Does anyone know how much Watts the Liquid Spark Amp uses? I am worried about my electric bill

[NTK]

But if the electricity is generated by fossil fuel, the energy conversion efficiency is a lot less than 100%.

Per info from US EIA, for the most efficient fossil fuel source (natural gas, 2018 figure), it takes 7822 Btu (=2.292 kWh) to generate 1 kWh of electricity.

 

[Willem]

The gas consumption is mostly for heating of course: it is cold where we live. Conversion numbers are not so simple, however. There is natural gas and natural gas and the Dutch kind is low calorie. Fortunately our house is relatively well insulated although current regulation is a lot more demanding again.
I was mostly interested in the electricity consumption other than for air conditioning because heating and cooling consumption are hard to compare between regions.

 

[NTK]

The gas consumption is mostly for heating of course: it is cold where we live. Conversion numbers are not so simple, however. There is natural gas and natural gas and the Dutch kind is low calorie. Fortunately our house is relatively well insulated although current regulation is a lot more demanding again.
I was mostly interested in the electricity consumption other than for air conditioning because heating and cooling consumption are hard to compare between regions.

I think I am getting seriously off topic, and should stop after this post. The reason I was comparing was because in the US, a little bit over 1/3 of its electricity is generated by burning natural gas (link). You heat your house in the Netherlands by burning natural gas. We in the US burn natural gas to generate electricity to run AC to cool ours.

There is a strong move toward replacing fossil fuel as the energy source for heating with electricity, as most of the new renewable energy sources are for producing electricity. Heat pumps, especially the geothermal kind, are more efficient heaters. Run their heat exchangers backwards, they become air conditioners. What's not to like other than the huge upfront/replacement cost. Performance and efficiency of compressors and fans are getting much better too because of new motor technologies such as brushless DC (but which can also back-feed tons of EMI/RFI back into our AC lines if not properly implemented).

I think we are heading toward a time/economy where electricity is the one-energy-source.

 

[Willem]

In the Netherlands we face another problem: we still have plenty of natural gas but we are now getting earthquakes in the region where it is extracted (the north east of the country - right where we live). So the government has decided on a pretty rapid termination of extraction. The resulting choice is between importing Russian gas (to heat homes, and as fuel for industry and electrical power plants) or rapid innovation with renewable energy.
Anyway, the take home message for me at least is that energy consumption of appliances is important, and that takes us back where we started.

 

[Tks]

Wow that is a lot. Our detached house is almost as large (but two storeys). Average annual electricity consumption in the Netherlands is about 3000 KWh per household, but we don't really have/need domestic airconditioners until now. Heating is from natural gas, on average about 2000 cubic metres. Both domestic electricity and gas consumption have declined by a few percent each year thanks to more efficient equipment and better mandatory home insulation in more recently built houses. An interesting anecdote is our new vacuum cleaner. The old one was a 1200 watt one from a very well respected manufacturer. The new one meets the recent EU electricity consumption limit of 600 watt for vacuum cleaners, is much lighter to lift, very much quieter, and actually cleans better (it was also rather cheaper). Similarly, I recently looked up the electricity consumption of modern refrigerators. Modern ones in the same size consume about a third of what our current fifteen year old one does. So there is clear technological improvement, both from market forces (low energy consumption sells) as from regulation.

That's because you live in a country that takes that stuff quite seriously. And are benefitting heavily from the euphemeralization investments you've been making for a social standpoint. Euphemeralization is basically doing more with less. Imagine the phenomena of efficiency improvements of computer processing chips. They use less power, while still constantly improving the rate of instructions per clock. It's this sort of progress we here in the US don't make use of as fast as a country like the Netherlands. If you need demonstrable proof of this, just look at our pathetic infrastructure, or internet status. Third world nations are outpacing us at the trajectory they're going..