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I think that the average person cannot really picture 500,000 houses; big numbers are hard. Percentages are easier. This plant delivers 500 megawatt of power,

by ithkuil 11y ago

I think that the average person cannot really picture 500,000 houses; big numbers are hard. Percentages are easier. This plant delivers 500 megawatt of power, which is 15% of the biggest nuclear powerplant of the US (or 7% of the biggest hydroelectric power plant of the US, or 2% of the world's biggest power plant, the Three Gorges Dam in China). This helps putting in perspective the size of the plant in terms of what other endeavours of that kind offer and helps cope with the fact that the average person has no idea how many plants there are in the world and so how to relate the 500,000 houses number to the importance a given project might have.

threeseed 11y ago
The average person can absolutely picture 500,000 homes. If I live in a city of 2 million then it's one quarter of the size. I can visualise this quite easily. And if you think the average person is going to find percentages of some arbitrary landmark then I don't think you understand the average person.
- arrrg 11y ago
  There are 2.7 people in the average US household. If homes are equivalent to households (I don’t know how they are defined – I think they might be identical) then this power plant can power two thirds of your city (presumably minus all the infrastructure needed to run all the rest of the city, everything from offices to shopping malls to street lights – I don’t even know what the relation of residential use to all other use is nor would I be super keen on guessing), not just a quarter. Still, I do agree that it’s easier to visualize with the number of households attached, inaccuracies be damned (at least if you do both). PS: Interesting tidbit I just found out while doing some quick googling on this: Apparently the average US household consumes more electricity per month (more than 900 kWh) than I do in a whole year (roughly 800 kWh).
- lumpypua 11y ago
  > The average person can absolutely picture 500,000 homes. If I live in a city of 2 million then it's one quarter of the size. Think about this really hard.
  - stingraycharles 11y ago
    I think what he/she meant was 2 million households. You make a good point though, I can absolutely imagine laymen confusing "household" with "citizen".
    - lumpypua 11y ago
      I think so too, but still where on earth do I find household counts for a city? Population counts are on wikipedia, and I know rough numbers for a bunch of cities—but I have no clue when it comes to households. How many households are in your city? (and you're not allowed to calculate from population)
- ithkuil 11y ago
  My point is that you shouldn't do math to get a first impression whether something is important or marginal. The is a significant amount of people for which math and numbers sound like jibberish and don't perform the elementary proportions you just did. There is even some disagreement about the numbers on this microthread. You have a fair point about the arbitrary landmark though; mine was just a lame attempt at making an example. The key point readers might want to quickly get at a first glance: is this a significant project or a drop in the ocean?
Trufa 11y ago
Well, if you choose those specific percentages, people might think it's a small accomplishment, 15%, 7% and 2% seem kind of small. I don't think there is one good way of representing numbers, it's a complex matter because it's not about the number itself, it's about our perception.

by ithkuil 11y ago

threeseed 11y ago

The average person can absolutely picture 500,000 homes. If I live in a city of 2 million then it's one quarter of the size. I can visualise this quite easily. And if you think the average person is going to find percentages of some arbitrary landmark then I don't think you understand the average person.

arrrg 11y ago
There are 2.7 people in the average US household. If homes are equivalent to households (I don’t know how they are defined – I think they might be identical) then this power plant can power two thirds of your city (presumably minus all the infrastructure needed to run all the rest of the city, everything from offices to shopping malls to street lights – I don’t even know what the relation of residential use to all other use is nor would I be super keen on guessing), not just a quarter. Still, I do agree that it’s easier to visualize with the number of households attached, inaccuracies be damned (at least if you do both). PS: Interesting tidbit I just found out while doing some quick googling on this: Apparently the average US household consumes more electricity per month (more than 900 kWh) than I do in a whole year (roughly 800 kWh).
lumpypua 11y ago
> The average person can absolutely picture 500,000 homes. If I live in a city of 2 million then it's one quarter of the size. Think about this really hard.
- stingraycharles 11y ago
  I think what he/she meant was 2 million households. You make a good point though, I can absolutely imagine laymen confusing "household" with "citizen".
  - lumpypua 11y ago
    I think so too, but still where on earth do I find household counts for a city? Population counts are on wikipedia, and I know rough numbers for a bunch of cities—but I have no clue when it comes to households. How many households are in your city? (and you're not allowed to calculate from population)
ithkuil 11y ago
My point is that you shouldn't do math to get a first impression whether something is important or marginal. The is a significant amount of people for which math and numbers sound like jibberish and don't perform the elementary proportions you just did. There is even some disagreement about the numbers on this microthread. You have a fair point about the arbitrary landmark though; mine was just a lame attempt at making an example. The key point readers might want to quickly get at a first glance: is this a significant project or a drop in the ocean?

Trufa 11y ago

Well, if you choose those specific percentages, people might think it's a small accomplishment, 15%, 7% and 2% seem kind of small. I don't think there is one good way of representing numbers, it's a complex matter because it's not about the number itself, it's about our perception.