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It doesn't even make sense! The units don't match up. Kilowatts are a measure of power, energy over time, and an acre-foot is a measure of volume, not flow (v
by msandford 11y ago
It doesn't even make sense! The units don't match up. Kilowatts are a measure of power, energy over time, and an acre-foot is a measure of volume, not flow (volume over time).
It's like saying how many horsepower it takes to drive from SF to LA. Makes no sense.
- oaktowner 11y agoYes, they must have meant kilowatt hours. Was there no editor?
- istorical 11y agoScientific mistakes in a paper like the new yorker is like poor grammar in a startup CEO's writing. It just happens.
- benkuykendall 11y agoHuh. So they are really talking about a pressure. 1 kWh/(acre ft) = 2919 Pa It makes a great deal of intuitive sense that the quantity that describes how hard it is to move water over a path is a pressure.
- seanflyon 11y agoIt's sad that they mistook kilowatts for kilowatt-hours, but I think acre-foot is a good unit for measuring volumes of water. It helps communicate the scale of water use.
- dredmorbius 11y agoDepends, though I suspect you're right. But expressing energy requirements as power per unit can be quite useful. As in, kW per person or square meter. Though in that case you'd be expressing water delivery as a rate: acrefoot/day, say.