• Question: What object on the planet currently generates the most power/outputs the most energy, whether that be a natural or man-made source, it can be either, I really don't mind? (the sun doesn't count)

    Asked by on 26 Jan 2017. This question was also asked by .
    • Photo: Jemma Rowlandson

      Jemma Rowlandson answered on 26 Jan 2017:


      At the moment it’s the Three Gorges Dam in China, which is a massive hydroelectric dam, and the biggest power station on the planet! It has a capacity of 22,500 megawatts, this is almost five times larger than the UK’s largest coal power station! Every year the dam produces 84.7 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This means it could boil a kettle about 800 billion times!

      As you pointed out though, this pales in comparison to the Sun. Every single day 174,000 terawatts of energy hits the earth, the same as 174,000,000,000 megawatts!

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