people per household (2.67)
(NY Times,
2007)
- Tons of CO2 per person per year
from food production & distribution
(3.0)
GHG from livestock
In addition to the GHG from the energy
that goes into food production, livestock also
produce methane from their waste and from bodily
gases. It's not crystal-clear whether the
Food-Miles paper includes these
non-energy-related GHG emissions, but it doesn't
appear to. The Diet, Energy, and Global Warming
paper does tackle that separately:
- CO2e GHG produced by U.S.
livestock annually (232.9 x 106 tons)
(Diet,
Energy, and Global
Warming as cited
above, p. 9; figure is for 2003 and based on 291
million people)
- Percentage of Americans who never eat meat
(6.7%) (Harris
Interactive survey
commissioned by the Vegetarian Resource Group,
2006)
- Number of meat-eating Americans (271.5M)
(291 million less
6.7%)
- CO2e GHG from livestock per
meat-eating American per year (0.86)
(232.9 x 106 tons ÷
271.5M)
Energy for vegan vs. typical diets
Plant-based diets produce less GHG
because meat requires a lot more energy to
produce. The two sources below are nearly
spot-on for the energy required for a vegan
diet. I'll split the difference to get that
result (2.2, 2.4=2.3).
For a typical (non-vegan) diet the sources
disagree. For that I'm also splitting the
difference between the two (3.2, 4.2 = 3.6), and
then adding the first source's figure for GHG
from livestock themselves (3.6+0.9 =
4.5).
I couldn't find good figures for tons per
vegetarian, so I'm splitting the difference
between vegan and typical (2.3, 4.5 =
3.4).
University of
Chicago
- Extra carbon for typical American diet vs.
plant diet, from production & distribution,
annually (701 kg)
(Diet,
Energy, and Global
Warming as cited
above, p. 8)
- Same figure in tons (0.77 tons)
(701kg x 2.2lbs/xg x 1
ton/2000 lbs)
- Total annual carbon for typical vs. vegan
diet, production & distribution (3.2 /
2.4 tons)
- 93.3%MT + 6.3%VT = 3.1
tons/person average
- (MT = tons of carbon per
meat-eater; VT = tons of carbon per
non-meat-eater; 93.3% & 6.7% are the
percentage of meat-eaters and non-meat-eaters
in the U.S. respectively; see sources
above)
- MT = VT+0.77 (see
above)
- VT = MT-0.77
- 93.3%MT + 6.3%(MT-0.77) =
3.1 tons
- 93.3%MT + 6.3%MT -
(6.3%*0.77) = 3.1 tons
- 100%MT = 3.1+0.05 = 3.15
tons
- Total annual carbon for typical diet,
production, distribution, and livestock effeccts
(4.1) (3.2 from previous,
plus 0.9 from "GHG from livestock",
above)
David
Pimental
- Fossil energy required to produce typical
& vegan diets, daily (35,000 / 18,000 kcal)
(Food, Energy and
Society, David Pimental of Cornell
University, p. 147)
- Kcal per gallon of gasoline (31,000)
(How
Stuff
Works.com)
- Gallons of gas to produce typical &
vegan diets, daily (1.13 & 0.58)
(35,000/31,000 and
18,000/31,000)
- Gallons of gas to produce typical &
vegan diets, yearly (413 / 212)
(1.13 x 365.25 and 0.58 x
365.25)
- Pounds
of CO2 from 1 gallon of gas,
(20.4) (EPA, 2005;
19.4 for CO2 + 5.3% for equivalents
of other gases)
- Tons of CO2e to produce typical & vegan
diets, yearly (4.2 / 2.2)
(413x20.4/2000 and
212x20.4/2000)
Nature
Conservancy
Their footnotes
say that vegetarian and vegan diets use 42% and
72% less respectively compared to typical diets,
and they cite the University of Chicago paper
above, but it's not clear how they arrived at
that conclusion. My calculations from that paper
above show that vegan diets use 42% less
energy, and I couldn't find anything in the
paper which addressed the reduction from
vegetarian diets specifically.
Comparison to flying
I used only the first item below in the
calculator (or rather, in the Calculator Help,
but I'm including the rest in case they prove
useful in the future (to me or other
researchers.)
- Food choices compared to flying.
