this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2025
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So, Alec over the Technology Connections channel made an hour long video explaining the difference with kW and kWh (obviously with other stuff around it).

I'm living in northern Europe in an old house, with pretty much only electric appliances for everything. We do have a wood stove and oven, but absolute majority of our energy consumption is electricity. Roughly 24 000 kWh per year.

And, while eveything he brings up makes absolute sense, it seems like a moot point. In here absolutely everyone knows this stuff and it's all just common knowledge. Today we went into sauna and just turned a knob to fire up the 6,5kW heaters inside the stove and doing that also triggered a contactor to disengage some of the floor heating so that the thing doesn't overload the circuit. And the old house we live in pulls 3-4kW from the grid during the winter just to keep inside nice and warm. And that's with heat pumps, we have a mini-split units both on the house and in the garage. And I also have 9kW pure electric construction heater around to provide excess heat in case the cheap minisiplit in garage freezes up and needs more heat to thaw the outside unit.

And kW and kWh are still commony used measurement if you don't use electricity. Diesel or propane heaters have labels on them on how many watts they can output right next to the fuel consumption per hour and so on. So I'm just wondering if this is really any new information for anyone.

I assume here's a lot of people from the US and other countries with gas grid (which we don't really have around here), is it really so that your Joe Average can't tell the difference between 1kWh of heat produced by gas compared to electricity? I get that pricing for different power sources may differ, but it's still watt-hours coming out of the grid. Optimizing their usage may obviously be worth the effort, but it's got nothing to do with power consumption.

So, please help me understand the situation a bit more in depth.

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[–] Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 20 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In here absolutely everyone knows this stuff and it’s all just common knowledge.

[–] IsoKiero@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 days ago

Fair point, but basic physics has been a part of our education program for at least 60 years. Also for few years the 'exchange priced' or 'market valued' electricity has been somewhat popular and on the news, which adds up to the general understanding as if you know your stuff it means quite literal money as your bills are smaller. So, maybe 'absolutely everyone' is a bit of a stretch, but in general the majority of adult people understand the concept.

And also a ton of common folk understand it at least a bit on a deeper level as basic physics is included to studies beyond elementary school regardless on what you study. Sure, not everyone understands (or cares) how 3 phase AC in here adds up to 400V or why you need to have 2,5mm² wires for 16A fuse, but it's still pretty common that people, specially in a separate house, understand how you can only pull 2300W out of a 10A circuit or 3600W from a 16A one (10 and 16A being the most common fuses in a household in here).

[–] krimson@lemmy.world 36 points 6 days ago
[–] ftbd@feddit.org 26 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Follow-up video idea: speed ≠ distance

[–] purplemonkeymad@programming.dev 18 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The one that I think more people misunderstand is temperature Vs heat Vs something feeling hot/cold. One is a property, one is energy, and the other is the transfer of energy.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 7 points 6 days ago (4 children)

You know a nation of people who may not be able to articulate their understanding, but definitely have a high intuitive understanding of that?

We Finns.

100C sauna and no problem sitting on wood, but happen to touch something metal and oooh-weee.

Also same thing happens the others way around when it's - 20c outside. I don't think there's many people in Finland who don't have a core memory of what cold metal tastes like in winter, because of the resulting trauma. And it doesn't even need to be metal to stick.

Nicely explained.

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[–] miridius@lemmy.world 16 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Saved you a click: power = rate of energy use (energy/time)

[–] scarabic@lemmy.world 11 points 6 days ago

He says it so many times in so many ways that he actually starts to make it seem more complex than it is. You start wondering if you’re missing something, because you got it in 6 seconds but 12 minutes later he’s still talking about it.

[–] Emerald@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago

Also check out his other video on his Connextras channel where he basically suggests dismantling capitalism.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2qSaD1v4cQ

[–] softcat@lemmy.ca 13 points 6 days ago (1 children)

kW/kWh aren't commonly used outside of electrical applications in the US, so people are less readily able to quantify and compare in other contexts. Looking at a variety of natural gas companies' bills, you'll get volume multiplied by a therm factor instead of simply using kWh; horsepower for not just cars but even electrical motors and pumps.

