Since the inception of the Sustainability Assistant (STA) program in the fall of last year, the Carleton students chosen to be STAs have lived up to their name getting the program off on the right foot. They’ve educated Carleton students – and faculty and staff – on a variety of environmental issues, from the fundamentals of how the new composters work to the history of the wind turbine. Last week you may have noticed them at a table strewn with household appliances in Sayles, working on their latest mission.
The goal of the “What’s Your Wattage?” Sayles station was to educate Carleton faculty, students, and staff about how much electricity they use. The table was covered with all manner of gadgets and doodads, from an electric curling iron to a plugged-in laptop to colorful desk lamps. It looked ready to start an electrical fire any moment, but that was not the real point. The wattmeters were. You can plug an appliance into one of these nifty devices and find out how much electricity, in watts, it uses up.
Nora Mahlberg ’09, a STA, and Chris Erickson ’08, the ENTS educational associate, discussed the relative merits of different appliances with passersby and invited them to try some of the sample appliances on the wattmeter. Nor were students limited to the samples on the table. They could bring in a device from home they’d been wondering about and have it tested. As it so happens, appliances vary widely in their consumption.
“Anything that heats up is particularly costly,” says Chris, such as the nearby coffee maker they’d put on display. One of those monsters can pull as much as 600 watts! That’s six or seven times as much as an old-fashioned, incandescent light bulb, or equivalent to about 18 compact fluorescent bulbs. On the other hand, you probably only run a coffee maker for a few minutes each day, but might leave the lights on in your dorm room for hours. Which contributes more to Carleton’s energy consumption?
The STAs are trying to find out. They hope to collect information on Carls’ typical daily appliance usage to calculate where our greatest energy expenditures come from. The STAs’ focus is not just on the students. They would like to get faculty and staff involved in the energy-saving conversation as well.
Coffee makers and irons pull a lot of wattage but don’t get much use; lights are low-wattage but are on all the time. So what appliance is ee-vil, a perfect storm of juice-guzzling and constant use? Mini dorm fridges. “That’s our appliance of focus right now,” says Chris. They’re notorious for pulling a lot of power, and they run all the time. The worst part is that students keep maybe a yogurt cup or two inside. The STAs strongly encourage people to use the dorm fridges instead.
If you’re interested in this whole saving-electricity thing, you can sign the sustainability pledge at https://apps.carleton.edu/campus/sustainability/pledge/. It’s a list of do-able tips you can take to reduce the amount of resources you’re using. Have questions? The STAs are happy to help – their information is listed on the same site.
