Our Electricity

1. Our Electricity Where it comes from and what you can do to conserve it.

2. How Much are we using? • In 2006, the United States consumed approximately 4,064,702,000 megawatt hours of electricity.1 • 1,990,511,000 megawatts of which were generated by coal.1 • This equates to approximately 1,026,363,000 tons of coal burned. • This is the energy equivalent of approximately 154,769,023,809 gallons of gasoline. • These numbers increase each year. 1.US Departmentof Energy

3. Coal: The Good • Coal is the easiest, least inexpensive fuel to use to generate electricity. • Coal power plants are the cheapest type of power plants to operate, which makes one unit of coal generated electricity cheaper than electricity from any other source • There are HUGE coal reserves right here in the U.S. so we don’t have to rely on foreign nationsfor it.

4. Coal: The Bad • Coal releases the most carbon dioxide per unit of energy. Carbon dioxide is blamed as the number one cause of the Global Warming theory • Without proper filtration, coal fired power plants can release mercury, sulfur, and various other chemicals in the air.

5. Other Electricity Sources • Second to coal, Natural Gas was used to produce 816,441,000 megawatt hours of electricity in 20061 • In third place, Nuclear power plants produced 787,219,000 megawatt hours of electricity in 20061 • Other energy sources include hydro-electric dams, wind, and solar power,

6. How to conserve electricity • Turn off your lights when you leave your room. • Open your window coverings instead of turning on your lights during the day. • Un-plug your TV when you aren’t watching it. A TV on standby can use as much as 15 watts of electricity. • Only turn on your computer when you need it.

7. Submitted by Kameron Ray, Resident Assistant, New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology