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Orders of magnitude
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This page lists examples of the power in watts produced by various different sources of energy. They are grouped by orders of magnitude, and each section covers three orders of magnitude, or a factor of one thousand.

1 yoctowatt

(10^-24 watts)

1 zeptowatt

(10^-21 watts)

• ~10 zW - approximate power of Galileo space probe's radio signal as received on earth by 70 meter DSN antenna.

1 attowatt

(10^-18 watts)

• 1 aW - approximate power scale at which operation of nanoelectromechanical systems is overwhelmed by thermal fluctuations.

1 femtowatt

(10^-15 watts)

1 picowatt

(10^-12 watts)

• 2.5 pW - Sound intensity per square centimeter for average human threshold of hearing at 1000Hz.

1 nanowatt

(10^-9 watts)

1 microwatt

(10^-6 watts)

• 1 μW - approximate consumption of a quartz wristwatch

1 milliwatt

(10^-3 watts)

• 5 mW - laser in a CD-ROM drive
• 5-10 mW - laser in a DVD-ROM drive
• 100 mW - laser in a CD-R drive

1 watt

• 20-40 W -- approximate power consumption of the human brain
• 30 W -- the power of the typical household tube light
• 60 W -- the power of the typical household light bulb

• 100 W -- approximate average power used by the human body
• 745.7 W -- 1 horsepower

1 kilowatt

(10³ watts)

• 1.36 × 10³ W -- power received from the Sun at the Earth's orbit by one square metre

• up to 2 × 10³ W -- approximate short time power output of sprinting professional cyclists

• 2.20 × 10³ W -- per capita average power use of the world in 2001

• 11.4 × 10³ W -- per capita average power use in the U.S. in 2001

• 4 × 10⁴ - 2 × 10⁵ W -- approximate range of power output of typical automobiles

1 megawatt

(10⁶ watts)

• 1.03 × 10⁷ W -- Electrical power output of Togo

• 1.9 &times 10⁸ W -- peak power output of a Nimitz class aircraft carrier
• 9.59 × 10⁸ W -- average electrical power consumption of Zimbabwe in 1998

1 gigawatt

(10⁹ watts)

• 2.074 × 10⁹ W - peak power generation of Hoover Dam
• 3 × 10⁹ W - approximate peak power generation of the world's largest nuclear reactor

• 1.27 × 10¹⁰ -- average electrical power consumption of Norway in 1998
• 1.82 × 10¹⁰ -- electrical power generation of the Three Gorges Dam in China when complete

• 4.243 × 10¹¹ W -- average electrical power consumption of the U.S. in 2001

1 terawatt

(10¹² watts)

• 1.7 × 10¹² W -- average electrical power consumption of the world in 2001
• 3.327 × 10¹² W -- average total power consumption of the U.S. in 2001

• 1.35 × 10¹³ W -- average total power consumption of the world in 2001

1 petawatt

(10¹⁵ watts)

• 1.25 × 10¹⁵ watts -- world's most powerful laser (claimed on 1996-5-23 by Lawrence Livermore Laboratory).
• 4 × 10¹⁵ watts -- estimated total heat flux transported by Earth's atmosphere and oceans away from the equator towards the poles.

• 1.75 × 10¹⁷ W -- total power received by the Earth from the Sun

1 exawatt

(10¹⁸ watts)

1 zettawatt

(10²¹ watts)

• 1.35 × 10²³W - Approximate luminosity of Wolf 359

1 yottawatt

(10²⁴ watts)

• 3.86×10²⁶W - Luminosity of the Sun

Higher orders of magnitude

• 3.31 × 10³¹W - Approximate luminosity of Hadar

• 1.23 × 10³²W - Approximate luminosity of Deneb

• 5 × 10³⁶W - Approximate luminosity of the Milky way galaxy.

• 1 × 10⁴⁵W - Approximate luminosity of a Gamma ray burster

See also

SI, SI prefixes, SI base units, units, power, orders of magnitude, conversion of units