What's a Watt? Guess What!!!

What's a Watt (W)? 

    1 Watt = 1 unit of energy - the rate by which electricity is produced or used.

        A small LED bulb 💡 in the lamp by your bedside might use 10 Watts.

What's a Kilowatt (kW)?

    1,000 W = 1 kW

    What's a Kilowatt hour (kWh)?

    1 kW used for 1 hour = 1 kWh

    1 Kilowatt can power a 100-watt light bulb for 10 hours

What's a Megawatt (MW)?

    1 MW = 1,000 kW = 1,000,000 W

    What's a Megawatt Hour (MWh)?

    1 MWh = 1,000 kWh 

    1 MWh can power an average USA home for about 6 weeks

What's a Gigawatt (GW)?

    1 GW = 1,000 MW (1 billion Watts) 

    What's a Gigawatt hour (GWh)?

    1 GWh = 1,000 MWh (1 million KWh)

    1 GWh can power an electric car for 3 million miles--around Earth 120 times!

Or...

What's a Terrawatt (TW)?

    1 TW = 1,000 GW (1 trillion Watts)

    What is a Terrawatt hour (TWh)?

    1 TWh = 1,000 GWh (1 billion kWh)

    1 TWh can power 100 million homes for an hour, or the world's data centers (that power the Internet) for about 15 days.

 Making Sense of Energy Units

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Okay...time for some Einstein...

One hundred four years ago, Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect in metal. This has driven the solar energy revolution along with quantum mechanics.

All kinds of work...work...work...

and one discovery after another, we arrive at... 

...1954, a practical solar ☀️ cell was born. Three guys at Bell Labs in New Jersey showed the world the first photovoltaic cell--sunlight charged a silicon cell and powered a small toy Ferris wheel and a solar-powered radio transmitter. They were Calvin Souther Fuller, Daryl Chapin, and Gerald Pearson. Within two years, the solar cell was appearing in consumer products. 

More work...work...work...

...discover, discover, discover...

68 years later...Guess What!!!

2022, the world installed 1 terrawatt of solar power.

2024, the world installed 2 terrawatts of solar power.

As I write or early 2026, 3 terrawatts will be installed worldwide.

Every 15 hours, a gigawatt of solar panels is activated. Battery storage capacities and varieties increase rapidly. 

Wind turbines follow closely behind solar. 

Q: Which countries are leap-frogging over combustion energy and installing solar?

Ans: 3rd World countries. 

    Example: Cheap Solar is Transforming Lives and Economies Across Africa

Where do the solar panels come from?

Ans: China

Museum of Solar Energy

4.6 Billion Years On, The Sun is Having a Moment

First Practical Silicon Solar Cell

I still have my solar-powered calculator purchased in 1986...

 

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HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE!!!

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Christmas 2025

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Tissue & a Story

Sorry, folks...viruses have gone viral, and one of them caught me...

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Walmart is like plastic--how do I stop shopping there? 

I have Walmart dependency.

I wish Toby were here.

I'd ask him if I need detox.

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Having a cold is not all bad. I get to watch Ken Burns' The American Revolution. Packed with far more than I ever knew, it is a story much-needed for our times. 

A story of us.

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I'll be back soon.❤️

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Good Morning, All! A placeholder to let you know this morning's post didn't rally. It lies stuck somewhere among life-y things. Nothing remarkable is going on, just numerous.

Considering our times, it couldn't hurt to repost and remember kindness rocks.

            

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And, my favorite holiday happens next week. I hope you enjoy yours with family and friends wherever you are.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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Starving

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Are you starved for justice, equality, acceptance, generosity, love, joy?

Pause, gather roses...

Look at the stars…

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We're Americans

On July 22, 2020, the first summer of COVID, I wrote in a post, "Somehow, we humanoids need each other; at the least, it affirms our existence; at the best, it affirms love."

Five years later, so it was last Saturday, October 18, 2025, at the nearby
No Kings Protest.
Two friends stand here on each side of me. We felt the love and
power of the spirit as 1800 of us gathered to say to those now in power:
We are strong! The many deep harms you are inflicting must and will come to an end. We do not hate. We love our country and one another. We want good and better for everyone, yes, even for those of you in opposition.
You are not an "enemy" 

and neither am I.
With open minds and hearts, we stand firm for the Four Freedoms:

We want you with us.
We can and will work things out.
We're Americans!

___                    __

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_______        ______

And now for the ART PART! Yesterday, waiting in my doctor's waiting room, I worked on figuring out a new app on my iPhone. I came up with a brief sketch with my finger after seeing Liza Donnelly do sketches on her SubStack posts. Later in the day, that prompted me to think about other quick sketches from past efforts in various mediums. Here are some that haven't (mostly not) appeared in the blog, including the sample from today's wait with an app sitting in my hand.

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Primed

We are the primates seeking Prime
this thing and that with a sale price divine!
Yesterday started the big Begin

and once more today, so you can join in

to enjoy the acquisition precision
of stuff that's price-squeezed
then tap a button and presto! such ease
to get stuff with a special sale sparkle
Fuhgeddaboud the source oligarchical.

Then presto! in boxes and bags
with invoices and tags
stuff flies through the air

with nary a care
then loads into trucks big and small
that race through streets and by shuttered malls
bumping o'er roads, bridges, and ferries
driven by schedules with GPS, it hurries
whether in sun, rain, snow or muck
by your door, the thing lands while the truck
speeds away to another address
you open the thing that you bought for less
then pile it amongst your old stuff
since last year's Prime wasn't enuff.