Energy Scales

This table gives the typical energy used (in joules) in doing different things. As you might expect, it doesn't take that much energy to lift one hair one millimetre, and it takes an awful lot more to power a hurricane. But all these are dwarfed by the amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun every year.

We rely on the Sun's energy for life on earth through photosynthesis. If the Sun switched off, all plants would eventually die and so would we!


Amount of energy........ joules
Energy needed to lift a hair through one mm 10-7
Moonlight on your face for 1 sec 10-4
Energy to lift a book from the floor to table 1
Kinetic energy of a bullet 103
1 kW fire for 1 hour 3.6 x 106
1 gallon of petrol in a car 108
1 ton of coal 5 x 1010
Apollo moon rocket 1013
Hurricane 1015
Hydrogen bomb 5 x 1017
Severe earthquake 1018
World energy consumption per year 1020
Energy received by the Earth from the Sun per day 1022
Energy received by the Earth from the Sun per year 1025

WOW, or what...10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules!


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