Of course, that 112 EJ was used in a year, and is therefore really 112 EJ/year; that is a power. The question is whether it is better expressed in the "convenient" units of exajoules per year, or the coherent units of 3.55 TW. Arguments can be made on both sides, but once you measure energy over time, you have power. In the same way, to use your other analogy, if you measure the distance you drive each year, you have, in fact, a speed. (not a very meaningful average speed as you don't drive continuously. A similar point can be made on average power use.)
--- On Fri, 5/8/09, Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> wrote: From: Pat Naughtin <[email protected]> Subject: [USMA:45039] Re: [SI] Letter to ed To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Cc: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]> Date: Friday, May 8, 2009, 10:11 PM On 2009/05/07, at 10:18 PM, Patrick Moore wrote: The idea of selling an individual unit is brilliant. A campaign consists of many small objectives. Dear Patrick and All, What if we viewed the energy use of the USA like this: In 2003, the USA used 112 exajoules of energy that was made up from: * 42 exajoules from petroleum, * 26 exajoules from natural gas, * 26 exajoules from coal, * 11 exajoules from nuclear energy, and * 7 exajoules from renewable energy. I chose 2003 because I had the figures readily available, Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected] or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe.
