The Energy Game

Introduction

Establishing a camp at Burning Man is difficult in itself. Planning the energy needs for a camp is one of the last things on most people's minds. Energy planning is often treated as a task as simple as selecting a tent — usually one person will say, "I have a generator," and people will bring all the decorative lighting they have along with some modest sound system, and of course a bunch of gasoline.

A more practical solution would be to deliberately plan the energy needs of the camp, starting with the desires of powered equipment and working back through converters and generators to arrive at the equipment and fuel needed. Most of all, though, the process needs to lean as far towards fun and as far away from "arduous" to encourage people to actually do it. It should also be educational, offering insight into what energy is and how much we use.

There is another subtlety to planning: the difference between energy and power. More power means more work done in the same amount of time. More energy means the same power for a longer time. With 100 watt-hours of energy, one can power a 5-watt lamp for 20 hours (5 x 20 = 100) or a 100-watt lamp for 1 hour (100 x 1 = 100). More importantly, though, many devices that convert energy from one form to another have a power limit. For instance, a generator with 1000-watt capacity can't run a 900-watt coffee maker and a 1000-watt sound system although each can be run separately. In the end, running the coffee maker for 20 minutes and the sound system for 20 minutes results in the same amount of energy whether it's 1900 watts for 20 minutes or 900 watts for 20 minutes and 1000 watts for 20 minutes.