The world (in 2021) consumed energy at the rate of 20TW. Here's how it's worked out:
The world Total Energy Supply was 14,500 million tons of oil equivalent each year (you need to scroll down bit to find the TES).
This is an awkward number.
An hourly rate might be easier to deal with; divide by (24 x 365) to get 1,655,251.14 tons of oil per hour.
Converting to the more commonly used Megawatt hour (1 toe = 11.63 MWh) gives 19,250,570.8 MWh. We may as well round this to 20,000,000 (twenty million) MWh and as we have an hourly measure, that's the rate in MW. To spell it out, total energy supply is:
twenty million (20,000,000) MW
twenty thousand (20,000) GW
twenty TW
I have trouble with the large numbers involved; I have a crib sheet for orders of magnitude, to check myself.
| Unit of Measure Equivalents | |
|---|---|
| Unit | Equivalent |
| Kilowatt (kW) | 1,000 (one thousand) Watts |
| Megawatt (MW) | 1,000,000 (one million) Watts |
| Gigawatt (GW) | 1,000,000,000 (one billion) Watts |
| Terawatt (TW) | 1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion) Watts |
or looking at it a slightly different way |
|
| Kilowatt (kW) | 1,000 (one thousand) Watts |
| Megawatt (MW) | 1,000 (one thousand) kW |
| Gigawatt (GW) | 1,000 (one thousand) MW |
| Terawatt (TW) | 1,000 (one thousand) GW |
Last updated: 7 Dec 2023 14:35:57