Originally Posted by
Tom M King
Units of measure are of no importance in this. It's merely a formula for the amount of energy in mass. Think about a BB that probably most of us shot through our BB guns when we were little. The formula tells us that the amount of energy in the atoms of that BB, if released, equals the BB going in all directions at once at the speed of light.
Do you know how much energy that would result if 100% of the mass of ONE BB were totally converted to energy? 30600000 MJ.
It takes 36000MJ to power the average home for a year. You could power 850 homes for a year on one BB converted to energy.
(We need to work on getting that to be feasible.. .)
By way of comparison: in nuclear fission reaction (as in a nuclear reactor) 0.1% mass is converted to energy.
The sun is a little better...0.7% of hydrogen gets converted to energy (altho' this is a fusion reaction, not a a fission reaction).
So the Sun is only 7 times more efficient than our nuclear reactors. Except the quantity is huge...off the scale.
Last edited by Patty Hann; 02-26-2024 at 9:13 AM.
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