Per capita flying as
per above is 773,800 million miles ÷ 300
million people = 2,579 miles/person. Carbon from
that is 0.47 lbs./mile x 2,579 miles ÷ 2000
lbs./ton = 0.6 tons of carbon. Amount saved by
going vegetarian as per previous note is 4.5
tons - 2.3 tons = 2.2 tons.
CO2 from beef
- CO2
from beef (36.4 lbs per lb.)
(Bill Miller; this is the most
frequently-cited statistic in the
media)
- CO2
from beef (32-54 lbs. per lb.)
("The Cheesburger Footprint";
3.6 to 6.1 kg per 1/4-lb. of beef)
- CO2
from beef (21 lbs./lb.)
(NY Times,
"Rethinking the meat guzzler", Jan. 27, 2008;
given as 2.2 lbs. per 100-watt light bulb for 20
days; 100 watts x 24 hours x 20 days = 48 kWh;
48 kWh ÷ 2.2 kg = 21.8
lbs./lb.)
- CO2
from beef (16.5-18.7 lbs./lb.)
(Animal Science
Journal, V78 #4, July 2007, pp 424-434,
"Evaluating environmental impacts of the
Japanese beef cow&endash;calf system by the life
cycle assessment method"; given in the abstract
as 4550 kg per animal; 4550 kg carbon. x 2.2
lbs/kg ÷ 536 lbs. animal as per note
further down note=18.7 lbs; New
Scientist says this
same study gives a figure of 36.4 kg. of carbon
per kg. of beef. They note that the study did
not include the impact of managing farm
infrastructure and transporting the meat. It's
hard to say how applicable the study of Japanese
beef is to U.S. beef production; here is
criticism
&
response)
- Meat
per beef animal (536 lbs.)
(Gourmet Sleuth, 569
lbs. less kidney, fat, suet, and loss)
Other
- Amount
of global warming attributable to livestock
(18%) (Food and
Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations)
- Agriculture's
share of climate change gases in U.S. (PDF)
(6%) (EPA, "Inventory of
U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks:
1990-2004", Chapter 6)
- CO2
for lamb, pork, chicken (PDF) (probably
erroneously reported as 7.4, 6.35, 4.57 kg/kg)
(I'm listing this
source to warn other researchers who might come
across those numbers here
or here.
The DEFRA PDF they cite and which I link to
appears to have been misquoted. First of all,
the units are given as "g 100 year CO2 equiv.
per kg. of animal meat production" -- what the
hell is "g 100 year"? Second, the table says
that the animal weight is at the farm
gate, which presumably means the whole
animal, unprocessed.)
- Per
capita meat consumption in U.S. (124kg
total; 44 kg beef, 31 kg pork, 48 kg chicken, 1
kg other; 23 kg fish not included in total )
(American Journal of
Clinical Nutrition, 2002, "Sustainability of
meat-based and plant-based diets and the
environment")
- Savings
by switching from typical American diet to
vegetarian (PDF) (1.5
tons/yr.) (Gidon
Eshel & Pamela Martin, University of
Chicago, published in Earth Interactions,
Vol. 10, paper no. 9, 2006)
- Climate
change and agriculture article
(Wikipedia)
Air Travel
This calculator gives results 1.9 times
higher than most other calculators, because we
include the effect of radiative forcing, which
means that plane emissions are more damaging
than ground-level emissions for various reasons
related to the planes being up in the sky. Tufts
University's Climate Change Initiative has a
good explanation of this on pages 26-27 of their
Dec. 2006 PDF
report, "Voluntary offsets for air travel
carbon emissions," excerpted in brief:
"The IPCC has estimated total
radiative forcing of air travel to be 1-5
times larger in the stratosphere than in the
troposphere and calculated the average for
full radiative forcing to be a factor of
approximately 2.7 (IPCC, 1999.) Therefore to
estimate the impact of an airplane trip a
multiplier should be used on the CO2
emissions from jet fuel to account for full
radiative forcing. ...
"Although more research is needed to fully
understand the chemical processes in the
stratosphere, the research used by the IPCC
is robust. We therefore recommend using a
calculator that includes a multiplier for the
increased radiative forcing in its carbon
calculations."
Note that Tufts' 2.7x figure comes from an
old 1999 IPCC report. We used that in an older
version of this calculator, but now we're using
a more recent figure of 1.9x.
(Oxford
University report
(PDF), p. 7;
Carbon
Independent)
Note we don't know what percentage of
passengers flying on U.S. airlines are actually
foreign citizens, whose use shouldn't be include
in our calculator. Similarly, many Americans fly
on foreign airlines (even when leaving the
U.S.), and their travel isn't included in the
stats. But we have to use some figures,
so we simply use the number of air miles
traveled on U.S. airlines, hoping that our
citizens flying foreign airlines and foreign
citizens flying our airlines is close enough to
a wash.
- Miles
flown by a typical American per year (0).
Most Americans do not fly in any
given year. (Only 43%; Gallup, 2007) I'm
therefore considering that the carbon output
from flying for a typical American is
zero.
- Number
of people per household (2.67)
(NY Times,
2007)
- Total
passenger air miles traveled: (848 billion)
(Bureau of Transportation
Statistics, June 2007-May 2008)
- Portion
of air miles that are personal
(non-business) (70%)
(Washington Times,
2008; article says that 30% of airlines' revenue
is from business customers)
- Air miles per household (5,548)
(848B miles ÷
107M households x 70%)
- Pounds
of CO2 per mile of air travel per
passenger (0.39-0.64)
(CarbonNeutral.com,
2007) I used the figures from An Inconvenient
Truth and Firm Green, both of which got their
numbers from the GHG
Protocol Initiative,
which bills itself as "the most widely used
international accounting tool for government and
business leaders to understand, quantify, and
manage greenhouse gas emissions." Those figures
are:
- 0.64 lbs./mile for short flights (<727
miles) (Note that the BBC gives 170-240
g/km for short-haul
flights, which works out to 0.60-0.85
lbs./mile.)
- 0.44 lbs./mile for medium flights (728-2575
miles)
- 0.39 lbs./mile for long flights (>2575
miles)
- Radiative forcing factor (1.9)
(Oxford
University report
(PDF), p. 7;
Carbon
Independent)
- Hours to Miles conversion. I
use "hours" in the calculator because people
will likely have a better idea of how many hours
they fly vs. how many miles. To convert hours to
miles, first I made a table of air miles between
various cities, using 15 city pairs ranging from
276 miles to 6440 miles. Then I fired up Orbitz
and found the flying time between those cities.
I then tinkered with formulas until I came up
with one that seemed to fit most cities
reasonably well: 200 miles for the first hour of
flight, and 525 miles for each additional hour.
I figure each flight is the average of the
flight miles divided by the number of
flights.
- Airplane passenger MPG (43).
U.S. aircraft used
19,704
gallons of fuel and
traveled 848
billion passenger
miles in June 2007 to
May 2008, which works out to 43 pMPG. Note that
David Lawyer gets 45.6
pMPG for 2005 using
the DOE's Transportation
Energy Data
Book.
- Bus
passenger MPG (125). (From
David Lawyer. Greyhound
says its fleet gets 184 pMPG but figures
supplied by industry should always be viewed
with skepticism.)
- Train
passenger MPG (45). (From
David Lawyer.)
World
average
- Science
Daily, 2008
Figures I didn't
use, but which I'm saving in case I need them for
the future
- U.S.
population, (300M)
(Census Bureau,
2006)
- Total
U.S. car miles traveled, (1,700,000M),
(Bureau of Transportation
Statistics, 2004) This differs
significantly (35%) from the 2.3 trillion miles
given by the DOE.
Discussion
and Limitations
Results are
useful
Before I discuss the limitations
which might make you think the calculator is
worthless, let me give you the good news:
I think the ratios are
valid. Most calculators give different
results from each other, but the ratios
between those figures are fairly consistent.
That means you can compare different parts of
your lifestyle (say, driving vs. eating), and
compare your total use with the average
American's or the average world citizen. It's
not the raw number of tons that really matter,
it's how those numbers stack up against the
other numbers. In other words, if you see that
one number is half the size of another, or 3x
the size of some other number, you can be pretty
confident that that ratio is correct. And you
can enter different numbers into the calculator
to get an idea of what percent they might reduce
your impact.
So with that out of the way, let's talk
about some limitations and challenges in
calculating the data.
Do we count everyone,
or just those who use a certain kind of
energy?
The biggest problem is where I try
to show you the amounts used by the average
person or household. Let's take air travel.
