Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1910 — KILOWATT AND WHAT IT DOES. [ARTICLE]

KILOWATT AND WHAT IT DOES.

Some SngSMtlona In Electricity That Will Help Industry. Owners of electric vehicles are often puzzled by the different terms used for the measurement of electric current The words “amperes,” "volts” and “watts” are quite meaningless to the uninitiated and when an electric charging station makes a price for current of 6 or 10 cents per kilowatt hour the average unscientific man doesn’t quite grasp its meaning. To explain the term needs first a clear definition and then a comparison, the Kansas City Journal says. Every one will, understand that a certain amount of force must be used to drive electric current through a circuit. This force is measured by volts, thus, we have 110-volt currents and. 220-volt currents, the one expressing just twice the force of the other. But the quantity of current passing through a circuit depends upon the force and the resistance, and so the quantity Is expressed by a different term, viz., "amperes.” Now, the efficiency of the current depends upon both force and quantity, and to express this efficiency or united action we multiply the force by the quantity—that is, the vests toy the amperes, and express the result in watts. Thus 100 volts multiplied by 5 amperes is 550 watts. A kilowatt is, of course, 1,000 watts, which is the equivalent of about 1 1-3 horse power. In charging a battery the lighting companies bill for the use of so many watts for so many hours. Thus, 1,000 watts for ten hours would be charged as ten kilowatt hours, which at 5 cents a kilowatt hour, would be 50 cents, a charge that seems little enough for ten hours’ use of 1 1-3 horse power. But what a kilowatt hour is worth may best be judged by what it will do. Thus a kildwatt hour will light twenty sixteen-candle-power incandescent lamps or two standard arc lamps for one hour; it will pump 100 gallons of water to a height of twentyfive feet, compress 470 cubic feet of free air 100 pounds, drive an ordinary passenger elevator 1,750 feet, print 2,500 circulars on a 15x21 Gordon press or 1,000 sheets on a 32x47 cylinder press, run a sewing machine for twenty hours, supply air for a -church organ for one service, mix two and one-half yards of concrete, heat a twopint chafing dish for four hours, mix sufficient dough for 1,500 loaves of bread and grind 600 pounds of coffee; it will drive a runabout four and a half miles or a three-ton truck one mile. When, therefore, a lighting company charges 5 cents a kilowatt hour for current for your electric vehicle you can estimate the value of what you -are getting by what it will do in other lines of industry.