4 ms·
Its 6m panels produce 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy This is one thing I don't get: why do journalists confuse units so often?
by Tade0 7y ago
Its 6m panels produce 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of energy
This is one thing I don't get: why do journalists confuse units so often?
- chickenpotpie 7y agoProbably because a lot of units are synonyms in normal English aren’t synonyms in science. If you look up synonyms for energy power is one of them. Just like mass and weight.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- leephillips 7y agoMost of them that I know have never taken a science course (aside from watered-down science for humanities majors courses) and are basically innumerate. EDIT: except science journalists, of course, some of whom have a real science background.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- oh_sigh 7y agoI'm fairly sure 90+% of the population couldn't tell you exactly what a watt, vs a gigawatt, vs a kilowatt, vs a kilowatt hour is. For most people, these units are just opaque names with vague concepts associated with them(ie kilowatt hours measures how much power you used in your home). And journalists are just members of the population, so it shouldn't be surprising that mistakes occur. A normal person's interaction with the electrical world is extremely limited, so there is little utility in having any kind of understanding of it. I'd be much more worried if journalists were confusing, say, distance measurements with weight measurements, or something like that.
- kragen 7y agoThis is a case where journalists are, for once, not confusing units. A square meter of solar panels produces about 200 watts peak, 50 watts round-the-clock average†. A gigawatt is a billion watts, so that's about 5 million square meters or 20 million square meters of solar panels, depending on whether they're talking about peak or average power. A journalist confusing units might have said something like "Its 6 million panels produce 3600 gigawatt hours," without bothering to tell you whether that's per day, per month, or per year. But it's perfectly correct to say that a panel or a solar plant produces some number of gigawatts. † Yes, this depends on the type of panel and the location. Some panels are a little higher efficiency, some are a little lower efficiency, and the ones we use on satellites are a lot higher efficiency. And different places have more or less sun. Typical numbers are 1000 W/m² of "solar constant" nominal maximum insolation, 16%–21% efficiency (ratio of insolation to energy produced), and 15%–30% capacity factor (ratio of average power to peak power).
- function_seven 7y agoThe problem here is that the unit and the thing being measured don't agree in that sentence. As a reader, I have to guess if the author really meant: > Its 6m panels produce 1.5 gigawatt[-hour]s (GW[h]) of energy [per year] or > Its 6m panels produce 1.5 gigawatts (GW) of [power] With some reasoning, I can land on the 2nd one just fine, but a little doubt lingers, because I've seen similar errors where I had to do the first substitution to make the numbers work.
- kragen 7y agoI agree that some authors do make the first error you suggest, but the unit and the thing being measured definitely do agree; the first interpretation is just incorrect.
- function_seven 7y agoThe use of "energy" when the author meant "power" is the point of confusion here. That's the unit/thing disagreement I'm referring to.
- Analemma_ 7y agoBefore sneering at journalists you may want to double-check that you're not the confused one. That sentence is exactly correct.
- colanderman 7y agoI think the GP is referring to the use of "energy" vs. "power". Watts are the latter.
- etaioinshrdlu 7y agoI think they should have capitalized 6m to 6M and said 1.5 gigawatts of power, not energy. Then it seems to be accurate to me.