I guess it would depend on the temperature resistance and how the power is transmitted. Even solar panels wear out, and the collection surfaces of a dyson sphere would be a lot higher temp. But with something that scale, I’d imagine it would be a ton of maintenance work even if was a tiny amount per area.
Most of us aren’t used to “terrawatts” though. Is that like one Earth worth of watts? One watt as measured on Earth? The definition of watt culturally accepted by Earthlings?
You wouldn’t find a terawatt in everyday usage, but a terawatt-hour is pretty commonplace when talking about the energy usage of entire populations.
This Reuters article states US power demand will climb to “4,027 billion kWh in 2022.” Yeah, just say 4 PWh. Or even 4,027 TWh. It’s a little more easily digested.
It’s already an incomprehensably high number. No matter which way you state it is going to fly over peoples heads.
And the entire electricity consumption of the planet is something like 25.5 petawatt-houts.
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