Hello and welcome to Powerful Choices for the Environment
electricity lesson for classroom or home use. By journeying with a lively cast of comic characters
(kids, superheros, animals, and even a living electric meter) we hope students will have fun learning
about electricity and how their conservation choices can contribute to our ecosystem’s health. We’d
like to assist you in helping your students’ progress, so please find some helpful information below.
It covers electricity and conservation basics as well as how to use the Powerful Choices for the
Environment student materials (Adventure Book and Energy Hunt), a glossary ( all words in
bold italics are defined), and other various sources of information are referenced.
KEEPING IT SIMPLE
When discussing concepts such as electricity with your students try to keep it simple and use real
world examples whenever possible. Following is information about energy, electricity, different
sources of electricity, and electricity conservation.
ENERGY
Inform students energy can exist in many forms (gravity, heat, sound, electrical etc.) and is in
everything. It is the ability or capacity to do work. We use energy for everything we do, from
sleeping to waking up to eating breakfast and to, yes, even learning about energy!
There are two main types of energy:
Stored (potential ) Energy - The capability of something to do work. Example - a stretched rubber
band or water at the top of a waterfall
Working (kinetic) Energy - The energy of motion or the conversion of stored energy into work.
Example - a stretched rubber band released and flying through the air or water dropping down a
waterfall
ELECTRICITY
Ask students if they know what electricity is and if they can describe it. There may be many
correct answers. Saying it is a form of energy that usually travels by wire or comes from
batteries to power things we use is sufficient. Have them imagine a world without electricity. Ask
students to try and count the number of different things in their home that use electricity.
MAKING ELECTRCITY
Explain that electricity is a type of energy that is usually produced by the conversion or use of other
energy sources to turn a turbine that then turns a generator that converts the mechanical energy
into electricity. Ask students if they can think of any natural resources we use to make electricity.
Use the list below to hint at any they may have missed. All of the resources we use to make
electricity are either renewable ( naturally replenished) or non-renewable ( consumed faster than
nature can create them). Ask students to go through the different resources discussed earlier and
identify them as renewable or non-renewable and also try to think of one positive characteristic and
one negative charecteristic for each as well. Again, please use the list below to asssist. Helping the
students to understand that making electricity always has impacts upon the environment is
more important than exact answers.
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ENERGY SOURCE
RENEWABLE or
NON-RENEWABLE?
POSITIVE
NEGATIVE
Air pollution,
land destruction
COAL
NON-RENEWABLE
Cheap, Plentyful
NUCLEAR
NON-RENEWABLE
Clean air, Makes a lot
of energy
Other pollution and waste,
expensive
SOLAR PANELS
RENEWABLE
Proven technology,
Non-polluting
Expensive, no energy at
night, possibly an eye sore
WIND
RENEWABLE
Proven technology,
Non-polluting
Depends on weather,
may harm bird populations
BIOMASS
RENEWABLE
Reduced greenhouse
gases
Possible use of food crops,
deforestation possible?
HYDROELECTRIC
RENEWABLE
Non-polluting, Low
costs after start
GEOTHERMAL
RENEWABLE
Non-polluting, Low costs
after start, Continuous
Dam impacts salmon,
river ecosystem damage
Groundwater pollution
possible, usually in sensitive
wilderness area
Once the students have had a chance to talk about the impacts of making electricity ask them
what they could do to help. Encourage creativity but try to get them to focus on their home and
school. Answers like “put nets around wind farms to protect birds” are good outside of the box
ideas but ultimately the students should focus on what they have the power to change today.
Help steer students towards “wasting less” electricity. Explain the difference between using and
wasting something. Can the students give different examples of both using and wasting
electricity? Can they think of ways to save electrcity for both? Use the following chart for some
ideas to help guide the students if they are having trouble.
USING OR HOW TO CONSERVE ELECTRICITY
ACTIVITY
LOCATION
WHY?
WASTING?
Turn off light when leaving!
BEDROOM
Leaving light on when
nobody is in the room
Wasting
BATHROOM
Taking a shower
Using
Consuming electricity means impacts
on the environment.
In this case, for no reason.
Take shorter showers.
Heating water uses electricity.
KITCHEN
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Using a dishwasher
Using
Always wash a full load of dishes.
