Humane Educator's Toolbox: Just How Much Energy Are Your Gadgets Using?

Just how much energy, money and gas do all those gadgets and appliances you have use? GE has a nifty new tool that allows users to "understand more about how we consume energy in our homes." With the tool, you can determine:

• How much power does each appliance use in watts?
• How much does each appliance cost to use in dollars?
• How much does each appliance consume in gallons of gasoline?
• What does 1 kilowatt hour yield for each appliance?

You can view the data for each individual appliance, and you can deselect the appliances you don't own to determine a total for your household. Some of the costs can also be calculated by amount of time (year, month, day) and by state.

The types of appliances are occasionally random (aquarium? popcorn popper?) and a little role-biased (a curling iron but no electric shaver? kitchen appliances but no power tools?), but the tool is still useful for exploring and discussing our energy use at home, and it's fun to browse around.

When using this, remind yourself and your students that, while 20% of energy use "is residential," that means 80% belongs to business and industry, and while we can make different personal choices to decrease our energy use, it's also important that we work toward changing the systems to become more efficient and sustainable.

~ Marsha

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