You may be right.
I thought your estimate was a bit high for KWH. But, I found some similar references:
8,900 KWH / year.
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BoiLu.shtml
I think I was using more on the order of 100 KW/month before my power was shut off.
This site has various conversion factors:
http://www.usefulinformation.eu/c_factor/energy.html
Including:
1 KWH = 2,655,000 Foot Pounds (which you calculated).
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So:
- cubic yard of water weighs:
- lbs/gallon * 7.481 gallons/cubic foot * 27 cubic feet/cubic yard.
thus 1616 lbs / cubic yard.
Drop that cubic yard of water over a 300 foot dam, and one gets:
300*1616 = 484768.8 foot pounds / cubic yard going over the dam.
Thus...
(2,650,000,000 ft-lbs/mo/us home) / (484768.8 foot pounds / cubic yard going over the dam)
Or: 5467 cubic yards of water over the dam.
I'm showing that the Willamette River (a moderate sized river in Oregon) is running at 1,200 m3/sec
So... each house would be using about 5 seconds worth of water going over the dam / month (in an ideal world).
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Now, if you have a 100 foot hill behind your house.
And, an "ideal tram" coming back down (to carry the equivalent amount of weight up the hill).
A 200 lb person. Carrying a 100 lb load up the hill (300 ft pounds of work)
So, on foot it would be:
2,650,000,000 / 300
That would only be:
- ,833,333 trips / month up the hill.
- ,444 trips / day up the hill
- ,268 trips / hour up the hill
OR
204 trips up the hill a minute.