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Orders of magnitude (power)
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Everything about Petawatt totally explainedThis 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.
Below 1 Watt
yoctowatt (10-24 watt)
zeptowatt (10-21 watt)
attowatt (10-18 watt)
1 aW - phys: approximate power scale at which operation of nanoelectromechanical systems are overwhelmed by thermal fluctuations. (External Link )
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
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
nanowatt (10-9 watt)
2-15 nW - tech: power consumption of 8-bit PIC microcontroller chips when in "sleep" mode
microwatt (10-6 watt)
1 µW - tech: approximate consumption of a quartz wristwatch
3 µW - astro: cosmic microwave background radiation per square meter
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
Between 1 and 1000 Watts
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
82 W - tech: peak power consumption of Pentium 4 CPU
100 W - biomed: approximate basal metabolic rate used by the human body
120 W - tech: power output of 1 m² solar panel in full sunlight (approx. 12% efficiency)
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.
Above 1000 Watts
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 (External Link)
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 (External Link)
10 kW to 50 kW - tech: ERP of clear channel AM (External Link)
50 kW to 100 kW - tech: highest allowed ERP for an FM band radio station in the United States. (External Link)
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'
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
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.
gigawatt (109 watts)
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.
190 GW - tech: average power consumption of the first stage of the Saturn V rocket
terawatt (1012 watts)
1.7 TW - geo: average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001
2 TW - astro: approximate power generated between the surfaces of Jupiter and its moon Io due to Jupiter's tremendous magnetic field.
3.34 TW - geo: average total (gas, electricity, etc) power consumption of the U.S. in 2005
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's fired up
300 TW - tech: power reached by the extremely high-power Hercules laser from the University of Michigan.
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
exawatt (1018 watts)
zettawatt (1021 watts)
135 ZW - astro: approximate luminosity of Wolf 359
yottawatt (1024 watts)
5.3 YW - tech: power produced by the Tsar Bomba fusion bomb, the most powerful device ever made
386 YW - astro: luminosity of the sun
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).
3.63 × 1052W - phys: The Planck power, the basic unit of power in the Planck units.Further Information
Get more info on 'Petawatt'.
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