• Lvxferre@lemmy.ml
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    1 year ago

    Frankly I’d be fine with watt-hours too, as long as consistent. It isn’t like converting one into another is hard (1kWh = 3.6MJ).

    My point for joules is twofold:

    • Due to the name, plenty people confuse power (watts) with energy (watt-hours). Joules avoid this.
    • You can also convert other “esoteric” units of energy to joules, for better comparison across fields. Such as “food calories” (i.e. kilocalories; 1kcal = 8.4kJ)

    wh/kwh are defined as energy per hour, while a joule, is energy (in watts) per second.

    It’s power times hours and power times seconds respectively. (“Per” is usually understood as division)

    That said you’re right that they’re similar. The difference is only if you’re using hours or seconds to measure time.

        • twack@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Hey, number of standard cheeseburgers would still be an effective standard. All we want is one common unit.

          It’s really not that much weirder than horsepower for engines.