power versus energy Good article very well cited User Dick Mills While very many people confuse the terminology for power and energy it is particularly embarrassing to do it in an article with such a title The Watt is a unit of power the rate of consumption Power can not be consumed Energy which can be consumed is measured in watt hours or joules The openening sentences which say In 2004 the worldwide energy consumption of the human race was estimated at 15 TW with 86 3 from burning fossil fuels 1 This is equivalent to 0 5 ZJ 1021 J per year should be changed to In 2004 the worldwide energy consumption of the human race was estimated at 0 5 ZJ 1021 J with 86 3 from burning fossil fuels 1 The average rate of consumption is thus 15 TW Similarly the labels on the the graphs should be changed Unfortunately the association of consumption with power watts continues throughout the article Again The energy used to generate 2 TW of electricity is approximately 5 TW as the efficiency of a typical existing power plant is around 38 is incorrect One needs 5 TW of power not energy to create 2 TW of power at 38 efficiency Even more unfortunate I worry that some of the numbers are wrong because of the confusion between power and energy For things like wind where a 100 MW generator operates at only 11 capacity factor the difference between installed capacity and average production over a long period of time is 9 1 A dominating factor I checked a couple of the references cited and they too use power and energy inconsistently It will take a major rewrite to correct this article Both the nomenclature and the numbers need to be checked