←back to thread

Japan has opened its first osmotic power plant

(www.theguardian.com)
301 points pseudolus | 1 comments | 25 Aug 25 02:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
Show context
p1mrx ◴[26 Aug 25 17:34 UTC] No.45029734[source]▶
> it is expected to generate about 880,000 kilowatt hours of electricity each year

100 kW, in sensible units.

replies(6): >>45029865 #>>45030191 #>>45036621 #>>45036746 #>>45037007 #>>45040915 #
DavidVoid ◴[27 Aug 25 08:48 UTC] No.45037007[source]▶
I don't see how kilowatts would be more sensible than kilowatt-hours here, especially since the power output might not be consistent.

See also, "Power is not Energy": https://youtu.be/OOK5xkFijPc

replies(2): >>45038065 #>>45038843 #
Aachen ◴[27 Aug 25 11:17 UTC] No.45038065[source]▶
I find 100 kW a lot more tangible than some nonround number of thousands of kW times hours. People use kW for car charging, for heaters (toasters, microwaves, space heaters are all the same), etc. so you can directly say how many of those fit in the nice round 100 kW

But if you happen to know that a typical person in a rich country like you're probably in (5th percentile of the world population) uses about 1.5 MWh/year, I guess you can also approximate a MWh figure by saying 1 MWh/year is close enough, so I'd understand if someone says that works for them

replies(1): >>45050364 #
1. Aachen ◴[28 Aug 25 10:06 UTC] No.45050364[source]▶
Just realised that's misleading:

> a typical person in a rich country [...] uses about 1.5 MWh/year

That's just electricity, not energy. The real figure is probably ballpark 50 to 100 percent higher (probably mainly depending on climate for heating/cooling demands and the heating method being used) but I haven't looked that up now. Just wanted to remark this (can't edit anymore) so it's no longer completely misleading