How Much Power Is 1.21 Gigawatts, Anyway? The Science Behind Back to the Future (www.syfy.com)

submitted 8 months ago by inkican@kbin.social to c/scifi@kbin.social

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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.

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[-] Bizarroland@kbin.social 4 points 8 months ago

When I read those things I always assume they're talking about megawatt hours.

Considering that the average american home consumes a little under 1000 kilowatt hours a month then the math starts to line up.

1000 KW hours is 1 megawatt hour. 1,000 megawatt hours is 1 gigawatt hour, so 1,000 months, while being a bit shy of 100 years, is still 83 years and change.

this post was submitted on 20 Mar 2024

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