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

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

haha, i read the article. its all in there.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 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.