Running the dishwasher
less uses less electricity.
Save your game and turn it off!
LIVING ROOM
LIVING ROOM
Leaving a videogame
on when not playing
Wasting
Playing a videogame
Using
Consuming electricity means impacts
on the environment.
In this case, for no reason.
Play outside instead?
Using daylight doesn’t use electricity.
LAUNDRY
Drying clothes in
a dryer
LAUNDRY
Washing one thing
with a full load
washer setting
Can you hang them up to air dry instead?
Using
Wasting
Using time and evaporation
doesn’t use electricity.
Always wash a full load or make sure
the washer setting is right!
Running the washer less uses less
electricity as well as using cold water
and smaller load settings when possible.
ANSWERING TOGETHER
Please work with your students on the online Adventures book and downloadable Energy Hunt.
ADVENTURE BOOK
Ask the students if they have ever read a “choose your own adventure book” or played a game
where the choices they made affected how the story went. Introduce the Powerful Choices
Adventures book as a similar activity where they will have to make a choice and turn to the
indicated page and continue. This could be a whole class activity where the class raises hands to
make majority decisions or if resources are available students can work alone or in groups. It is
recommended for no more than two students to share one book or computer.
Explain to the students they should do the Adventures book two times. Each time they will add up
their kilowatt-hours of electricity used. The first time they should go through the book choosing
available choices that they would have made before talking about electricity and impacts to our
environment. The second time they should try and make choices that would conserve the most,
and waste the least, electricity. Talk to them about their “before and after” scores. What was
realistic? What wasn’t? Were there other choices they would have made but not listed in the book?
Ask them if they would be willing to start, and continue, to do any of the decisions they made in the
book to conserve electricity at home.
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ENERGY HUNT
Introduce the Energy Hunt after doing the Powerful Choices Adventures book. It would be best to
have the students go through the sample home questions without looking at the answers first. Note
that the students will see several familiar faces. Maybe ask the students if they see a favorite
character from the Adventures book activity? Can they find the couch potato? Once you have their
attention and interest, ask them if they’ve ever looked at a cross-section of a home before. Explain
that we can only see one side of the home and that the outside walls are invisible. Point out the
bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and laundry room. Also explain that every home is
different and may have more or less rooms in different arrangements from the example home.
Explain that the questions are color coded to the rooms where they’ll find the answers as they also
are in this guide.
Here are some of the this activity’s questions that may need special attention or explanation.
Please see the glossary for more detailed information as indicated.
BEDROOM - Can you tell what type they are? See Compact Fluorescent Lamps or Incandescent
Lamps.
BATHROOM - What is the Gallons Per Minute (GPM) of your shower head? See Gallons Per Minute.
KITCHEN- Is there at least 2 inches of space around the front, back, and sides? See refrigerator.
LIVING ROOM - Are any of the things plugged into power strips that are turned off when not in use?
See power strips.
LAUNDRY ROOM - Do you clean the lint filter every time you use the dryer? See dryer.
Can you locate your water heater? Is it electric or gas? Temperature? See water heater.
BONUS - Can you find a thermostat? What temperature is it set to right now? See thermostat and
temperature.
Once you’ve finished going over the practice home questions have the students try and gather real
information for their own homes. Please let them know that you and Puget Sound Energy will not
be collecting this information. It is suggested that guardians work on the questions with their
children when able, as students will probably have to ask them questions about things such as
number of loads of laundry or if the water heater is gas or electric. After students finish the
Energy Hunt ask them how their answers compared to the practice home. Were they surprised by
their answers? Give them some facts about an average American home.
EMRE
TEM
Thank you for using Powerful Choices for the Environment materials! Please see our website at [tba]
for more information or to contact us.
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Average American Home Major Residential Uses of Energy From: http://www.energy.gov/ US Dept of energy
32% space heating, 13% water heating, 12% lighting, 11% air conditioning, 8% refrigeration, 5% electronics,
5% wet-clean (mostly clothes dryers)
Table 5A. Residential Average Monthly Bill by Census Division, and State 2009
From: http://www.eia.gov/ U.S. Energy Information Administration
State
Washington
Consumers
2,808,333
Average Monthly
Consumption (kWh)
1,091
Batteries A battery is a device that converts chemical energy directly to electrical energy. Disposable batteries have a one way
chemical reaction and rechargeable batteries have a chemical process that can be reversed.
