{"id":134,"date":"2009-08-11T14:49:15","date_gmt":"2009-08-11T02:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more_energy_issues\/"},"modified":"2009-08-11T14:49:15","modified_gmt":"2009-08-11T02:49:15","slug":"more-energy-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"More energy issues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You may have seen the article in the NZ Herald on Saturday about our use of fossil fuels (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/environment\/news\/article.cfm?c_id=39&amp;objectid=10589341&amp;pnum=2\">The Carbon Party&#8217;s Over, Chris Barton, NZ Herald 8 August 2009<\/a>). The bit I loved about this article was translating a barrel of oil (159 litres) into more everyday terms &#8211; namely the energy in it is equivalent to 3500 cyclists giving it their all for an hour. I guess that is the fundamental problem &#8211; oil contains a lot of energy that&#8217;s really easy, and really cheap (even at 149 dollars a barrel) to get at.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Along the same vein, I thought I&#8217;d turn my electricity bill into something easier to grasp. At 20 kWh a day for winter electricity (some days it is more than that)&nbsp;that gives me 72 thousand kilojoules, or, in terms of kcal, 17000 kcal. That&#8217;s about three and a half kilogrammes of chocolate that I would have to eat if I wanted to power my house by bicycle. At about 1000 kcal an hour, for&nbsp;hard cycling,&nbsp;and about 20 dollars a kilogram for chocolate, it would take me about seventeen hours pedalling a day and about seventy dollars in choc to power my house.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Or I could just plug the computer back into the mains, which, on balance, is the easier and cheaper option. Therein lies our energy problem<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You may have seen the article in the NZ Herald on Saturday about our use of fossil fuels (The Carbon Party&#8217;s Over, Chris Barton, NZ Herald 8 August 2009). The bit I loved about this article was translating a barrel of oil (159 litres) into more everyday terms &#8211; namely the energy in it is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>More energy issues : Physics Stop<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More energy issues : Physics Stop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You may have seen the article in the NZ Herald on Saturday about our use of fossil fuels (The Carbon Party&#8217;s Over, Chris Barton, NZ Herald 8 August 2009). The bit I loved about this article was translating a barrel of oil (159 litres) into more everyday terms &#8211; namely the energy in it is [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Physics Stop\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-08-11T02:49:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Marcus\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Marcus\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/\",\"name\":\"More energy issues : Physics Stop\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2009-08-11T02:49:15+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2009-08-11T02:49:15+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#\/schema\/person\/34d359280e44f926f2df12eb3e50aa22\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"More energy issues\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/\",\"name\":\"Physics Stop\",\"description\":\"A light-hearted look at everyday physics going on in the world, written by a physicist but intended for a general audience.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-NZ\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/#\/schema\/person\/34d359280e44f926f2df12eb3e50aa22\",\"name\":\"Marcus\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/author\/mtwilson\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"More energy issues : Physics Stop","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/physicsstop\/2009\/08\/11\/more-energy-issues\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"More energy issues : Physics Stop","og_description":"You may have seen the article in the NZ Herald on Saturday about our use of fossil fuels (The Carbon Party&#8217;s Over, Chris Barton, NZ Herald 8 August 2009). 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