Turn Me On: Power Consumption in U.S.

[MysteryFellow63427]

I’d like to know what the total electrical power consumption is in the United States. Just grid power, not portable generators and the like.

Or to put it another way, how many megawatts of power (on a time averaged basis, perhaps) would be needed to power an American city of one million people?

The impetus for this question was my off the cuff calculation in the nuke a hurricane thread that the Google server farm(s) would use 13 Megawatts. That seemed like an unreasonable estimate, but I wanted to put it in perspective with overall consumption.
(By the way, the first time I was writing this post, I accidentally tripped the on/off switch of the power strip with my foot and killed my computer. Oh, the irony.)

[Si_Amigo]

@neuroman

I’d like to know what the total electrical power consumption is in the United States. Just grid power, not portable generators and the like.

Or to put it another way, how many megawatts of power (on a time averaged basis, perhaps) would be needed to power an American city of one million people?

The impetus for this question was my off the cuff calculation in the nuke a hurricane thread that the Google server farm(s) would use 13 Megawatts. That seemed like an unreasonable estimate, but I wanted to put it in perspective with overall consumption.
(By the way, the first time I was writing this post, I accidentally tripped the on/off switch of the power strip with my foot and killed my computer. Oh, the irony.)

At least 96 quadtrillion BTU in 1999. Have fun:

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/KatyHo.shtml