Twenty. Ten. Thousand. Watt. Lights.
Sounds crazy, right? Well, as is becoming practice here on Carbontastic, let's do a little math.
20 lights x 10 kW each x 8 hours per day (estimating 3ish til 11ish) x 25 days = 40,000 kWh of electricity
However, what if this display were going up in Portland? Try more than 16 tonnes of CO2e.
To his credit, artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, did say they this:
When I saw English Bay I knew it would be the perfect spot to create our largest canopy of light to date and for the first time we are also able to use renewable energy.(Note on correction: My original figure of 11% was from the US EPA Equivalencies Calculator, based on the 800 kg CO2e, which produced a very low result because the EPA calculator is based on the US's higher emissions factors. Mea culpa. Thanks to Joe for catching my funky math.)
4 comments:
Hi Beth, the average home in BC uses 10,000 KWh per year. So its equivalent to 4 houses. Not a lot though.
If it were 11% of a house, then the house will burn in 40 days the same energy as the searchlights do in 25 days. Which is way too much.
The real problem with renewable energy in BC is that a lot of radical leftists are against it and trying to stop it because they want the local ranch owner or 2nd home owner to be able to veto these projects.
Thanks for your post.
Thanks, Joe! Much appreciated. Correction and note made above.
You are welcome Beth.
Your numbers on CO2e are very interesting. Where does one find such data?
So the BC Grid is 0.02 tonnes/MWh and the Portland grid is 0.4 mT/MWh.
I wonder if the BC figure includes the 14% of power imported by BC Hydro which is mostly coal fired power from Alberta and US? I suspect the 0.02 is too low. Even if BC did not burn any gas or diesel in the province to generate electricity (which it does due to Burrard Thermal plant), the 14% of coal imports would be 0.14 mT/MWh (assuming 1 mT/MWh for coal). So I am curious to know where the 0.02 figure comes from.
(actually its Dave and the other name is my middle name)
The BC figure it publicly available on the BC Hydro website (somewhere...can't find it right now...didn't say their website was particularly *helpful*...), and the Oregon figure was arrived at through research w/ the City of Portland by a colleague.
BC Hydro's figures shift every year as a result of their changing mix, and last I checked, no, they do not include imports. It's strictly a generation figure, which works if everyone uses generation figures because then everyone's emissions are counted pre-trading. Perfect system? Not in my humble opinion. But they're the numbers that are available.
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