million kilowatt... ugh.. why don't they just say terawatt?
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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It's because in Mandarin you count in myriads (万 = 10,000) and then 亿 = 10^8 = a hundred million, which is just 万×万. So million-kilowatt is really just a literal calque of 百万千瓦, which is the normal way to describe power capacity in Mandarin since it builds these numbers with 万 and 亿 multipliers (万千瓦, 亿千瓦) rather than reaching for SI prefixes like 吉瓦 (gigawatt), even though 吉瓦 technically exists.
You reminded me of pet peeve of mine when I realized that a metric ton is 1000 kilograms, aka a megagram.
An annoyance of mine is how the imperial long ton is almost the same as a metric ton, and why does the imperial system have two tons?!
More words make big number sound bigger.
It's gigawatt... kilo - mega - giga ...but you're right...
Thank you for lifting my spirits.
O7
but at what cost???????????????????????