Biomass A renewable energy source, is biological material from living, or recently living organisms, such as wood, waste,
(hydrogen) gas, and alcohol fuels. Students may ask why fossil fuels are not considered biomass given their origins.
Although fossil fuels have their origin in ancient biomass, they are not considered biomass by the generally accepted
definition because they contain carbon that has been "out" of the carbon cycle for a very long time. Their combustion
therefore disturbs the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere.
Capacity Having the power to do something or to produce something. In this case, the ability to produce energy.
Coal Coal, a fossil fuel, is the largest source of energy for the generation of electricity worldwide, as well as one of the largest
worldwide anthropogenic sources of carbon dioxide emissions. Coal is extracted from the ground by mining. Coal is
primarily used as a solid fuel to produce electricity and heat through combustion. World coal consumption was about
6,743,786,000 short tons in 2006[18] and is expected to increase 48% to 9.98 billion short tons by 2030. However,
consumption is increasing and maximal production could be reached within decades. Release of carbon dioxide,
a greenhouse gas, which causes climate change and global warming according to the IPCC and the EPA. Approximately
40% of the world electricity production uses coal. Generation of hundreds of millions of tons of waste products,
including fly ash, bottom ash, flue gas desulfurization sludge, that contain mercury, uranium, thorium, arsenic, and other
heavy metals Acid rain from high sulfur coal # Interference with groundwater and water table levels Coal is the largest
contributor to the human-made increase of CO2 in the air. China is by far the largest producer of coal in the world. It has
now become the world's largest energy consumer but relies on coal to supply about 70% of its energy needs.
Compact Fluorescent Lamps, CFL A gas-discharge lamp that uses electricity to excite mercury vapor. The excited mercury atoms produce short-wave
ultraviolet light that then causes a phosphor to fluoresce, producing visible light. A fluorescent lamp converts electrical
power into useful light more efficiently than an incandescent lamp. Lower energy cost typically offsets the higher initial
cost of the lamp. The lamp is more costly because it requires a ballast (a device intended to limit the amount of current in
an electric circuit) to regulate the current through the lamp.
Lifespan - The average rated life of a CFL is between 8 and 15 times that of incandescents.
Energy efficiency - For a given light output, CFLs use 20 to 33 percent of the power of equivalent incandescent
lamps.
Mercury emissions - CFLs, like all fluorescent lamps, contain small amounts of mercury[46][47] as vapor inside
the glass tubing. However, reduced electrical power demand, reduces in turn the amount of mercury released
by coal as it is burned.
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Computer According to Scott Mueller of PCWorld.com, the average computer, depending on age and design, uses between
150 - 800 watts while in use and 50-400 while idle. By taking advantage of power-saving configurations on your
computer, you can easily save $75-100 per year per computer on your energy bill. Not only will power-saving techniques
save you money, they will also extend the life of your computer and its parts and reduce the carbon footprint of your
computer.
Below is a guide on how to set your Power Options on your computer.
Turn off monitor - By turning off the monitor, you are already saving 1/2 of the energy that you possibly can.
Recommendation: Set to turn off - 10 minutes
Turn off hard disks - By only turning off the hard disks, you barely save any energy yet compromise convenience.
Recommendation: Set to never
System Standby/Sleep - Turns the monitor, hard drive, video and sound cards, and almost everything else off. Warning! In
the case of a power outage, your current state and all unsaved open documents will be lost. For plugged in computers it is
recommended using this option over hibernate.
Recommendation: Set to 30 minutes
System Hibernate - Similar to Standby/Sleep in the way that it shuts everything down but it saves data on hard drive.
Recommended only for laptops, especially while running on battery otherwise use System Standby/Sleep .
Recommendation: Set to 30 minutes.
Conservation Planned management of a natural resource to prevent exploitation, destruction, or neglect
Consumed To do away with or utilize something by either using or wasting.
Conversion To change from one form or function to another.
