China's Three Gorges hits full capacity

[phantom power]

YICHANG, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- China's Three Gorges Dam on Sunday reached its designed highest mark, the second time for the world's largest water control and hydropower project to run at full capacity.

The water level hit 175 meters at 5 p.m. after storing water for nearly two months from the water level of 152 meters, said an official with the China Three Gorges Project Corporation (CTGPC), the developer of the project.

A dozen hydropower turbo-generator units started operation on Sunday, generating power capacity of 8.2 million kw, said the official.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-10/30/c_131220655.htm

[Old and In the Way]

1. "generating power capacity of 8.2 million kw"

Is that rated as continuous output? Not per hour, right? Pretty impressive number...almost a billion watts.

[Tesha]

2. That'd be *8.2* Billion Watts (gigawatts)

The output of, say, 4 to 8 nukes.

Tesha

[Old and In the Way]

4. Whoopsie...yeah, I was only off by a factor of 10.

A small miscalculation. :-)

[FBaggins]

3. You don't know the half of it.

Literally.

That's the capacity of the twelve units they mention. The facility has 29 such generators (and a couple smaller ones)

[TheWraith]

5. Watts continuous are the same as watts per hour.

One kilowatt-hour is the same as one thousand watts, continuously for an hour.

[Kolesar]

6. Watts multiplied by hours, not watts divided by hours

Power multiplied by time is a unit of energy.

[Kolesar]

7. Grand Coulee project in Washington is 6.809 Megawatts, very comparable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Coulee_Dam

[Old and In the Way]

8. Is it? This is 8.2 billion watts, Grand Coulee is 6.809 million watts?

[FBaggins]

9. Once again... Three Gorges' peak capacity is 22.5 billion watts

Grand Coulee is 6.809 million watts?

No. 6.8 million kilowatts (or Billion watts).

So it's "comparable" to the extent that "1/3 as much" is a comparison.

[Old and In the Way]

10. OK...but just referencing to the OP's mention of 8.2mm kilowatts vs. what

the poster noted as being comparable (6.8MM watts). I'll take your word that Three Gorge's has max generating capabilities of 22.5BB watts.

[kristopher]

11. I'm pretty sure the period was a typo

the wiki reference he gave presented thousands of MW

the comma and period are right next to each other on the keyboard.

Your point was clear, btw.

[Old and In the Way]

12. That makes sense..

didn't look at the source info, but I comma would have made his point correct.