What Powers the World – Video
Summary
This video on global electricity consumption highlights the vital role electricity plays in our modern lives. It explains that nearly all the items we use daily, from electronics to clothing, require electricity to be made or to work. The video notes that lighting alone accounts for almost 20% of global electricity usage, underscoring the massive scale of our daily consumption.
Transcript:
[Dr. Scott W. Tinker] We’re so accustomed to having electricity that we take it for granted, but it basically makes our modern lives possible, mine for example. On a typical day, I wake up, take a shower (the water is pumped by electricity and in some places heated by it). Already I’ve used thousands of watts. More water to pump, then a hairdryer which is both an electric motor and a lot of heating filaments. Our clothes are made in the factories using electricity, and all of our cell phones, and cameras, and gadgets run on electricity. Kitchens, of course, use electricity for the refrigerator, oven, electric ranges, and all the other appliances. Air conditioning uses a huge amount of electricity—a good reason to make it warmer when you leave the house and turn off everything else too. My car is a hybrid, which burns gasoline but turns some of it into electricity. The phone system in our building and the phone system that connects the world through satellites and switches uses lots of electricity. The Internet and all our computers use about 5% of global electricity. Lights for our entire building and everywhere else nearly, 20% of global electricity is just lighting! Specialized equipment in lab schools and factories uses tons of electricity. Making videos uses a surprising amount of electricity. And, so does watching them. Every day the average American uses a hundred-thousand watt-hours times (over 300 million of us). Next time you’re doing, well, anything stop and think about how electricity makes it possible.