I need statistics about energy consumption.

[Freeman]

I am working on my final for engineering and I need to find out the electricity consumption for Cheyenne Wyoming. I have been looking for a while now, and will continue to look, but if someone knows where I can find that number, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for any help, JF

[Rockonmetal]

uh, google it, idk, uh, sorry that i don't know things like this off the top of my head...

[djr33]

I find this to be a very odd choice to ask here. Unless someone just happens to have done a similar report, or happens to live there AND work at a company that would have access to such facts, we really wouldn't know that.

And, just to give you a start, try googling simple phrases like "cheyenne energy consumption report (http://www.google.com/search?q=cheyenne+energy+consumption+report&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)" -- it might just work.

[jscheuer1]

I'd email the experts:

http://www.cheyennelight.com/contact.htm

[Freeman]

In light of more searching I came to this conclusion: To find that out you can use the ratio of population for a city vs. the population for the state and find out home much energy is consumed per person on average. Thanks for the, uh, advice in finding a solution.

[jscheuer1]

Possibly not very accurate. Definitely not a valid mathematical model for arriving at the figure. How important of a number will this be in your overall report? Per capita consumption in an urban area is likely to differ, perhaps significantly, from that in rural areas. But urban population should outweigh rural in most states, though perhaps not enough to make up for the difference, perhaps not at all in a heavily rural state. Different urban areas within a state might have different per capita consumption as well.

[djr33]

There are what? Approx 100,000 residents of Wyoming? Ok, let's cut that in half. 50,000 in the city. Ok, so, how much energy used by the whole country? Well, it's just division! :p

Nah. Just contact the local government. I'm sure they can tell you.

[jscheuer1]

The answer is 6.

[djr33]

The population of Cheyenne used 6 energy last year.

GOT IT!

[Freeman]

6 is rather close to the real number of 919,937,839 kWh in the year 2006. I e-mailed one of the power companies that is in Cheyenne wyoming. I used the ratio for the number because it didn't need to be terribly accurate. It just needed to show that it would be cost effective to switch entirely to wind power, which would be for them. According to our calculations, it would take about 15,000 acres of a wind farm to power cheyenne. a little bit expensive at first, but it would be quite a bit cheaper in the long run.

[BLiZZaRD]

I prefer Nuclear Power Plants. The work much better.

[djr33]

And could probably fit in a space significantly smaller than 5x5 miles ;)

[jscheuer1]

Watcha' gonna do with the waste?

[djr33]

Pile it up in the extra space of the 5x5 miles :p

[jscheuer1]

I'd rather buy the farm - the wind farm.

[BLiZZaRD]

Plastic barrels thrown out into the local lakes and waterways, of course.

But, the alternative would of course be to send the barrels down river to my new coal plant for burning.

[jscheuer1]

It's not even nice to joke about all that waste getting out, but I really hope you guys are kidding. If not, everyone knows you need glass tubes, not plastic barrels. These would go nice shooting down the rapids in Colorado somewhere. :rolleyes:

[djr33]

Blast it into space.

[BLiZZaRD]

Yes, I was joking.

However, I have long been a supporter of blasting things into space. Gather the landfills and pack rockets full of crap, shoot it to the sun. done, over.. what's the worst that could happen?

[djr33]

Well, it's a real example of non-reusable resources-- at some point the planet will simply have [noticeably] less mass. Can't have that, eh?
But for a temporary solution, or at least just for the most volatile substances, dangerous waste, or worst criminals....
er... are we being serious? I forget.

[jscheuer1]

I'm absolutely certain that a wind farm would be much less expensive than intra-stellar waste disposal.

[BLiZZaRD]

perhaps, John.. but the real question is which would be more FUN? :p

[jscheuer1]

You know, I was thinking even before I read the latest in this thread, that when I was in High School or maybe even earlier, when nuclear power was called atomic power, and they hadn't built any plants yet, or just a few. 'They' said that the only problem was disposing of the waste, but that as soon as 'they' worked out how to build a fusion reactor, 'they' would be able to use it as fuel for that. I had expected that to be worked out by now, but the problem with it seems to be the cost. Even 'conventional' nuclear plants are cost prohibitive. Without subsidies, and especially if you factor in trips to the sun for cleanup, if the true costs involved were ever built in the KW/hr price, no one could afford it.

On another front, how about a nice little personal reactor. One you could use to heat your home? With enough shielding and the given the low levels of radiation such a small reactor should have to begin with, why not?

The trouble will wind and solar power is primarily that these are technologies that could be used fairly easily on such a small scale. I think the utilities are afraid that if they start to use them too much on a large scale, many individuals might get the idea to use them on a small scale and thus 'get off the grid'. Most corporations will never do anything that might lose them customers.

[Freeman]

This is just the slightest bit humorous to me. Maybe if we had a big sling shot that just lobbed it at the sun would not only get rid of the waste, it would do so in a clean manner. Though, if worse comes to worse, we would have an awesome sling shot. forget an air force for the country, we can throw bombs at you from our own soil. One point for practicality :)