Cross-section An illustration, photo, or model showing the contents inside of somethingthing and their location from eachother
Dam - See Hydroelectric
Dishwasher As much as 80 percent of the energy your dishwasher uses goes to heat water. Remember-by saving water, you're also
saving the energy used to pump it, treat it, heat it in your home, and clean it up afterwards in your city's waste water
facility. Up to 50 percent of a typical city's energy bill goes to supplying water and cleaning it after use! Avoid using the
"rinse hold" setting on your dishwasher. "Rinse hold" uses three to seven gallons of hot water for each use, and heating
water takes extra energy. Wash only full loads. Use short cycles for everything but the dirtiest dishes. Short cycles use less
energy and work just as well. If your dishwasher has an air-dry setting, choose it instead of the heat-dry setting. You will
cut your dishwasher's energy use from 15 percent to 50 percent. If there's no air-dry setting, turn the dishwasher off after
its final rinse and openthe door. The dishes will dry without using any extra electricity. If you rinse dishes before loading
them, use cold water. The dishwasher's heat and moisture make the refrigerator work harder. If you have to put them next
to each other, place a sheet of foam insulation between them. According to researchers, a load of dishes cleaned in a
dishwasher requires 37 percent less water than washing dishes by hand. However, if you fill the wash and rinse basins
instead of letting the water run, you'll use half as much water as a dishwasher would.
Doors At night, shine a flashlight over all potential gaps while a partner observes the house from outside. Large cracks will show
up as rays of light. Shut a door on a piece of paper. If you can pull it out without tearing, you're losing energy. Use
weather stripping (a strip of material to cover the joint of a door or threshold so as to exclude rain, snow, and cold air) if
necessary.
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Dryer A dryer is typically the second-biggest electricity-using appliance after the refrigerator, costing about $85 to operate
annually. All dryers on the market work the same - they tumble clothes through heated air to remove moisture. Engineers
are working to develop dryers that use microwaves to dry clothes, but they're not yet being sold. (One problem still to be
overcome is metal rivets and metal zippers, which don't microwave well.) Ways to cut the amount of energy and money
you spend drying clothes: If you vent the exhaust outside, use the straightest and shortest metal duct available. Check the
outside dryer exhaust vent periodically. If it doesn't close tightly, replace it with one that does to keep the outside air from
leaking in. Clean the lint filter which is the the screen that collects lint (fine ravelings, down, fluff, or loose short fibers from
yarn or fabrics) after every load to improve air circulation. Thsi will help clothes dry faster and use less energy.
Ecosystem Living and nonliving things working together to form a unique environment.
Electric Oven Today, about 58 percent of American households cook with electricity, but gas cooking is making a steady comeback, for
good reason. A gas stove costs less than half as much to operate as an electric one, provided it is equipped with electronic
ignition instead of a pilot light. The electronic pilotless ignitions reduce gas usage by about 30 percent over a constantly
burning pilot light. These are also more convenient, eliminating the need to restart a standing pilot light.
Cost of Cookin
This data from the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings compares the cost of cooking a casserole in
several ways. It assumes the cost of gas is $.60 a therm, and electricity is $.08 a kWh.
Appliance
Temperature
Time
Energy Cost
Electric Oven
350
1 hour 2.0 kWh
$.16
Electric Convection
Oven
325
45 min 1.39 kWh
$.11
Gas Oven
350
1 hour .112 therm
$.07
Electric Frying Pan 420
1 hour .9 kWh
$.07
Toaster Oven
425
50 min .95 kWh
$.08
Electric Crockpot 200
7 hour .7 kWh
$.06
Microwave
"High" 15 min .36 kWh
$.03
How To Use Your Oven and Electric Range Efficiently:
Preheat it only when necessary, and then keep the preheating time to a minimum. Do not open the oven door often to
check your food. Each time you open the door the oven temperature drops by 25 degrees. It seems obvious, but don't
cook with the oven door open. Bake several items at the same time. Don't cover your oven racks with foil - it blocks the
flow of hot air. Use glass or ceramic pans in your oven. You can turn down the temperature about 25 degrees and foods
will cook just as quickly. Clean a self-cleaning oven right after you've used it, to take advantage of residual heat. Fullsize ovens are not very efficient for cooking small- to medium-sized meals. It generally pays to use toaster ovens or
microwave ovens. Turn off your electric burners several minutes before the allotted cooking time is up. The heating
element will stay hot long enough to finish the cooking without using more electricity. (The same principle works with
oven cooking, too.) Match the size of the pan to the heating element; more heat will get to the pan and less will be lost
to the surrounding air. A 6-inch pan on an 8-inch burner will waste over 40 percent of the energy. On electric stovetops,
use only flat-bottomed pans that make full contact with the element. A warped or rounded pan will waste most of the
heat.
Electricity It wasn't until 1897 that scientists discovered the existence of electrons -- and this is where electricity starts. Matter is
composed of atoms. Break something down to small enough pieces and you wind up with a nucleus orbited by one or
more electrons, each with a negative charge. In many materials, the electrons are tightly bound to the atoms. Wood, glass,
plastic, ceramic, air, cotton -- these are all examples of materials in which electrons stick with their atoms. Because the
electrons don't move, these materials can't conduct electricity very well, if at all. These materials are electrical insulators.
Most metals, however, have electrons that can detach from their atoms and zip around. These are called free electrons.
The loose electrons make it easy for electricity to flow through these materials, so they're known as electrical (cont.)
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conductors. They conduct electricity. The moving electrons transmit electrical energy from one point to another.
Think of electrons as pet dogs and a negative charge as a case of fleas. Homes where the dogs lived inside or within a
fenced-in area would be the equivalent of an electrical insulator. Homes where the pets roamed free, however, would be
electrical conductors. If you had one neighborhood of indoor, pampered pugs and one neighborhood of unfenced,
free-roaming basset hounds, which group do you think could spread an outbreak of fleas the fastest? Dogs aside,
electricity needs a conductor in order to move. There also has to be something to make the electricity flow from one point
to another through the conductor. One way to get electricity flowing is to use a generator.
Energy If power is like the strength of a weightlifter, energy is like his endurance. Energy is a measure of how long we can sustain
the output of power, or how much work we can do. One common unit of energy is the kilowatt-hour (kWh).
Fireplace If you have a fireplace, close the damper when you don't have a fire burning. An open fireplace damper can let 8 percent
of heat from your furnace escape through the chimney! In the summer, an open fireplace damper can let cool air escape.
It's like having a window open! A fireplace sends most of the heat in your house straight up the chimney emitting as
much as 24,000 cubic feet of air per hour to the outside! Consider a gas fireplace if you are planning to install a new one.
These provide the enjoyment of looking at flames but can be 70% more efficient than regular fireplaces.
Furnace A household furnace is a major appliance that is permanently installed to provide heat to an interior space through
intermediary fluid movement, which may be air, steam, or hot water. The most common fuel source for modern furnaces
in the United States is natural gas; other common fuel sources include LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), fuel oil, coal or
wood. In some cases electrical resistance heating is used as the source of heat, especially where the cost of electricity is
low.
Improve the Performance of Your System
Clean or replace air filters regularly. Clean registers. Warm-air supply and return registers should be kept clean and
should not be blocked by furniture, carpets, or drapes. Keep baseboards and radiators clean and unrestricted by
furniture, carpets, or drapes. Tune up your system. Oil-fired systems should be tuned up and cleaned every year,
gas-fired systems every two years, and heat pumps every two or three years. Regular tune-ups not only cut heating
costs, but they also increase the lifetime of the system, reduce breakdowns and repair costs, and cut the amount of
carbon monoxide, smoke, and other pollutants pumped into the atmosphere by fossil-fueled systems. Seal your
ducts. In homes heated with warm-air heating, ducts should be inspected and sealed to ensure adequate
airflow and eliminate loss of heated air. It is not uncommon for ducts to leak as much as 15-20% of the air passing
through them. And leaky ducts can bring additional dust and humidity into living spaces. Thorough duct sealing costs
several hundred dollars but can cut heating and cooling costs in many homes by 20%.
Check for wasted fan energy. If your furnace is improperly sized or if the fan thermostat is improperly set, the fan may
operate longer than it needs to. If you're getting a lot of cold air out of the warm-air registers after the furnace turns
off, have a service technician check the fan delay setting.
Gallons Per Minute , GPM The best method for measuring your GPM is to literally take a container, generally one that is marked off in increments,
such a quarts, pints, whatever you choose to use place it under your sink and let it run for 10 seconds .
