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Chapter 8: Problem 12

If an average American is responsible for consuming a barrel \(^{80}\) of oil every 18 days, what power does this correspond to, in Watts?

Short Answer

Expert verified
Based on the given information, calculate the power consumption of an average American in watts, if they consume 80 barrels of oil every 18 days, and 1 barrel is equivalent to 6.1 × 10^9 Joules of energy.

Step by step solution

01

Write down the given information and the conversion factor

An average American consumes 80 barrels of oil every 18 days, and we know that 1 barrel of oil is equivalent to 6.1 × 10^9 Joules of energy.
02

Calculate the total energy consumed in 18 days

To find the total energy consumed, we simply multiply the number of barrels consumed with the energy per barrel: Total_energy = NumberOfBarrels × EnergyPerBarrel Total_energy = 80 × 6.1 × 10^9 J
03

Calculate the energy consumed per second

Next, we need to find out how much energy is being consumed per second. To do this, we will divide the total energy consumed by the number of seconds in 18 days: Seconds_in_18_days = 18 × 24 × 60 × 60 Energy_per_second = Total_energy / Seconds_in_18_days Energy_per_second = (80 × 6.1 × 10^9 J) / (18 × 24 × 60 × 60)
04

Convert the energy per second to Watts

Since power (in watts) is energy consumed per unit time, and we have already calculated the energy consumed per second, this value is equivalent to the power consumption in Watts: Power = Energy_per_second Power = (80 × 6.1 × 10^9 J) / (18 × 24 × 60 × 60)
05

Calculate the final answer

Now, we can compute the power consumption by plugging in the numbers and perform the calculations: Power = (80 × 6.1 × 10^9 J) / (18 × 24 × 60 × 60) ≈ 31067.13 W So, the power consumption of an average American corresponding to the given oil consumption is approximately 31,067.13 Watts.

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