
Overview
You are surrounded by items that use electricity: computers, cell phones, etc., all while sitting with task lighting, in a space that is air-conditioned or heated (perhaps with electricity). The many conveniences of modern life; flat-screen TVs, video game systems, fish tanks, smart phones, lamps, hairdryers, vacuum cleaners, electric toothbrushes, hot water for washing, heat (or cooling) for your room, the fridge, and the all-important coffee maker. Some of you will still have strands of Christmas lights up!
Considering that this is still only part of your individual energy use, imagine the energy supply needed just to serve the rest of your dorm, office, apartment building, neighborhood, or city. Add in all the businesses, schools, industries, etc. Imagine powering the entire state, or the entire country, and then imagine doing it every minute, of every hour, of every day.
Please watch the following (5 min) introductory video:
Hello. Today's lesson is all about energy use in the home. So let's go and look at my home. As you can see currently, it is a snowy day.
And so when we ask about what our energy-- large-scale energy use is in the home, and it is certainly a case of heating in central Pennsylvania. Obviously, in other locations, Central Florida, for example, it would be cooling. But you can see behind me the holes on the top of the roof. That's my air conditioning unit where the air jets come in, 1970 sort of fad.
But if we go and look at where I get my electricity from, my heating from, then it is from baseboard heating. And if you can see behind my right shoulder, that's an electric baseboard. Obviously, I've got electricity going on with lights and other things. Obviously a lot of day lighting as well, with the windows.
So back to heat. Obviously, the issue with heat is we have a variety of fuels we can use. 100 years ago, 50 years ago, there'd be a lot of coal use in Pennsylvania. That's mostly dwindling and only out now in the Anthracite Region, although, natural gas is heavily used as a heating fuel.
Propane, a little bit less, biomass, et cetera, et cetera. But the two big ones are natural gas and electricity. Newer homes, if they have access to electricity-- to natural gas will use natural gas.
Let's see, let's go take a look at some other big items. So the big items would be the water heater, which is in the basement. And that hot water, obviously, goes into the things like the dishwasher, the clothes washing, showers. And so the amount of energy utilized, again, depends on the fuel you use.
Again, you might use a natural gas hot water heater, or you could be using electricity. And depending on how many people, et cetera, and depending on the size of the house, these are the things that impact how much energy you're going to use and, of course, where you are and the particular seasonal transformations that occur. And so things like heating degree days and cooling degree days get covered later on.
The things that are going to impact how much energy we utilize is insulation in the house, air sealing, things like that. Obviously, things like a open fireplace would cause some issues. So in the kitchen, we've got the fridge. It's essentially a heat pump.
We've got a microwave. We've got an oven. We've got various other pieces that make utilization and my life a lot easier. So my microwave, my coffeemaker, et cetera, et cetera.
So we're going to learn about air infiltration. We're going to learn about day lighting, use of deciduous trees to stop the lights coming in-- the light coming in on a summer day. And this type of material is what's going to be covered.
So you can see that tree in front of my house doesn't have any leaves. It's deciduous, and that's helpful for shading. We want lots of light, but we don't want lots of heat in the summer.
A couple of things about lighting, I've got a variety of lights in the house. This would have been a fluorescent light until last year. Now, is an LED light. I do have some incandescents.
And if you take a look up here, I have a chandelier. It's a bit crappy. It's not very good task lighting for my puzzle that I'm doing. So I'm going to have to replace that with an LED.
And over here, I have got-- let's see-- I have got compact fluorescent and an LED light. They're a little difficult to see. I won't buy any more compact fluorescents. And a little LED sort of decorative tree.
So that's the lesson material today. It's about how we use energy in the house, could also be businesses. Of course, whenever we have the creation of energy that we utilize, Be it electronics, watching computers, TV, sound system, somewhere that electricity is being generated. And the way we generate electricity currently, there can be considerable pollution and emissions associated with your use of energy. So anyway, I will see you later.
Our Electricity Generation Mix is in Flux - Why?
The fuel or energy source for our electricity is generated by a variety of fossil fuels (natural gas and coal) along with increasingly more renewable sources (wind, hydro, and some solar) along with nuclear energy. The sources we use the most are the cheapest (this was traditionally fossil fuels: coal and natural gas, along with some nuclear and hydroelectric). It was traditionally more expensive to use more renewable energy (or to clean up more of the emissions from fossil fuels). Advances with wind and solar are occurring so cleaner electricity at competitive prices is available. Natural gas use has also increased dramatically due to a new domestic source (shale gas). So it is a time of dramatic change! If we are smarter about electricity use — through conservation and efficiency gains we can save money and protect the environment.
Lesson Objectives
Success in this lesson will be based on the following things;
- articulate how electrical energy is used in the home
- knowledge of energy conservation strategies
- understanding how electricity is transformed and delivered
- knowledge of how various light bulbs function
- capture why electricity demand changes
- recognize how electricity use improves the quality of life