Dear All,

I have just responded to an article at 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/consumertips/household-bills/8395460/Energy-bills-what-the-jargon-means.html
 as follows:

##
You write "Kilowatt hours – the standard measurement on an energy bill". This 
is not so. Since 1889 the standard measuring unit for energy has been the joule 
with the symbol J.

The joule was named by the British Association for the Advancement of Science 
(BAAS) to recognise the research work on energy done by James Maxwell Joule, a 
brewer from Salford in Lancashire.

The joule is the only measuring unit needed for all the different kinds of 
energy in the world (kilojoules for food energy, megajoules for household 
electricity, gigajoules and terajoules for nuclear reactors, and so on).

Since 1889, the alternatives are to use joules to measure energy or to use one 
of the old pre-1889 loosely defined words associated with energy. I know about 
199 of these old words but my favourite is the 'barrel of oil equivalent' that 
refers to an oil barrel that never actually existed!

Cheers,

Pat Naughtin
Geelong, Australia
##

Pat Naughtin LCAMS
Author of the ebook, Metrication Leaders Guide, see 
http://metricationmatters.com/MetricationLeadersGuideInfo.html
Hear Pat speak at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lshRAPvPZY 
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.

Reply via email to