Orders of magnitude (power)

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This page lists examples of the power in watts produced by various different sources of energy. They are grouped by orders of magnitude, and each section covers three orders of magnitude, or a factor of one thousand.

Contents 1 Below 1 Watt 1.1 yoctowatt (10-24 watt) 1.2 zeptowatt (10-21 watt) 1.3 attowatt (10-18 watt) 1.4 femtowatt (10-15 watt) 1.5 picowatt (10-12 watt) 1.6 nanowatt (10-9 watt) 1.7 microwatt (10-6 watt) 1.8 milliwatt (10-3 watt) 2 Between 1 and 1000 Watts 2.1 watt 3 Above 1000 Watts 3.1 kilowatt (103 watts) 3.2 megawatt (106 watts) 3.3 gigawatt (109 watts) 3.4 terawatt (1012 watts) 3.5 petawatt (1015 watts) 3.6 exawatt (1018 watts) 3.7 zettawatt (1021 watts) 3.8 yottawatt (1024 watts) 3.9 greater than one thousand yottawatts 4 References 5 See also

[edit] Below 1 Watt

[edit] yoctowatt (10^-24 watt)

[edit] zeptowatt (10^-21 watt)

• ~10 zW - tech: approximate power of Galileo space probe's radio signal (when at Jupiter) as received on earth by a 70-meter DSN antenna.

[edit] attowatt (10^-18 watt)

• 1 aW - phys: approximate power scale at which operation of nanoelectromechanical systems are overwhelmed by thermal fluctuations. [3]

[edit] femtowatt (10^-15 watt)

• 2.5 fW - tech: minimum discernible signal at the antenna terminal of a good FM radio receiver
• 10 fW (-110 dBm) - tech: approximate lower limit of power reception on digital spread-spectrum cell phones

[edit] picowatt (10^-12 watt)

• 1 pW - biomed: average power consumption of a human cell
• 150 pW - biomed: power entering a human eye from a 100-watt lamp 1 km away

[edit] nanowatt (10^-9 watt)

• 2-15 nW - tech: power consumption of 8-bit PIC microcontroller chips when in "sleep" mode

[edit] microwatt (10^-6 watt)

• 1 µW - tech: approximate consumption of a quartz wristwatch
• 3 µW - astro: cosmic microwave background radiation per square meter

[edit] milliwatt (10^-3 watt)

• 5 mW - tech: laser in a CD-ROM drive
• 5-10 mW - tech: laser in a DVD player
• 100 mW - tech: laser in a CD-R drive

[edit] Between 1 and 1000 Watts

[edit] watt

• 4 W - tech: the power consumption of an incandescent night light
• 5 W - legal: maximum power output of a CB or hand-held radio transceiver
• 14 W - tech: the power of the typical household compact fluorescent light bulb
• 20-40 W - biomed: approximate power consumption of the human brain
• 30-40 W - tech: the power of the typical household fluorescent tube light
• 60 W - tech: the power of the typical household incandescent light bulb
• 100 W - biomed: approximate basal metabolic rate used by the human body^[1]
• 120 W - tech: power output of 1 m² solar panel in full sunlight (approx. 12% efficiency)
• 130 W - tech: peak power consumption of a Pentium 4 CPU
• 253 W (2,215 kWh/year) - geo: per capita average power use of the world in 2001
• 290 W - units: approximately 1000 BTU/hour
• 300-400 W - tech: typical PC power supply
• 400 W - tech: legal limit of power output of an amateur radio station in the United Kingdom
• 500 W - biomed: power output of a person working hard physically
• 745.7 W - units: 1 horsepower
• 750 W - astro: the amount of sunshine falling on a square metre of the Earth's surface on a clear day
• 900 W - biomed: power output of a healthy human (nonathlete) averaged over the first 6 seconds of a 30-second cycle sprint. ^[2]

[edit] Above 1000 Watts

[edit] kilowatt (10³ watts)

• 1.366 kW - astro: power received from the sun at the earth's orbit by one square metre
• 1.39 kW (12.2 MWh/year) - geo: per capita average power use in the U.S. in 2003
• 1.5 kW - tech: legal limit of power output of an amateur radio station in the United States
• up to 2 kW - biomed: approximate short-time power output of sprinting professional cyclists
• 1 kW to 2 kW - tech: heat output of a domestic electric kettle.
• 3.3-6.6 kW - eco: average photosynthetic power output per square kilometer of ocean [4]
• 30 kW - power generated by the four motors of GEN H-4 one-man helicopter
• 16-32 kW - eco: average photosynthetic power output per square kilometer of land [5]
• 10 kW to 50 kW - tech: ERP of clear channel AM [6]
• 50 kW to 100 kW - tech: highest allowed ERP for an FM band radio station in the United States. [7]
• 40 kW to 200 kW - tech: approximate range of power output of typical automobiles
• 167 kW - tech: power consumption of UNIVAC 1 computer
• 250 kW to 800 kW - tech: approximate range of power output of 'supercars'

[edit] megawatt (10⁶ watts)

