Watt, Megawatt, Gigawatt

Wikipedia entry for watt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watt#Megawatt

The watt is the SI unit for power, equal to one joule of energy per second. It is already a rate.

A kilowatt (kW) is 1,000 watts.
A megawatt (MW) is 1,000,000 watts.
A gigawatt (GW) is 1,000,000,000 watts.
A terawatt (TW) is 1,000,000,000,000 watts.

The entry says that a typical modern nuclear plant produces a peak output on the order of 500 to 2000 MW.

--According to the IEA publication Renewable Energy Information 2007, the U.S. in 2005 produced 4268.4 TWh of electricity and 392.81 TWh of renewable electricity.
--In 2005, there was 8,706 MW of wind generating capacity, 388 MW of solar thermal generating capacity, 21,347 MW of geothermal generating capacity, and about 121,000 MW of hydro generating capacity.