15 Feb
2014
15 Feb
'14
3:43 a.m.
I know this was two weeks ago, and I know I'm nitpicking, but I really
cannot let this one pass!
(For anybody who is curious, but not curious enough to
look it up, 1BTU is
roughly 1kJ, and therefore 1BTU/hour is roughly 1kWh.)
Yes, a BTU is about a kilojoule. But a BTU/hour is emphatically NOT a kWh.
1 BTU/h is a unit of power, about 0.29 watts.
1 kWh is a unit of energy, about 3400 BTU.
PLEASE do not get these confused. It's bad enough with the definition
of the footcandle [*], without introducing that confusion to units of
power and energy as well.
I'm particularly sensitive to misused energy units after working for so
many years in the electricity industry. Trying to get data on power
stations, and figuring out whether the output was given in megawatts,
gigawatt-hours per year, or (the most annoying one) megawatt-hours per
half hour billing period...
Philip.
[*] The footcandle is not, as you might expect, a candle (=candela)
times a foot, but a the luminous flux from one candela at one foot
distance. And I have difficulty enough with lighting units even before
I encounter complications like that!