Tag Archives: sustainability

Showers at PSU (Main Campus)

Penn State University Park has approximately 40,000 students, with 37% or 25,200 (40,000 multiplied by 0.37 equals 14,800 and 40,000-14,800=25,200) living on campus.  Assuming that each student takes at least one 10 minute shower per day, and using this useful calculator for calculating energy used for showers (and using national averages since I could not find Penn State’s own exact numbers), each day Penn State uses about 99,515 in energy to heat around 630,000 gallons just for showers.  Of course this isn’t an exact calculation, as there is no way to know how long every student showers for and if some students take more than one shower a day because of exercise and such.  These numbers, though large, seem normal for the amount of students living on campus.  However, if we could decrease the amount of energy used and money spent, our campus would probably be better for it.