This is a general question asked by school children in their teens when discussing solar power and electrical power conservation. Perhaps a specific location would assist in clarification.
2006-10-20 06:49:37 · 3 answers · asked by roy k 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Engineering
According to the United States Energy Information Administration, the worldwide consumption of electric energy in the year 2004 was 15,441,260,000,000 kilowatthours or 55.589 exajoules. This amounted to an average electric power consumption of 42,189,000,000 kilowatthours per day or 1758 gigawatts. The world's installed electric power generation capacity at the end of 2004 was 3736 gigawatts.
Total world energy use (in all forms) in 2004 was 471.021 exajoules, or an average of 14.895 terrawatts.
- An energy engineer
2006-10-20 10:10:35 · answer #1 · answered by Deep Thought 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Humanity uses about 15 TW (terawatts) of power. That means we use 15,000,000,000,000 Joules of energy per second.
2006-10-20 06:53:20 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
The figure of 15 TW sounds right. By comparison, a fairly small bushfire can radiate this amount of heat.
2006-10-20 12:41:05 · answer #3 · answered by zee_prime 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