FEB 27

Today's Greener Gadgets Conference featured keynote speaker Saul Griffith: inventor, entrepreneur and science-geek extraordinaire. He spent the first half of his presentation explaining how he's come to quantify his personal impact on the earth through adding up the watts it takes to power his life.

From air travel and driving to the food he consumes and the stuff he owns, the average amount of watts his lifestyle requires is close to 18,000, while the average American clocks in at 11,500 watts. He was surprised by this - he drives a hybrid, bikes often, eats locally, etc. Shouldn't all these things amount to a lower watt demand? He had news for us too - we are all probably racking up way more watts than we think.

In order to help all of us identify exactly where we stand, Griffith and his friends created Wattz On, a website devoted to calculating personal energy consumption based on individual lifestyle. The website aims to prove that our energy use can in fact be measured and knowing our impact can help us to analzye our worse habits and change them. Ready to face your energy reality? Click here.

Comments (9)

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Watts per year?
written by Kevin, February 28, 2009

The Watt is a unit of power, not energy, so the summary above makes no sense.

Looking at the original site, I think they are calculating mean power usage over the course of a year. So the units are Watts, not Watts per year, which is what they state.

You could if you prefer multiply this figure by the number of seconds in a year, which would give you a value in Joules per year.

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do you know what watts are?
written by Ivan, February 28, 2009

this is just annoying!
for such a mistake you would have gotten an F in my JUNIOR HIGH!
and Joules are the really correct answer, but I think kWh per year would be geeky enough for most people ;) while still correct, not just plain gibbrish!
just to put this in perspective:
you don't use square feet of water tube cross section, you use liters of water....

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greenwashing?
written by hyperspaced, February 28, 2009

I am sure the Australians would find this tool handy, especially after the wildfires that created millions of tons of CO2 in their country recently.
All I'm saying is that we are missing the big picture here. So, want to lower your "watthours-per-person"? Plant trees !!

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written by Clinch, February 28, 2009

Concidering all his flights, he shouldn't be suprised his energy usage is so high (flying makes up over half his energy usage pie).

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written by Rob Chant, March 01, 2009

Well, I just figured out my usage (albeit in the incorrect units):

4,077 Watts

Not bad I reckon, but could be better (I live in the UK).

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Watts/year = power acceleration?
written by Jeff, March 01, 2009

Joules/second/yr? So every year he increases his power usage by 18 kW? That's a lot!

(totally lame... i know.)

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Collective action needed
written by Rojelio, March 01, 2009

More power to the individual who wants to decrease their energy consumption. I would like to point out, however, that we're a place where we need massive collective action from every able population and every government. We're pretty much screwed if it remains a hand full of liberals changing light bulbs and calculating how to save 5 cents of electricity every month. Give us some technology to pull us out of this mess.

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Watts is a perfectly fine unit!
written by Kevin, March 04, 2009

I got 9,296W. It means that on average I'm consuming 9,296W. Thats a lot of horsepower! Pretty crazy to think about cuz my body only uses about 200W normally. Obviously, when I'm in a plane (over a third of my footprint), its much higher and when I'm sleeping its much lower. Its not the average power over a year. It is continuous average power--they incorporate the energy it takes to create items that last several years, like cars. A good quick study. Well done.

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written by russ, March 12, 2009

Rojelio - right on!

The plants I worked in for years produced 3 million tons per year - part of a steel making complex.

The overall complex produced about 10,5 million tons per year.

In a 3rd world country because it is harder to get away with that stuff in the developed countries.

Until a carbon penalty is established this will continue to happen. The carbon penalty will change life styles and economics around the world. I mean making the consumer or industry pay per tonne of carbon.

Not the silly cap & trade now in use. That only transfers money to projects that were going to happen anyway but get certified by corrupt governments.

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