Wikipedia: Orders of magnitude (power)

Orders of magnitude (power)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

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.

1 microwatt

(10^-6 watts)

1 μW - approximate consumption of a quartz wristwatch

1 milliwatt

(10^-3 watts)

5 mW - laser in a CD-ROM drive [1]
5-10 mW - laser in a DVD-ROM drive
100 mW - laser in a CD-R drive

1 watt

30 W -- the power of the typical household tube light

60 W -- the power of the typical household light bulb
100 W -- approximate average power used by the human body
745.7 W -- 1 horsepower

1 kilowatt

(10³ watts)

2.20 × 10³ W -- per capita average power use of the world in 2001
1.14 × 10⁴ W -- per capita average power use in the U.S in 2001
1.36 × 10⁴ W -- power received from the Sun at the Earth's orbit by one square metre
4 × 10⁴ - 2 × 10⁵ W -- approximate range of power output for typical automobiles

1 megawatt

(10⁶ watts)

1.03 × 10⁷ W -- Electrical power output of Togo
1.9 × 10⁸ W -- peak power output of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier
9.59 × 10⁸ W -- average electrical power consumption of Zimbabwe in 1998

1 gigawatt

(10⁹ watts)

2.074 × 10⁹ W - peak power generation of Hoover Dam
3 × 10⁹ W - approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor
1.27 × 10¹⁰ -- average electrical power consumption of Norway in 1998
1.82 × 10¹⁰ -- electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam in China when complete
4.243 × 10¹¹ W -- average electrical power consumption of the U.S in 2001

1 terawatt

(10¹² watts)

1.7 × 10¹² W -- average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001
3.327 × 10¹² W -- average total power consumption of the U.S in 2001
1.35 × 10¹³ W -- average total power consumption of the world in 2001
8.5 × 10¹⁴ watts -- world's most powerful laser (claimed on 2003-4-16 by Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute)

1 petawatt

(10¹⁵ watts)

1.25 × 10¹⁵ watts -- world's most powerful laser (claimed on 1996-5-23 by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory).
4 × 10¹⁵ watts -- estimated total heat flux transported by Earth's atmosphere and oceans away from the equator towards the poles.
1.75 × 10¹⁷ W -- total power received by the Earth from the Sun