One Watt, One year, One dollar

Photo: Flickr, CC"Leave a 100 Watt light bulb on for a year, pay $100."Eric Drexler (sometimes called the father of nanotechnology, or more precisely, of molecular manufacturing) has been blogging for a little while and he recently had a short post with a useful rule of thumb to estimate electricity costs ins the US, and thus encourage conservation.

He wrote:

For residential customers in the U.S., the average price of electricity has recently* been at $0.115 per kilowatt-hour. This works out to almost exactly $1.00 per Watt-year:

Leave a 100 Watt light bulb on for a year, pay $100.

I found this surprising when I calculated it. The number is simple, memorable, and encourages conservation. Pass it on.

Of course a 100-watt bulb usually isn't on all the time for a year, but if it's on approximately 1/3 of the time, it'll take 3 years... The point is more to make energy use seem more real by using a real world usage. Unfortunately, most people still have no idea what their lights, appliances, electronics gadgets, etc, cost them and the planet.

Via Eric DrexlerMore Energy Articles5 Ways to Power the Green Cars of the FutureEnergy Star Certification for Enterprise Servers Coming May 1First Solar: Our Solar Panel Manufacturing Costs Are Now Below $1 Per Watt