Orders of magnitude (power)

This 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.

Table of contents

1 1 microwatt 2 1 milliwatt 3 1 watt 4 1 kilowatt 5 1 megawatt 6 1 gigawatt 7 1 terawatt 8 1 petawatt 9 1 exawatt 10 1 zettawatt 11 1 yottawatt 12 Higher orders of magnitude 13 See also 14 External link

1 microwatt

(10^-6 watts)

• 1 μW - approximate consumption of a quartz wristwatch

1 milliwatt

(10^-3 watts)

• 5 mW - laser in a CD-ROM drive [1]
• 5-10 mW - laser in a DVD-ROM drive
• 100 mW - laser in a CD-R drive

1 watt

• 30 W -- the power of the typical household tube light
• 60 W -- the power of the typical household light bulb

• 100 W -- approximate average power used by the human body
• 745.7 W -- 1 horsepower

1 kilowatt

(10³ watts)

• 2.20 × 10³ W -- per capita average power use of the world in 2001

• 1.14 × 10⁴ W -- per capita average power use in the U.S in 2001
• 1.36 × 10⁴ W -- power received from the Sun at the Earth's orbit by one square metre
• 4 × 10⁴ - 2 × 10⁵ W -- approximate range of power output for typical automobiles

1 megawatt

(10⁶ watts)

• 1.03 × 10⁷ W -- Electrical power output of Togo

• 1.9 × 10⁸ W -- peak power output of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier
• 9.59 × 10⁸ W -- average electrical power consumption of Zimbabwe in 1998

1 gigawatt

(10⁹ watts)

• 2.074 × 10⁹ W - peak power generation of Hoover Dam
• 3 × 10⁹ W - approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor

• 1.27 × 10¹⁰ -- average electrical power consumption of Norway in 1998
• 1.82 × 10¹⁰ -- electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam in China when complete

• 4.243 × 10¹¹ W -- average electrical power consumption of the U.S in 2001

1 terawatt

(10¹² watts)

• 1.7 × 10¹² W -- average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001
• 3.327 × 10¹² W -- average total power consumption of the U.S in 2001

• 1.35 × 10¹³ W -- average total power consumption of the world in 2001

• 8.5 × 10¹⁴ watts -- world's most powerful laser (claimed on 2003-4-16 by Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute)

1 petawatt

(10¹⁵ watts)

• 1.25 × 10¹⁵ watts -- world's most powerful laser (claimed on 1996-5-23 by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory).
• 4 × 10¹⁵ watts -- estimated total heat flux transported by Earth's atmosphere and oceans away from the equator towards the poles.

• 1.75 × 10¹⁷ W -- total power received by the Earth from the Sun

1 exawatt

(10¹⁸ watts)

1 zettawatt

(10²¹ watts)

• 1.35 × 10²³W - Approximate luminosity of Wolf 359

1 yottawatt

(10²⁴ watts)

• 3.86×10²⁶W - Luminosity of the Sun

Higher orders of magnitude

• 3.31 × 10³¹W - Approximate luminosity of Hadar

• 1.23 × 10³²W - Approximate luminosity of Deneb

• 5 × 10³⁶W - Approximate luminosity of the Milky way galaxy.

• 1 × 10⁴⁵W - Approximate luminosity of a supernova

See also

Orders of magnitude of other quantities: energy, time, length, area, volume, mass

SI, SI prefixes, SI base units, units, power, orders of magnitude, conversion of units

External link

• Conversion Calculator for Units of POWER