Energy Unit Conversions
Published 10/29/2021
Electricity is very versatile and billed by the kilowatt-hour.
Let's convert other units of energy to kilowatt-hours so we can compare them all side by side.
- Coal Thermal Energy = 6150 kWh/ton (3.075 kWh/pound)
- Coal Electric Energy (40% efficiency) = 2460 kWh/ton (1.23 kWh/pound)
- 1 gallon of gasoline = 34.6 kWh
- 1 dekatherm of natur al gas = 293 kWh
- 3,600,000 Joule = 1 kWh
- 3412 BTU = 1 kWh
- 860 Food calories = 1 kWh
- 1 Candy bar (280 calories) = 0.325 kWh
Interesting that 1 candy bar is almost 1/100th the same energy as a gallon of gas.
Therefore if you ate 100 candy bars, you would have... diabetes. So don't eat that many.
Assuming electricity costs 11.4 cents/kWh, 1 watt running continuously all year would cost $1.00/year.
100 watts running continuously all year would cost $100/year.
According to E=mc², if you could convert 1 kg of matter directly into energy it would be:
1 kg x 300,000,000 x 300,000,000 = 90,000,000,000,000,000 Joules (25,000,000,000 kWh).
That's enough energy to drive an electric car (getting 4 miles/kWh) 100 Billion miles.