3 ms·

I see your point, but you seem to be forgetting things like refrigerators, freezers, air conditioning units, etc. Granted you can survive without these devices

• schiffern 14y ago
  >refrigerators, freezers That's easy. My (old) fridge/freezer used about 80 watts when averaged over time (peak is 300W when self-defrosting). There are Energy Star refrigerators that use only 34 watts averaged.[1] >air conditioning units This is certainly true for now. Over the long term, low power passive cooling can be surprisingly effective. Taking advantage of evaporation, diurnal temperature changes, "wind chill", thermal mass, phase changes, passive geothermal, and solar gain reduction have the potential to provide comparable comfort for a lot less energy. A small personal anecdote: in college I had no AC, so I would circulate night air through my apartment ($15 fan + $5 timer). It reliably kept it 5-10 degrees cooler than it was outside, but doing nothing it was 5 degrees hotter. It cost $6/month, drawing 60 watts on average, even with a very inefficient motor. [1] http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?startNum=1&resultsperpage=20&fuseaction=refrig.search_products_submit&pd_code=RRF&configuration=Top%20Freezer&total_volume_pair=16%2E0%3A19%2E0&sortColumn=PB&sortColumn_order=DESC&layout=default&phase=search http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?startNum=1&resultspe...