A Dispute!

My friend Julianne taught me this great saying: ‘We could continue to argue without ANY data, or we could get some, and talk about it more later.’ What a great way to keep discussions from becoming arguments.

So, in my last post, I claimed that the winter peak in energy usage is due primarily to the clothes dryer. John thinks it’s due to the television. We tend to watch more television in winter than summer because, well, it’s dark outside! (Still, it’s only something like 6 hours/week.) We didn’t actually have an argument about this, because that’s just not the way we interact, but we did talk about it.

We could do it the computational physicist way. We could go around and find how much energy is used by the TV, and the DVD player, and the dryer, and make a model of usage, including all kinds of estimates. This would probably be fun. It would be a good excuse to get one of those Kill-A-Watt devices...

Or, we could do it the observational astronomer way. I will be gone this winter, so the dryer should get used approximately half as much, since there will be approximately half as many pounds of dirty clothes. (Note that this is probably not precisely true, since some things, like sheets get used by both of us. Also the minimum number of loads is usually two---whites and colors.) But the TV, etc. will get used the same amount, since it doesn’t care how many people watch it. So. In May of next year, we can plot up the 2007-2008 numbers next to the 2008-2009 numbers, and see who’s right.

If neither of these is conclusive, we could do it the experimental physicist way, and put cumulative power meters on every appliance, and actually measure it for a year. But we’ll try the other two options first. Why? Because they are easier! And if they are conclusive, there’s no point in going into this kind of detail.

Aren’t you glad you don’t live here? This is nerd central.