Our group was tasked with finding the average amount of energy used by any given Colby freshman in order to travel to school. To do this each member of our group calculated their total energy consumption from transportation methods used to get to Colby. The references page provided to the orientation classes in order to calculate the amount of energy used per passenger mile traveled in each mode of transportation. In order to find the tables used to calculate our totals, please follow the link here. We then used this data, as well as data from route maps provided by Google Maps to find our own energy consumption in our own travel to Colby.
After finding the data for each mile traveled, we calculated our total milage durring our journey to school and used the appropriate energy usage, depending on the form of transportation. Here is our data:
Way of Transportation:
1 Sedan, 1 Station Wagon
Boeing 737, and 1 car
2 cars and 3 planes
1 SUV, 1 Sedan
Average Energy Use per Freshman
Estimated Total Energy Use of the
In order to estimate the total energy consumption of the freshman class, we averaged the data collected by our group, and then multiplied the resulting total (7531 MJ) by the total number of freshman (480 students). To give some frame of reference, the amount of energy used by the freshman class to travel to Colby could light 1,807,400 dorm rooms for one day or 4951 dorm rooms for one year.