How do we figure how much the average American
fliies? Our first thought might be to take the
total number of passenger air miles flown
divided by the population of the U.S.,
multiplied by the percentage of airline trips
that are personal, as opposed to business (70%).
That would give us 1,979 miles per person. But
you know what? Fewer than half of Americans fly
in any given year. So for the typical
American, the amount of air travel per year is
zero. But if I list average air travel per
person as zero, then I'm failing to show you how
wasteful Americans are as a whole when it comes
to energy use.
Okay, so let's say I use that average figure
of 1,979 miles per person. Now when you're
entering your own air travel figures, you see
that the "average" American flies 1,979 miles,
and you feel all happy because you didn't fly at
all, so you think you're doing better than most
people. But actually, you're not, because
most people don't fly. So you're actually
in the same camp as most people, not better,
although the numbers in the calculator lead you
to believe otherwise.
(There's no good solution for this, so my
choice is that when calculating for an
individual I show the average as 0 miles, and
when calculating for a household, I divide total
miles flown by the number of households --
though the typical family flies less than this,
and those who do fly, fly more. And there are
yet more problems with figuring air travel
besides the ones just discussed, which are
listed in the air travel
sources section above.)
Another problem is that passenger planes
typically haul cargo and mail (besides passenger
baggage). How do we account for that? (In my
case, lacking good information for what
percentage of hauled weight is cargo vs.
passengers, I don't even try.)
In a similar vein, how the hell do we
figure the average amount of fuel (heating) oil
used by an average household? Most
households don't use fuel oil, so we have all
the same problems as the above. What most
calculators seem to have done is to consider
only the households that actually use oil. Thus
the average usage shown is a lot more than the
average usage of all American households.
If we included that number in the total usage
for the average household then we'd be
overstating how much the typical
household uses. So some calculators, including
mine, show you the amount of oil used by
oil-using households when you're entering your
own figures, but the total for the
average household is calculated independently
from the line items.
Perssonal consumption
vs. consumption from infrastructure
Then there's the question of what to
count. On one extreme is Nature.org, which
tries to incorporate the energy needed to build
and maintain roadways when they're figuring your
driving footprint. I'm not sure that's really
fair, since the roadway still exists even if you
stop driving. And if you start riding a bike,
you'll still use some roadways.
Most calculators don't take Nature's route,
and instead look at your personal consumption
only. However, many estimates of per-capita
consumption are done by dividing a whole
country's carbon output by the number of
citizens, making each person partially
responsible for all energy consumed in the
country, no matter how or where it happened.
Households vs.
individuals
Another problem is how to accurately
count household vs. individual use. In fact,
it looks to me like CarbonCounter.org ran
headfirst into that problem, as their Sources
section mixes results, listing some things per
household and others per individual. For my
calculator, to calculate individual use I first
took the household use and divided by around 2
-- not the actual 2.67 people per household,
because when you have more people in a house,
you have more economies of scale. For example,
both a 3-person household and a 1-person
household have a refrigerator, that will use a
similar amount of electricity. So I consider a
small "penalty" for living alone.
What's a
ton?
Finally, a "ton" means different
things depending on whom you talk to. In the
U.S. a ton is 2000 lbs., but in the U.K. it's
2240 lbs. And then there are metric tons which
are 2205 lbs. In researching my sources I tried
to make sure I was using U.S. tons consistently,
and converting other types of tons into short
tons (U.S. tons) when comparing my figures with
other calculators', but possibly I missed the
conversion in a couple of cases. Fortunately,
the difference between various kinds of tons
isn't all that great.
Comparing results
When we look at different
calculators, we see that they come up with
different results for the same stuff.
There's a fairly wide range, but my results are
in the middle, leading me to believe that
they're fairly reliable, since the extremes on
either end are less likely to be accurate. My
total for individual use is 16.6 tons (vs.
others at 7.5, 8.0, 21, 22,
22.5, 23.8, and 27), and my household
total is 38.2 tons (vs. others at 27.7 and
66.8). I have tables
comparing my results to other calculators at
the bottom of the calculator page. Of coursse,
for transparency, I clearly detail all my
sources and calculations (above) so you can see
how they were done. And as I mentioned at the
top of this section, even though the numbers
differ across calculators, the ratios appear
fairly consistent, so I think you can
successfully compare different parts of your
lifestyle (e.g. driving vs. eating), or your
total use to the average total use.
This page last modified February
2009.
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