Here's how to quickly determine flow rate for a shower head:
1. Turn the shower on to its normal position 2. Place a container under the fixture and collect the water for 10 seconds
3. Measure the quantity of water in the container and convert the measurement to gallons (e.g., 0.25 gallons) 4. Multiply
the measured quantity of water by 6 to calculate the flow rate in gallons per minute (0.25 gal x 6 = 1.5 GPM). 7. By
mulitplying the amount of collected water by six you’ll get GPM. 8. Multiply GPM by the time of your shower to get
Gallons of Water used. Unless one takes a cold shower all that water needed to be heated and used energy to do so.
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Generator A generator is simply a device that moves a magnet near a wire to create a steady flow of electrons. The action that forces
this movement varies greatly, ranging from hand cranks and steam engines to nuclear fission, but the principle remains
the same. One simple way to think about a generator is to imagine it acting like a pump pushing water through a pipe.
Only instead of pushing water, a generator uses a magnet to push electrons along.
Geothermal Deep inside the Earth lies hot water and steam that can be used to heat our homes and businesses and generate
electricity cleanly and efficiently. It's called geothermal energy -- from the Greek words geo, or "earth," and therme,
meaning "heat." The heat inside the Earth is intense enough to melt rocks. Those molten rocks are known as magma.
Because magma is less dense than the rocks surrounding it, it rises to the surface. Sometimes magma escapes through
cracks in the Earth's crust, erupting out of volcanoes as part of lava. But most of the time magma stays beneath the
surface, heating surrounding rocks and the water that has become trapped within those rocks. Sometimes that water
escapes through cracks in the Earth to form pools of hot water (hot springs) or bursts of hot water and steam (geysers).
The rest of the heated water remains in pools under the Earth's surface, called geothermal reservoirs. The initial costs of
geothermal energy are high -- wells can cost $1 to $4 million each to drill, and installation of a home geothermal pump
system can run as much as $30,000. However, a home geothermal energy pump can cut energy bills by 30 to 40 percent.
Geothermal energy is considered renewable because the heat is continually replaced. Geothermal plants can run
consistently, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Hydroelectric Hydropower is the country's largest renewable energy source. Worldwide, hydropower plants produce about 24 percent
of the world's electricity and supply more than 1 billion people with power. Hydropower plants harness water's energy
and use simple mechanics to convert that energy into electricity. Hydropower plants are actually based on a rather simple
concept -- water flowing through a dam turns a turbine, which turns a generator.
PARTS OF A HYDROPOWER PLANT IN ORDER OF WATER AND ENERGY FLOW
1. Dam - Most hydropower plants rely on a dam that holds back water, creating a large reservoir. Often,
this reservoir is used as a recreational lake, such as Lake Roosevelt at the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington State.
2. Intake - Gates on the dam open and gravity pulls the water through the penstock, a pipeline that leads to the turbine.
Water builds up pressure as it flows through this pipe.
3. Turbine - The water strikes and turns the large blades of a turbine, which is attached to a generator above it by way of a
shaft.
4. Generators - As the turbine blades turn, so do a series of magnets inside the generator. Giant magnets rotate past
copper coils, producing alternating current (AC) by moving electrons.
5. Transformer - The transformer inside the powerhouse takes the AC and converts it to higher-voltage current.
6. Power lines - Out of every power plant come four wires: the three phases of power being produced simultaneously
plus a neutral or ground common to all three.
7. Outflow - Used water is carried through pipelines, called tailraces, and re-enters the river downstream.
The water in the reservoir is considered stored energy. When the gates open, the water flowing through the penstock
becomes kinetic energy because it's in motion.
Incandescent Lamps They light by heating a metal filament wire to a high temperature until it glows. They use only 10 percent of their energy
to produce light, burning off the rest as heat. They've wasted 90 percent of the electricity people have been feeding them
for the past 130 years — electricity that was mainly generated from coal and other fossil fuels. Congress put its foot down
with the 2007 energy bill, introducing tougher efficiency rules that are expected to crush the market for incandescent
bulbs beginning in 2012. Within a few years, the ever-cheaper CFL may dominate the lighting market. An incandescent
bulb doesn't contain mercury, but it still has a higher overall mercury footprint than a CFL, thanks to the coiled tube's
renowned energy efficiency. Coal-fired power plants are humans' No. 1 source of mercury pollution, and energy-intensive
incandescent bulbs require those plants to burn more coal than CFLs do. That extra coal burning releases far more
mercury than even the combined amount inside a CFL and in the coal emissions needed to light it.
