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> 10.7k TWh globally Agree I hate this, but at the same time I don't know if I would have groked it correctly on first read if it had listed "10.7Pwh globally"
by jjcm 2y ago
> 10.7k TWh globally
Agree I hate this, but at the same time I don't know if I would have groked it correctly on first read if it had listed "10.7Pwh globally". We simply aren't exposed to numbers at that scale on a regular basis.
Not sure what the correct solution is here.
- geepytee 2y agoThe correct solution is 10.7Pwh. We are often exposed to 'Peta' when dealing with data. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_prefix
- jeffbee 2y agoEIA Electricity Monthly gives data in certain tables in terms of either million kWh or "thousand megawatthours" which isn't even English. Let's just use J.
- psychoslave 2y agoI was reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_System_of_Units and a few related the other day for fun and pleasing moment, and one thing I retained from that is that "The kilogram is the only coherent SI unit whose name and symbol include a prefix." Also that the standard explicitly forbid redundant use of prefixes like kilo-kilo-. I guess that if you want to stick to TWh you can use - 10700 - 10,700 - 10.7×10³ - 1.07×10⁴ - 10.7e3 - 1.07e4 - 29E8₁₆
- Veserv 2y agoSI prefix words are just kind of silly. We should just use the exponent as a number instead of having a different word for every 3 zeros. 10.7 E15 Wh or something similar. Scales to everything, you do not need to know any mapping, and directly supports mathematical manipulation. We should also do the same for large number words in general. No thousand, million, billion, etc. E3, E6, E9, etc. Now you can count and represent any meaningful number without needing to memorize a dictionary of words and they would precisely match the unit scale “words”.
- ant6n 2y agoYou mean 1.07E16
- vermilingua 2y agoIt's pretty common in some contexts to only use Es for powers of 1000, so 100,000,000 is 100e6 rather than 1e8.
- SAI_Peregrinus 2y agoThat's commonly called engineering notation.
- rabidrat 2y agoI agree! I use ^3 etc for the notation: https://saul.pw/mag https://saul.pw/mag
- mjan22640 2y agoJoules is the solution to both the problems (the second is that Wh for energy is as silly as speed hours for distance)
- XorNot 2y agoWatt-hours is a perfectly pragmatic unit. Measure instantaneous power and multiply by a common human unit of time. It's easy to compare.
- ben_w 2y agoPart of me is tempted to suggest kilograms as a unit of energy. 428.6 kg relativistic mass-energy equivalent: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10.7PWh%2F%28c%5E2%29 https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=10.7PWh%2F%28c%5E2%29 But then, I am a silly person.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- XorNot 2y agoCall the unit "Kilogram-Joules", abbreviate as KgJ and it works pretty damn well and unambiguously. The problem is we don't live in a society powered by matter-antimatter annihilation reactions, or black evaporation so it's not really useful - unlike say, the electron-volt which at least serves physicists nicely.
- sbierwagen 2y ago>(the second is that Wh for energy is as silly as speed hours for distance) This would be a devastating own if a single Joule wasn't exactly equal to a Watt-second.
- sneak 2y agoWell, given that the intent is to communicate, using GWh is probably ideal. 10.7 million GWh is probably the easiest to understand and compare, given that GWh is probably the most commonly used unit for this purpose.
- PaulDavisThe1st 2y agoWe should be. Why? Because reasonable estimates of the amount of extra energy contained within the atmosphere due to anthropogenic effects are in the single digit petawatt range. It's a number everyone should be carrying in their heads. Put a different way: the total annual harvestable solar yield is within an order of magnitude of the energy we've caused to accumulate inside the atmospheric boundary. Think about that, for a second or two.