How Much Energy in a Hurricane, a Volcano, and an Earthquake? Energy has been on everybody's minds lately, probably because our society is in a transition period, trying to move from polluting sources to cleaner ones. I thought it would be interesting to have a look at some of the ways Mother Nature is using energy. Natural phenomena like hurricanes, volcanos, and earthquakes are impressive displays of power, showing us that our industrial civilization isn't even the biggest player when it comes Big Energy. How much energy in a hurricane?Let's start with hurricanes, with their low-pressure "eye" and multitudes of thunderstorms spinning around it. You probably know that these large tropical cyclones are releasing a lot of energy. But how much is a lot, really? Well, that depends on how you measure it, but any way you slice it, hurricanes release a phenomenal amount of energy. If we start by looking at just the energy generated by the winds, we find that for a typical mature hurricane, we get numbers in the range of 1.5 x 10^12 Watts or 1.3 x 10^17 Joules/day (this is according to the Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory.) This is equivalent to about half of the total electrical generating capacity on the planet! For a single hurricane! But that's not all, we're just getting started. A hurricane also releases energy through the formation of clouds and rain (it takes energy to evaporate all that water). If we crunch the numbers for an average hurricane (1.5 cm/day of rain, circle radius of 665 km), we get a gigantic amount of energy: 6.0 x 10^14 Watts or 5.2 x 10^19 Joules/day! This is equivalent to about 200 times the total electrical generating capacity on the planet! NASA says that "during its life cycle a hurricane can expend as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs!" And we're just talking about average hurricanes here, not Katrina. |
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