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Insulation Material used to prevent the passage of heat. Not only can heat escape through windows, doors, and vents but it can
also escape through pipes. By insulating pipes water stays hot and requires less energy to heat and by insulating the
floor and attic of a house heat stays trapped between the floor and ceiling layers. In the summer insulation can help
keep heat out of the house. Even a small amount of insulation-if properly installed-can reduce energy costs dramatically.
Kilowatt-hours The kilowatt hour is most commonly known as a billing unit for energy delivered to consumers by electric utilities.
Persons will erroneously insert the “per” because in most other units they are familiar with, the phrase per will precedes
the use of hour, but this is incorrect because the result is the product of power and time (watts multiplied times hours).
Examples: A heater rated at 1000 watts (1 kilowatt), operating for one hour uses one kilowatt hour (equivalent to 3,600
kilojoules) of energy. Using a 60 watt light bulb for one hour consumes 0.06 kilowatt hours of electricity. Using a 60 watt
light bulb for one thousand hours consumes 60 kilowatt hours of electricity.
Kinetic Energy The energy of motion. Objects that are moving, such as a roller coaster, have kinetic energy (KE). The more the object
weighs, and the faster it is moving, the more kinetic energy it has. One of the interesting things about kinetic energy
is that it increases with the velocity squared. This means that if a car is going twice as fast, it has four times the energy.
Layers When we wear layers it’s the same effect as insulating our home. By wearing layers and not turning up the heat in our
homes we can save energy.
Mechanical Energy Energy that is associated with the motion of objects. This form of energy is transferred from one object to another by
mechanical forces. For example, when a hammer strikes a nail, mechanical energy is transferred from the hammer to the
nail.
Microwave Fast and efficient microwave ovens use around 50 percent to 65 percent less energy than conventional ovens. They also
have the added benefit of not heating up your kitchen, so they save money on air conditioning in the hot times of the
year. Use microwave ovens or toaster ovens to cook small- to medium-sized meals. When it comes to large items,
however, your oven or stovetop are usually more efficient.
Non-renewable Can not be replenished (made again) in a short period of time such as coal and oil.
Nuclear Energy Energy released in large amounts by the splitting or formation of atomic nuclei. The light and heat of the sun and other
stars is an example of naturally occurring nuclear energy. Nuclear fuels yield so much energy that even a heavy ship
such as an aircraft carrier powered by nuclear energy can operate many years without refueling. Plant operations do not
result in air emissions similar to those of fossil plants. Whereas the amount of solid wastes generated at nuclear plants is
relatively small, these radioactive wastes pose health risks that exceed that of any other source of electricity. It is quite
possible that these radioactive wastes will be stored for a century or more at existing nuclear plant sites, a prospect that
may preclude any future re-uses of these contaminated lands. The risk of a catastrophic accident, and the subsequent
release of massive quantities of radioactive materials, could carry severe consequences for all forms of life.
Phantom Load Also called vampire power or leaking electricity, is electricity consumed by electronic appliances while they are switched
off or in a standby mode. Some such devices offer remote controls and digital clock features to the user, while other
devices, such as power adapter for laptop computers and other electronic devices, consume power without offering
any features. Residential estimates of the share of phantom load power consumption could be over 10%.
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Pollution The introduction of contaminants into a natural environment that causes instability, disorder, harm or discomfort to
the ecosystem.
The major forms of pollution are listed below:
Air pollution, the release of chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere.
Soil contamination occurs when chemicals are released by spill or underground leakage.
Radioactive contamination, resulting from 20th century activities in atomic physics, such as nuclear power
generation and nuclear weapons research, manufacture and deployment.
Thermal pollution, is a temperature change in natural water bodies caused by human influence.
Water pollution, by the release of waste products and contaminants into surface runoff into river drainage
systems, leaching into groundwater.
Potential Energy Energy waiting to be converted into power. Gasoline in a fuel tank, food in your stomach, a compressed spring, and a
weight hanging from a tree are all examples of potential energy.
Power Strips A strip of electrical sockets that attaches to the end of a flexible cable and allows multiple devices to be plugged in.
