Luke Appleby, writing in The Press, puts into context the recent Chilean earthquake, the energy it produced, and its effects.
An excerpt: (read in full here)
“It’s estimated that a magnitude 8.8 quake generates 66.6 exajoules of energy – but how much is that in real terms?
“Well, it’s a lot, but here are a few comparisons to put it in perspective:
“It’s about 64% of the energy consumed by the United States in 2001 or 466 times the estimated energy released by the Mt Krakatoa eruption (Wolfram Alpha does the maths).”
