Excellent point. To get the complete picture for a generator, we want to know how much electricity we get per unit fuel. In SI, we might use MJ/l or even the dimensionless quantity of (J electricity)/(J fuel), which we can write as a percent. But in the real world, W h / l is more likely to be the most useful unit. Too bad the revolutionaries didn't succeed with the 100,000 second day!
On Saturday 27 September 2003 11:04, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > I had to buy a generator last week because of Hurricane Isabel and its > power failures. > > Believe it or not, there were a few to choose from. I wanted the most > efficient one. The clerk at Home Depot was clueless. > > I told him, "This is easy, just quit using your archaic unit called > 'horsepower'. A horsepower is actually defined as 746 watts. So this > generator has a 10 'horsepower' engine. This is atually 7460 watts. The > electrical output is 6250 watts. So it's about 85% efficient. The little > one over here has a 3 'horsepower' motor and only puts out 1000 watts -- > less than 50% efficient." > > The only reason we are stuck with horsepower is the same reason the > Canadians are stuck with pounds in the grocery. A horsepower seems bigger > than 0.746 KW, and a pound seems cheaper than a kg: the uneducated are > made happy. > > Carleton
