3 ms·
You've got the h on the wrong side of the fraction. A Watt is a rate of energy usage: 1 J/s. It requires an amount of energy that could power 100 50-watt light
by BrandonM 15y ago
You've got the h on the wrong side of the fraction. A Watt is a rate of energy usage: 1 J/s. It requires an amount of energy that could power 100 50-watt light bulbs for an hour to desalinate a cubic meter of water. That is, the 8765 h/year in your calculation doesn't belong.
From http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/usnuclearpowerplants/ http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/usnu..., a 90% capacity nuclear power plant can produce 7.9 billion KWh in a year. Let's round that down to 6 billion. The math is:
5 kWh/m^3 * 3,000,000 people * 2842 m^3/(personyear) / 6,000,000,000 kWh/(power-plantyear) = 7.1 power plants for LA.
It looks like something funny happened in your math/numbers, but your final calculation and conclusion somehow ended up correct.