2015.04.08 Embrace the Joules

I can understand some idiot bumbling along and deriving the kilowatt hour as a matter of accidental expediency. Probably an idiot unfamiliar with Metric units. Or engineering.

What I cannot understand is everybody deciding to use the same stupid unit, when we have a perfectly good and easier-to-use unit for energy: Joules. Or some standard multiple thereof.

Watt? It's a measure of power. Power itself being derived from the rate of energy used - or energy divided by time. 1 W = 1 J/s.

So, to take a unit of power (or, rather, a standard multiple) and multiplying it by time to get back to energy... well, it works, but it's just fucking stupid. What is a kilowatt-hour (kW∙h)? It's 3.6 megajoules (MJ).

Is that really so hard?

And, honestly, I have spent years quietly thinking less of utility companies for this, and not really cared too much about it. But to see electric car batteries - even those on Tesla, that paragon of engineering - using kW∙h to describe their energy capacity - it's a philosophical-aesthetic slight that bothers me.

 

 

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UPDATE:
Fffffffuuuuuu

Terawatt-hours/year (TWh/yr)?!?! Energy divided by time, multiplied by time, then divided by time again?

Fuck you.