Talk:Orders of magnitude (power)

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Contents 1 How small? 2 Multiple of three powers instead of decades 3 Conversion corrected 4 Put these all in one page 5 which world 6 total power consumption 7 categories? 8 Photosynthesis 9 Io's flux tube 10 3 GW - Tech: approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor?

[edit] How small?

Anyone have a good idea how small this should go? It seems to me that most of the really small powers are better expressed as energy, when you have reactions of individual molecules and such. I know some LEDs and such go at least down to microwatts, and there's the now-infamous (there's that word again!) antpower, albeit badly calculated. Anybody know any nanowatts or smaller that have any use? Perhaps the average power output of a single human cell, or something like that? -- John Owens 10:34 19 May 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple of three powers instead of decades

Also, I'm open to suggestions as to when we should start grouping by thousands instead of decades. I'm thinking around 1 E24 W, and around 1 E-6 W if we go any smaller than that. Comment? -- John Owens 13:26 19 May 2003 (UTC)

Should the examples be in "engineering" scientific notation? in other words, multiple of three exponents. for instance, in the kilowatts section was a 1.1x10^4. i changed it to 11x10^3, so that it is in kilowatts. This is certainly the way I would prefer units, but I am an engineer and others may not like it. - Omegatron 15:30, Jun 18, 2004 (UTC)

I would like the numbers include a non-three-power notation i.e. write 1x10^4 W as 10 kW; 1.4x10^5 W as 140 kW and so forth. I think this will make the sections more readable for people not familiar with this notation, and greatly increase readability. --Deelkar 04:00, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Conversion corrected

I corrected the conversion from 1MW to horsepowers. I used g = 9.80665m/s^2, which should be common average, after calculation it came slightly less than 1360.

[edit] Put these all in one page

I really, really think this should all be one one page. It will make it a lot more usable, and easier to maintain into the bargain. Onebyone 03:12, 9 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Done, and since even on one page the list still doesn't look at all cramped, I think the result is the right thing. There are now 48 redirects to this page... Onebyone 01:25, 13 Dec 2003 (UTC)

[edit] which world

"average total power consumption of the world"

this just means human activities, right? - Omegatron 03:00, Aug 17, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] total power consumption

the issue isn't with the words "power consumption", but with the word "total", implying the amount of power consumed in one year, which is silly, since power is a rate per unit time. i think the "total" just means "total for all of the united states", not "total for the entire year", but we should rephrase and get a reference. - Omegatron 17:02, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstood. Is "total power consumption" meant to include non-electrical power? If so, that's my mistake, and it should probably be restored to the way it was before I removed it. --P3d0 23:23, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Oh yeah, you're probably right. Either way, it should be verified and explicitly phrased. - Omegatron 14:45, Dec 10, 2004 (UTC)

I came here looking for an explination of this ... I figured someon had asked. SO does this mean Total ELECTRICAL power consumption vs. Totoal power of all types consumption. Is is an avrage? a peak? im so confused %-) Dalf | Talk 05:05, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] categories?

What is the point of all the tags (Biomed, tech, etc.) on this page? Is it not obvious that something related to lasers is technological and something related to blue whales is biological? I just don't really see the point of these at all. --Deglr6328 03:44, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, that's silly. If it's not clear what a particular example is, it should be clarified in prose. — Omegatron 14:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Moreover, many example, in particular Sci-Fi ones, are just totally irrelevant and non-representative. The power consumption of the StarTreck enterprise is just a random number picked by the scenarist. --137.194.3.137 14:47, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't see anything wrong with sci-fi entries. We don't want them to overwhelm everything else, but a few notable ones (estimated power the Death Star would require to explode a planet, etc.) are fine. — Omegatron 14:55, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photosynthesis

I corrected the power (by about 10 x) based on total primary production of fixed carbon, calculated as if in the form of carbohydrates. Harold f 22:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Better power calculation based on Science article on primary production (PDF).Harold f 02:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Io's flux tube

Io's flux tube carries about 10^12, not 10^18. I'll try look for something around 10^18.

Thric3 20:27, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 3 GW - Tech: approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor?

Which nuclear reactor is the world's largest? TerraFrost 17:27, 18 April 2007 (UTC)