Just give GW, it would be enough If you want to put to scale use something else (will provide the output of 1/2 hoover dams, will be able to supply 0.1% of US electricity or power 5000000 tumble dryers or 3 ATI cards) Homes just don't need electricity to exist ...
Can't we just get over it and accept that the only thing people generally have a good idea about is the power consumption of their own household, and as such using home energy consumption is what journalists have settled on? It's really the most pragmatic, and is only problematic when they're not providing the GW value.
The point he was making is that he doesn't know the exact number, but he knows how many household's worth it is.
As for knowing or not knowing the exact number, do people not read their electric bills?
Percentages are easier. This plant delivers 500 megawatt of power, which is 15% of the biggest nuclear powerplant of the US (or 7% of the biggest hydroelectric power plant of the US, or 2% of the world's biggest power plant, the Three Gorges Dam in China).
This helps putting in perspective the size of the plant in terms of what other endeavours of that kind offer and helps cope with the fact that the average person has no idea how many plants there are in the world and so how to relate the 500,000 houses number to the importance a given project might have.
And if you think the average person is going to find percentages of some arbitrary landmark then I don't think you understand the average person.
Still, I do agree that it’s easier to visualize with the number of households attached, inaccuracies be damned (at least if you do both).
PS: Interesting tidbit I just found out while doing some quick googling on this: Apparently the average US household consumes more electricity per month (more than 900 kWh) than I do in a whole year (roughly 800 kWh).
Think about this really hard.
You have a fair point about the arbitrary landmark though; mine was just a lame attempt at making an example.
The key point readers might want to quickly get at a first glance: is this a significant project or a drop in the ocean?
I don't think there is one good way of representing numbers, it's a complex matter because it's not about the number itself, it's about our perception.
I remember kayaking down the Colorado river. First day was hot and the Hoover dam upstream was running it's generators full tilt to power all the air conditioners in Vegas. River was kinda scary. Next day weather moved in and the temperature dropped 20 degrees. Air conditioners off, generators off. Now flow and the river was still with wind blowing upstream and we had to paddle all the way out for 8 miles.
If you look at the economics of journalism, it's understandable why they write this way (the economics view explains most of the ways modern journalism is crap), but it's disheartening that nobody minds writing about "calories" (which should be kcal), or "horsepower", but watts need a "X homes" explanation.
This is not the case with calories (I know that what I eat daily has about 2500 of those) or horsepower (I know that my car used to have 60).
In total France produces 63GW, with 70Mhab = about 1KW per inhabitant in average.
Maybe we need to have all BSC/Technical short lists for MP's to rebalance the HOC away from lawyers and carear politicians.
I don't know why you're getting uppity about this specific unit, but your post reeks of elitism and arrogance. You happen to understand what a watt is, so it's disheartening and sad that nobody else does (it's so lonely being so smart and being surrounded by dumb people)? Keep your shitty judgmental attitude to yourself.
Okay. 1000 watts are roughly one 1.3 HP, everybody knows what a horse power is. So a megawatt is 1300 hp and gigawatt is 1 300 000 hp. We use cars all day - we have idea how much a horse power is.
I know I'm shouting at the wind here, but I get the impression that most people today think education ends on high school, and after they graduate it they're not to be expected to ever go and look something up.
Anyway, if we are talking about any large quantity of anything we are given a reference point. People have trouble with large quantities they don't encounter in their everyday lives. Not because they are dumb but because they don't have a reference point. Say 100,000 pounds of food. How much is that? I don't know, "enough to feed 100 people for a year." I can understand that. (I made those numbers up)