2.2 Power  (Page 2/8)

Examples of power

Examples of power are limited only by the imagination, because there are as many types as there are forms of work and energy. (See [link] for some examples.) Sunlight reaching Earth’s surface carries a maximum power of about 1.3 kilowatts per square meter $({\text{kW/m}}^2)\text{.}$ A tiny fraction of this is retained by Earth over the long term. Our consumption rate of fossil fuels is far greater than the rate at which they are stored, so it is inevitable that they will be depleted. Power implies that energy is transferred, perhaps changing form. It is never possible to change one form completely into another without losing some of it as thermal energy. For example, a 60-W incandescent bulb converts only 5 W of electrical power to light, with 55 W dissipating into thermal energy. Furthermore, the typical electric power plant converts only 35 to 40% of its fuel into electricity. The remainder becomes a huge amount of thermal energy that must be dispersed as heat transfer, as rapidly as it is created. A coal-fired power plant may produce 1000 megawatts; 1 megawatt (MW) is ${\text{10}}^6\text{W}$ of electric power. But the power plant consumes chemical energy at a rate of about 2500 MW, creating heat transfer to the surroundings at a rate of 1500 MW. (See [link] .)

Power and energy consumption

We usually have to pay for the energy we use. It is interesting and easy to estimate the cost of energy for an electrical appliance if its power consumption rate and time used are known. The higher the power consumption rate and the longer the appliance is used, the greater the cost of that appliance. The power consumption rate is $P=W/t=E/t$ , where $E$ is the energy supplied by the electricity company. So the energy consumed over a time $t$ is

Electricity bills state the energy used in units of kilowatt-hours $(\text{kW}\cdot \mathrm{h}),$ which is the product of power in kilowatts and time in hours. This unit is convenient because electrical power consumption at the kilowatt level for hours at a time is typical.