I think the average person will have looked at their electricity bill and put the basics together about watts and watt hours. As for comparison with natural gas, I think he didn't touch on the real metric people then turn to- cost. Depending on the state it can be much cheaper to use gas vs electricity.

[–] Glitchvid@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

Yeah, electric motors are what I notice the most. Be it on washers/dryers, garbage disposals (which range from 1/3, 1/2, 3/4, 1HP) and more.

[–] equinox86@lemm.ee 15 points 6 days ago

After watching the video it was a bit over explained. I think he got his point across in the first 10 minutes, though I am an engineer by trade.

I appreciate his rigour in explaining and it is a good refresher on the power/energy calculations.

[–] futatorius@lemm.ee 8 points 5 days ago

So I’m just wondering if this is really any new information for anyone.

It's never wise to underestimate most people's ignorance.

[–] rice@lemmy.org 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There's no way even 1% of people understand this in the world. Maybe 1% know of those measurements "existence" asking them what they are would get an "uhh"

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago (4 children)

In the world? Me and millions of other people got this info in middle school physics. Sure, maybe we mostly forgot the details by now. But it's not arcane or ancient knowledge lost to time. It's in your electricity bill every month. A quick visit to Wikipedia and I got the gist of it back. Every single physicist, engineer, and electrician got this explained again to them.

[–] rice@lemmy.org 2 points 6 days ago

"a quick visit to wikipedia" is a good example confirming what I said, majority of people are not willing to do that to learn any subject. 0.483% of humans are engineers, of that I'd say there are a small chunk that are near worthless and probably don't even know these basics.

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[–] MangoPenguin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

is it really so that your Joe Average can’t tell the difference between 1kWh of heat produced by gas compared to electricity?

Most people don't even know what a watt or watt/hour is. And have no idea how energy from gas relates to energy from electricity.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 6 points 6 days ago (3 children)

watt/hour

Oh yeah I've seen that used before, makes me cringe every time.

Anyway, do must people not go to high school? Or is stuff like that not part of the physics curriculum in some places?

[–] kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

A W/h either is a big problem or will be soon.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

I mean that depends on the sign of the W/h as well as your W/h^2^ and higher orders too. Maybe you're actually approaching zero watts :P

Even if it was covered in high school, I think because most people never use it again in daily life it's easy to forget.

[–] pebbles@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 days ago (6 children)

In my highschool physics was optional. You had multiple options for science credits and could get through without taking it.

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[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 11 points 6 days ago (1 children)

He’s making a point about instantaneous versus overall energy use, which it sounds like you already understand. “Power” and “energy” are already kind of loose terms, which could make that conversation confusing IMO.

But for anyone confused by this:

For the typical energy consumer, Watts (W, kW) are relevant when considering circuit capacity. Otherwise, Watt-hours (Wh, kWh) is likely the metric you’re looking for when considering energy use.

Concretely, your coffee maker might pull 1.2 kW while in use, more than most appliances in your house, yet it probably represents a minuscule portion of your electric bill, perhaps less than 1 kWh, since it only needs to boil a small amount of water with each use.

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How are energy and power "loose terms"? Energy might be difficult to fully explain rigorously, but it's one of the fundamental elements of our universe. And power is just energy over time

[–] Septimaeus@infosec.pub 2 points 6 days ago

How are energy and power "loose terms"? Energy might be difficult to fully explain rigorously, but it's one of the fundamental elements of our universe. And power is just energy over time

Well, you yourself just provided the example, since your definition of energy and power are the inverse of the definitions used in the video.

It’s the fact that people use them differently or interchangeably that makes them “loose” IMHO.

[–] lka1988@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

People complaining about this video have clearly not watched much Technology Connections; I enjoyed it immensely. It's right in line with how Alec normally does his videos. We who are loyal to the Great Alec expect the pedantic content.

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