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> Her 3.5 foot by 3.5 foot solar panel weighs about 25 pounds and is a half-inch thick. It can harvest about 220 watts of energy from the sun each day. Grrrr.

by nickcw 6mo ago

> Her 3.5 foot by 3.5 foot solar panel weighs about 25 pounds and is a half-inch thick. It can harvest about 220 watts of energy from the sun each day. Grrrr. Watts is not a unit of energy. As a holder of a physics degree this annoys me quite a lot. Journalists seem to have trouble keeping track of energy vs power. It's like saying my friends house is 5 miles per hour away. /rant off

foobarian 6mo ago
You have to just close your eyes and hum a requiem for the glory days. Like I do when questions are begged
hgoel 6mo ago
I have this peeve too, but tbh it feels like most people make this mistake, and usually it is easy enough to guess what was intended.
- Tade0 6mo ago
  I can never guess when they write about grid storage, because almost always the unit used is watts, but it can mean whatever.
  - fhdkweig 6mo ago
    With storage the watts are also important because it is a measure of how much power it can replace from other power plant sources which are also measured in watts. Admittedly, the time it will last is omitted, so a full energy calculation can't be done, but at least you know how many dirty peaker plants it replaces.
compumike 6mo ago
Just wait until you see "kW/h" :) But I think plug-in / balcony solar will be pretty cool. And I think there's a path to inexpensive, larger, safer grid-tie inverters which never backfeed, but prioritize solar input first and make up the difference with grid power. For example, I'm imagining a box that would plug in to the wall, have a DC input from solar panels, and a power strip for loads supporting up to, ideally, a full 15A normal US 120V circuit. Currently this box exists in the form of battery power station units (Bluetti, Ecoflow, Anker etc). But I think there could be a much less expensive form that could exist without the battery.
WarmWash 6mo ago
>As a holder of a physics degree this annoys me quite a lot. Journalists seem to have trouble keeping track of energy vs power. It's like saying my friends house is 5 miles per hour away. I've ranted endlessly about the outsized impact people with no expertise but a large audience have had on society. So so many people have the worldview shaped by individuals that cannot even bother to learn basics like watts and watt-hours for their "reporting".
SAI_Peregrinus 6mo ago
1lb/kg is a unit of acceleration approximately equal to 4.448m/s^2. Pound of weight, not mass, obviously. This is still more valid than almost anything in the American Journalist system of units!
antisthenes 6mo ago
> Her 3.5 foot by 3.5 foot solar panel weighs about 25 pounds and is a half-inch thick. It can harvest about 220 watts of energy from the sun each day. It’s on the smaller end of available balcony solar panels. The panels can go up to almost 2,000 watts in capacity. A 1,200-watt panel is enough to power a window air conditioner unit, according to Bright Saver. This whole paragraph is nonsense. A 2,000 watt panel is never going to go on a balcony (because it is huge for any residential balcony), and regardless of "capacity" a solar panel is not going to power a window AC unit without an intermediate storage, unless you want the compressor to shut down every time a cloud passes by. And people complain about writing being AI generated. Is this kind of sloppy writing any better?

by nickcw 6mo ago

foobarian 6mo ago

You have to just close your eyes and hum a requiem for the glory days. Like I do when questions are begged

hgoel 6mo ago

I have this peeve too, but tbh it feels like most people make this mistake, and usually it is easy enough to guess what was intended.

Tade0 6mo ago
I can never guess when they write about grid storage, because almost always the unit used is watts, but it can mean whatever.
- fhdkweig 6mo ago
  With storage the watts are also important because it is a measure of how much power it can replace from other power plant sources which are also measured in watts. Admittedly, the time it will last is omitted, so a full energy calculation can't be done, but at least you know how many dirty peaker plants it replaces.

compumike 6mo ago

Just wait until you see "kW/h" :) But I think plug-in / balcony solar will be pretty cool. And I think there's a path to inexpensive, larger, safer grid-tie inverters which never backfeed, but prioritize solar input first and make up the difference with grid power. For example, I'm imagining a box that would plug in to the wall, have a DC input from solar panels, and a power strip for loads supporting up to, ideally, a full 15A normal US 120V circuit. Currently this box exists in the form of battery power station units (Bluetti, Ecoflow, Anker etc). But I think there could be a much less expensive form that could exist without the battery.

WarmWash 6mo ago

>As a holder of a physics degree this annoys me quite a lot. Journalists seem to have trouble keeping track of energy vs power. It's like saying my friends house is 5 miles per hour away. I've ranted endlessly about the outsized impact people with no expertise but a large audience have had on society. So so many people have the worldview shaped by individuals that cannot even bother to learn basics like watts and watt-hours for their "reporting".

SAI_Peregrinus 6mo ago

1lb/kg is a unit of acceleration approximately equal to 4.448m/s^2. Pound of weight, not mass, obviously. This is still more valid than almost anything in the American Journalist system of units!

antisthenes 6mo ago

> Her 3.5 foot by 3.5 foot solar panel weighs about 25 pounds and is a half-inch thick. It can harvest about 220 watts of energy from the sun each day. It’s on the smaller end of available balcony solar panels. The panels can go up to almost 2,000 watts in capacity. A 1,200-watt panel is enough to power a window air conditioner unit, according to Bright Saver. This whole paragraph is nonsense. A 2,000 watt panel is never going to go on a balcony (because it is huge for any residential balcony), and regardless of "capacity" a solar panel is not going to power a window AC unit without an intermediate storage, unless you want the compressor to shut down every time a cloud passes by. And people complain about writing being AI generated. Is this kind of sloppy writing any better?