• 1.3 MW - tech: power output of P-51 Mustang fighter aircraft
• 2.5 MW - biomed: peak power output of a blue whale
• 3 MW - tech: mechanical power output of a diesel locomotive
• 10 MW - tech: highest ERP allowed for an UHF television station.
• 10.3 MW - geo: electrical power output of Togo
• 75 MW - tech: maximum power output of one GE90 jet engine as installed on the Boeing 777
• 140 MW - tech: average power consumption of a Boeing 747 passenger aircraft
• 190 MW - tech: peak power output of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier
• 900 MW - tech: electric power output of a CANDU nuclear reactor
• 959 MW - geo: average electrical power consumption of Zimbabwe in 1998

The productive capacity of electrical generators operated by utility companies is often measured in MW. Few things can sustain the transfer or consumption of energy on this scale; some of these events or entities include: lightning strikes, naval craft (such as aircraft carriers and submarines), engineering hardware, and some scientific research equipment (such as the supercollider and large lasers).

For reference, about 10,000 100-watt lightbulbs or 5,000 computer systems would be needed to draw 1 megawatt. Also, 1 MW equals approximately 1360 horsepower. Modern high-powered diesel-electric railroad locomotives typically have a peak power output of 3–5 MW, whereas a typical modern nuclear power plant produces on the order of 500–2000 MW peak output.

[edit] gigawatt (10⁹ watts)

• 1.21 GW - sci-fi: electrical power usage of the De Lorean time machine in the movie Back to the Future (not counting engine output)
• 1.3 GW - tech: electric power output of Manitoba Hydro Limestone hydroelectric generating station
• 2.074 GW - tech: peak power generation of Hoover Dam
• 2.1 GW - tech: peak power generation of Aswan Dam
• 3 GW - tech: approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor
• 12.6 GW - tech: electrical power generation of the Itaipu Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric power plant
• 12.7 GW - geo: average electrical power consumption of Norway in 1998
• 18.2 GW - tech: projected electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam in China when complete.
• 74 GW - tech: total installed wind turbine capacity at end of 2006.^[3]
• 190 GW - tech: average power consumption of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket

[edit] terawatt (10¹² watts)

• 2 TW - astro: approximate power generated between the surfaces of Jupiter and its moon Io due to Jupiter's tremendous magnetic field.^[4]
• 3.34 TW - geo: average total (gas, electricity, etc) power consumption of the U.S. in 2005 ^[5]
• 15 TW - geo: average total power consumption of the human world in 2004
• 44 TW - geo: average total heat flux from earth's interior (see figure in http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/7/16/1)
• 75 TW - eco: based on global net primary production (= biomass production) via photosynthesis
• 50 to 200 TW - weather: rate of heat energy release by a hurricane
• 290 TW - tech: the power the Z Machine reaches in 1 billionth of a second when it is fired up
• 300 TW - tech: power reached by the extremely high-power Hercules laser from the University of Michigan.

[edit] petawatt (10¹⁵ watts)

• 1.25 PW - tech: world's most powerful laser pulses (claimed on 23 May 1996 by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory).
• 1.4 PW - geo: estimated heat flux transported by the Gulf Stream.
• 4 PW - geo: estimated total heat flux transported by earth's atmosphere and oceans away from the equator towards the poles.
• 174.0 PW - astro: total power received by the earth from the sun
• 209.2 PW - tech: power produced by the Tsar Bomba fusion bomb, the most powerful device ever made.

[edit] exawatt (10¹⁸ watts)

[edit] zettawatt (10²¹ watts)

• 135 ZW - astro: approximate luminosity of Wolf 359

[edit] yottawatt (10²⁴ watts)

• 386 YW - astro: luminosity of the sun

[edit] greater than one thousand yottawatts

• 3.31 × 10³¹W - astro: approximate luminosity of Beta Centauri
• 1.23 × 10³²W - astro: approximate luminosity of Deneb
• 5 × 10³⁶W - astro: approximate luminosity of the Milky Way galaxy.
• 1 × 10⁴⁵W - astro: approximate luminosity of a gamma-ray burst
• 9.07 × 10⁵¹W - phys: The maximum power allowed by general relativity without creating an event horizon (exactly 1/4 of the Planck power).^[6]
• 3.63 × 10⁵²W - phys: The Planck power, the basic unit of power in the Planck units.

[edit] References

1. ^ http://www.gearypacific.com/ComfortZone/14%20The%20People%20Load.pdf
2. ^ [1] - Human power output during repeated sprint cycle exercise: the influence of thermal stress; Ball D, Burrows C, Sargeant AJ.
3. ^ World Wind Energy Association Statistics (PDF).
4. ^ [2] - Nasa: Listening to shortwave radio signals from Jupiter
5. ^ U.S energy consumption by source, 1949-2005, Energy Information Administration accessed 25 May 2007
6. ^ Schiller, Christoph (2007). "Gravitation and relativity", Motion Mountain, 448. ISBN 978-3-00-021946-7. 

[edit] See also

• World energy resources and consumption
• International System of Units (SI)
• SI prefix