Las Vegas & Energy, Part II
This morning I opened my email to find a note from Andrea Smith
(Director of Corporate Communications for Nevada Power / Sierra Pacific
Power). Ms. Smith was responding to my email inquiring about how
much energy the Las Vegas strip consumes . So, here are the
facts...
- Las Vegas Strip Energy Consumption
- The annual demand for electricity would power 160,000 homes or a city of 350,000.
- The total demand for electricity is approximately 2,000,000 megawatt hours per year.
- This includes exterior lighting.
So, approximately how much carbon gets emitted into the atmosphere as a result of producing the electricity to power the Las Vegas strip? I decided to use the U.S. Climate Technology Cooperation Gateway's Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator to calculate.
- Las Vegas Strip Carbon Emissions
- 2,000,000 megawatt hours is approximately equivilent to 1,260,000 Metric Tons of CO2.
- This is equivilent to taking 280,000 cars off the road.
- Or 32,000,000 tree seedlings grown for 10 years.
In otherwords, the Las Vegas strip requires a huge amount of electricity to power all the lights and run all the other electrical systems required to support the casinos and other businesses.
That said, I enjoyed the trip! And I did my part to reduce the environmental impact of Vegas by turning off the lights everytime we left the hotel room, of course...
Hi Jessica,
I was wondering, do you still have Andrea Smith's contact? I too, am intersted in the LV CO2 emissions, and was having troble getting some facts.
Thanks (in advance).
Sara
Posted by Sara Anderson on December 04, 2008 at 09:23 AM PST #