Back to the Future's 1.21 gigawatts sounds huge, but is it? We compare different power levels of common objects to see how much energy a gigawatt really is.

Back to the Future’s 1.21 gigawatts sounds huge, but is it? We compare different power levels of common objects to see how much energy a gigawatt really is.

  • originalucifer
    8•8 months ago

    1.21gw == output of 1 nuke plant for 1 day == power single home for 100 years

    avg lightning = 10gw

    • @[email protected]
      4•8 months ago

      Where are you getting those numbers from? First of all, GW is a unit of power, not energy. You can’t “produce 1.21GW in a day” because it’s a measurement of instantaneous power. Some nuclear reactors produce around 1GW(e), which means 1 gigawatt hour per hour.

      • po-lina-ergi
        1•8 months ago

        1.21 gw = output of one nuke plant
        1.21 gw × 1 day = (power requirements of a house) × (100 years)

        I’m guessing

        • ignirtoq
          2•8 months ago

          Yeah, and the article is wrong, though only slightly. They seem to be confusing watts (power, energy over time) with Joules (energy, power times a duration of time). They give a passable definition in the beginning (“energy transfer”), but they seem to misunderstand what the “transfer” part means exactly.

          If you find-replace all instances of “watt” with “watt-hour” after that starting definition, it would be more accurate. That’s why I say it’s only slightly wrong.