Some power strips have energy-saving features, which switch off the strip if appliances go into standby mode. Using
a sensor circuit they detect if the level of current flowing through the socket is in standby mode (less than 30 watts),
they will turn off that socket. This reduces the consumption of standby power used by computer peripherals and
other equipment when not in use, saving money and energy. Some more sophisticated power strips have a master
and slave socket arrangement and when the "master" socket detects standby mode in the attached appliance's
current it turns off the whole strip.
Refrigerator Refrigerators and freezers consume about a sixth of all electricity in a typical American home - using more electricity
than any other single household appliance. Today's refrigerators use 60 percent less electricity on average than
20-year-old models.
Refriferator tips:
Don't put the refrigerator near a heat source - an oven, the dishwasher or direct sunlight from a window.
Make sure air can circulate around the condenser coils. Leave a space between the wall or cabinets.
Keep your refrigerator's coils clean. Brushing or vacuuming the coils can improve efficiency by as much as
30 percent.
Check the temperature - a fridge that is 10 degrees colder than necessary can use 25 percent more energy.
Refrigerators should be kept between 35 and 38 degrees - freezers at 0 degrees Fahrenheit.
Open the door as little as possible. Get in and out quickly.
Allow hot foods to cool before refrigerating or freezing.
Renewable Can be replenished (made again) in a short period of time such as corn or is never depleted to begin with such as
wind.
Resources any physical or virtual entity of limited availability that needs to be consumed to obtain a benefit from it.
Solar Panels Also know as Photovoltaic Cells, are solid state devices that converts the energy of sunlight directly into electricity by
the photovoltaic effect. Assemblies of cells are used to make solar modules, also known as solar panels. The energy
generated from these solar modules, referred to as solar power, is an example of solar energy. (Cont.)
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The solar cell works in three steps:
1. Photons in sunlight hit the solar panel and are absorbed by semiconducting materials, such as silicon.
2. Electrons (negatively charged) are knocked loose from their atoms, allowing them to flow through the
material to produce electricity. Due to the special composition of solar cells, the electrons are only allowed to
move in a single direction.
3. An array of solar cells converts solar energy into a usable amount of direct current (DC) electricity.
Temperature The degree of hotness or coldness of a body or environment (corresponding to its molecular activity). Think of an
ice cube vs. boiling water.
Thermostat A device for regulating the temperature of a system so that the system's temperature is maintained near a desired
setpoint temperature. The name is derived from the Greek words thermos "hot" and statos "a standing". The thermostat
does this by switching heating or cooling devices on or off to maintain the correct temperature. A thermostat may be a
control unit for a heating or cooling system or a component part of a heater or air conditioner. Thermostats can be
constructed in many ways and may use a variety of sensors to measure the temperature. The output of the sensor then
controls the heating or cooling apparatus.
Turbine See Hydroelectric
Using To put into action or service : avail oneself of. He used just enough water to wash his clothes.
Wasting To spend or use carelessly. He wasted energy by leaviing the light on when nobody was in the room.
Water Heater A gas water heater is nearly identical to an electric water heater, except that it does not contain the two heating
elements, but instead has a gas burner at the bottom, with the chimney running up through the middle of the tank.
WindWind power is the conversion of wind energy into a useful form of energy, such as using wind turbines to make
electricity. Wind power consumes no fuel, and emits no air pollution, unlike fossil fuel power sources. The energy
consumed to manufacture and transport the materials used to build a wind power plant is equal to the new energy
produced by the plant within a few months of operation. Danger to birds and bats has been a concern in some locations.
However, studies show that the number of birds killed by wind turbines is very low compared to the number of those
that die as a result of certain other ways of generating electricity and especially of the environmental impacts of using
non-clean power sources.
Windows Besides making sure there are no leaks as with doors we can also save energy by using curtains and blinds in a wise way.
By using curtains to keep sunlight out in summer (when it turns into unwanted heat), and allowing sunlight in during the
winter (when you want the solar heating) we an save a lot of electricity. By adding an insulating layer between your
windows and your room, reducing heat exchange in both summer and winter we get added savings.
Work Applied force over a distance (there has to be motion as a result of force). Work is done on a turbine which in turn
does work on a generator. Unlike power it doesn’t take into account time.
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