Dear Stan,
It seems really odd to me that engineers, who probably know much
better, are using a power unit when they are referring to energy.
As far as I know power and energy were clearly distinguished as two
quite separate and distinct physical realities late in the 1700s or
early in the 1800s (I would like to have an exact date but this is the
best I can do at present).
As you know the unit for energy in the International System of Units
(SI) is the joule (symbol J) and the unit for power in SI is the watt
(symbol W). It makes no sense at all to me to pretend you are talking
about energy when you are trying to describe it with the SI unit for
power.
You will recall that I am really concerned about this issue because
until journalists and politicians are able to comprehend the nature of
energy and how to measure it, we have no chance that they might begin
to comprehend issues such as 'global warming', 'climate change', or
'the end of oil' as these are, in essence energy issues, and not power
issues.
My approach is to use the SI unit, joule, only, and to use it with an
appropriate prefix to give whole number amounts. See the short article
at http://www.metricationmatters.com/docs/AWordAboutGlobalWarming.pdf
for an example of how I use the energy unit, joule.
Cheers,
Pat Naughtin
On 2010/06/07, at 10:17 , Stanislav Jakuba wrote:
I am attaching an energy article that is distinguished for using
only one unit, the watt (W), throughout. That units was selected as
it is both familiar everywhere, incl. in the US, and shorter than
others that one could select to express the average energy usage.
The watt (as GW) is the only unit need for these kinds of global
statistics, and using it exclusively enables immediate comparisons.
I do not mean to start a debate about the opinions expressed in the
treatise, although I will certainly read all. Instead, I do hope to
"persuade" everybody in the energy business to settle on this unit
for any kind of energy usage, i.e.power, anywhere in the world
instead of the plethora of units common in energy related
statistics. On the scale of countries, only one prefix also, the G,
suffices.
Stan Jakuba
<Pacific Gas & E.3USMA.doc>
Pat Naughtin
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, that you can obtain
from http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216,
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