What are the Basic Energy Unit Conversions?

A few energy unit conversions that are worth trying to memorize, just to be able to do some
quick calculations in your head.
1 Kilowatt = 3,413 Btu/hour
1 ton of air conditioning = 12,000 Btu/hour
1 person in a room adds about 250 Btu/hour or the equivalent of a 75 watt light bulb
1 HP (motor) = 746 watts (operating energy)
1 gallon of gasoline = 125,000 BTUs
1,000,000 Btu/hour = 10 therms or 1,000 cubic feet of Natural Gas
= 46 pounds or 10.88 gallons of Propane Gas
= 7.14 gallons of No. 2 Fuel Oil (diesel fuel)
= 293 KW of electricity
The energy unit Btu stands for British Thermal Unit and is defined as the amount of heat
required to raise the temperature of one pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit. Power
differs from energy because power refers to the rate at which work is performed or energy is
transmitted. So the standard unit for power is Btu/hour. Unfortunately, many times units of
power are also referred to as Btu, instead of the correct Btu/hour. When evaluating power
units, be aware that the term Btu is often misused when Btu/hour should be used.

What Should I Know about Heat Transfer: Conduction, Convection & Radiation?
Understanding the basics of how heat transfers will help you in correctly seeing how buildings
get hot and get cold. These simple building blocks of knowledge will allow you to better
evaluate more complicated systems.
Conduction is a transfer of thermal energy from a region of higher temperature to that of lower
temperature. Across a pane of glass, separating the warm interior from the cold exterior, the
heat conducts through the glass to the outside. The actual work of conduction occurs by the
molecules in the glass moving against each other and transferring the heat. So the molecular
structure of the material affects its conduction. A piece of steel conducts heat through it
quickly, while a piece of wood more slowly and Styrofoam insulation much more slowly.
Therefore, building walls and roofs use insulating materials to slow the heat transfer (of heat
during the heating season and cold during the cooling season) so that the building space will be
more comfortable and use less energy to condition.
Convection acts as another form of heat transfer, utilizing fluid flow. As the heat transfers
through the glass pane described above, the outside air blows across the window, using
convection to transfer the heat. In natural convection, the fluid warms, becomes less dense and
rises. In forced convection, fans and pumps force the fluid to move and create a heat transfer
convection current. When considering the heating and cooling of a building, the cracks around
windows, doors, vents, etc. all have convection zipping the heat energy away from the facility.
Radiation transfers heat in quite a different manner than conduction (molecules in a solid
bouncing into each other and transferring energy) and convection (a fluid flowing by a surface
and transferring energy). Radiation does not need a solid or even a fluid medium to transfer
heat. Radiation uses electromagnetic energy waves to radiate energy away from the source.
Radiation can work in a perfect vacuum, or through a perfect vacuum. The Sun radiates energy
to the Earth through the vacuum of space. Just as insulation slows heat transfer from
conduction, radiant barriers reflect radiation back to the object and slow heat transfer. The foil
backed fiberglass batt insulation acts as a radiant barrier, with the foil backing reflecting the
radiant energy back into the space.

Why I Should Know the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics?

The laws of thermodynamics can be comically paraphrased as follows:

• You really can't win.

• It's wishful thinking to think you can break even.
• And you can't even get out of the game.
The actual laws are paraphrased here:

• Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only altered in form.

• Any engine must be less than 100% efficient.
• It's impossible to reach the temperature of absolute zero.
The first law helps you understand the nature of energy...helps you know that energy doesn't
get used up, it changes in form. So when you pour gasoline into a job site generator, you will
get electricity, but not up to the full energy level of the gasoline that was used. Some of that
gasoline energy goes into heat of exhaust and some into friction, which also produces heat. The
amount of energy in that gasoline doesn't lessen, it just takes other forms.
The second law helps us understand that while engines may keep getting more efficient, they
will never be completely efficient (100%) and certainly never be "perpetual motion machines".
The third law doesn't seem to have any practical applications, I just included it because I liked
the paraphrase "And you can't even get out of the game".
How Does Energy Differ from Power?
Whenever I hear someone on the jobsite using the wrong units (they say pounds of air
pressure when they mean psi or they say BTUs when they mean BTUs/hour or BTUs/sec), I think
two things. One, they don't really understand what they are talking about. Two, they will be
making some mistakes due to that misunderstanding that could be easily avoided.
So how does energy differ from power? Energy is the ability to do work. 1 BTU heats 1 pound of
water 1 degree Fahrenheit. It takes energy to drive your car, heat your house, or charge your
battery. Another example: 1 KiloWatt-hour of energy lights a 100-Watt bulb for 10 hours.
I think of power, on the other hand, as capacity. Power is the rate at which energy is used.
BTUs/hour, Horsepower and KiloWatts are units of power. That light bulb has the capacity to
use 100 Watts, it's level of power is 100 Watts. The Formula One race car has the capacity of
delivering 1000 HP, while a Ford Pinto powers along at 88 HP. The Formula One race car can
use energy faster than the Ford Pinto (unless the Pinto is exploding from a rear collision, then
that's a different calculation).
So let's do a quick calculation to compare the gasoline usage of the Formula One vehicle and
the Pinto. We can easily find that gasoline has an energy value of 125,000 BTUs.
So the energy is in the gasoline (and yes, I know a Formula One doesn't run on gasoline), but
the power is the capacity either vehicle has to use that energy over time.
Let's try an example from the field. The sun's energy on a given surface is called the irradiance.
So that's the energy portion. The power portion is radiation. The radiation is the irradiance
measured over time (just like power is energy measured over time). Solar radiation data is
measured in KiloWatt-hours per square meter per day. From solar radiation charts, we find a
horizontal plane in Norfolk, VA in March gets an average of 3.3 KiloWatt-hours per square
meter per day.
To recap, the most common energy units are BTUs, KiloWatt-hours while the power units are
BTUs/hour, Horsepower and KiloWatts.