What 4,260 Billion Kilowatt-Hours Looks Like

4,260 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) is roughly how much electricity the United States uses in a year.  That’s Four Thousand Two hundred Billion Thousand Watt/hours.  What???!!!

The number is incomprehensible. It’s hard to know what that really looks like in terms we can understand. So I thought i’d share a few ways to restate that in realworld terms everybody can grasp. It’s kind of blowing my mind, even as I prepare the blog…

Homes

• Average U.S. home: ~10,500 kWh per year

• 4,260 billion kWh could power:

  • ~405 million homes for one year (one average home for 400 Million years)

  • Nearly three years of electricity for every home in the U.S.

Light

• A 10-watt LED bulb, left on all year, uses ~88 kWh

• 4,260 billion kWh could keep:

  • ~48 billion LED bulbs on continuously for a year

  • Several bulbs per person on Earth, day and night

Coffee

• Brewing one cup of coffee: ~0.1 kWh

• 4,260 billion kWh could brew:

  • ~42 trillion cups of coffee

  • Enough for every human alive to drink multiple cups a day for thousands of years

Cars (Electric)

• Average EV: ~3,500 kWh per year

• 4,260 billion kWh could power:

  • ~1.2 billion electric vehicles for a year

  • More cars than currently exist worldwide

Brains

• Human brain: ~20 watts, or ~175 kWh per year

• 4,260 billion kWh could power:

  • ~24 billion human brains for one year

  • Several times the current global population

Power Plants

• One 1-GW power plant, running nonstop, produces ~8.76 billion kWh per year

• 4,260 billion kWh equals:

  • ~486 such plants operating 24/7

Space (Roughly)

• Energy to lift 1 kg to low Earth orbit: ~9–10 kWh

• 4,260 billion kWh could lift:

  • ~400–450 million metric tons into orbit

  • Thousands of aircraft carriers’ worth of mass

Carbon (If Fossil-Generated)

• Coal generation: ~1 metric ton CO₂ per MWh

• 4,260 billion kWh = 4.26 billion MWh

• That corresponds to:

  • ~4 billion metric tons of CO₂

Ice

• Freezing 1 kg of water: ~0.093 kWh

• 4,260 billion kWh could freeze:

  • ~45 trillion kg of water

  • Enough ice to cover Texas tens of feet deep

That’s all I wanted to write about here. It’s just food for though, dear friends.