What Is A Kilowatt-Hour Anyway?

We talk about energy a lot, but sometimes it is hard to know just how much power we're really talking about. A good way for our brains to handle the scope is to parse megawatts and kilowatts into something more easily digested, like everyday human activities. For example, here is what 1 kilowatt-hour can allow you to do: 1200 electric shaves (> 3 years), slice 100 breads, dry your hair 15 times, 4 TV evenings, listen to 15 CDs, Use a small refrigerator for 24 hours, 20 microwave meals, drill 250 holes, 4 evenings of light with 60 W incandescent lamps or 20 evening of light with 11 W compact fluorescent light (note the higher efficiency of CFLs). Also, keep in mind that for each kWh produced with fossil fuel, 16 pounds about 1.5 pound of CO2 (7.25 0.68 kilograms, Shea Gunther corrected his math, which we were basing this on) are released in the atmosphere and that the average American uses around 600-800 kWhs of energy every month. Thanks to ::Sustainable Energy Blog, via ::Shea Gunther's Blog, ::Efficiency Works Forever

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