An average American household uses about 1.04×104 kWh (kilowatt hours) of electricity a year. If a power station generates 2.496×1010 kWh per year, how many households can it serve? Write your answer in scientific notation, expressed to the exact decimal place.
To calculate the number of households a power station can serve, we need to divide the total energy generated by the power station by the average energy consumption per household.
Total energy generated per year by the power station: 2.496 × 10^10 kWh
Average energy consumption per household per year: 1.04 × 10^4 kWh
To find the number of households, we divide the total energy generated by the power station by the average energy consumption per household:
Number of households = Total energy generated / Average energy consumption per household
Number of households = (2.496 × 10^10 kWh) / (1.04 × 10^4 kWh)
Simplifying the calculation, we subtract the exponents:
Number of households = 2.496 / 1.04 × 10^(10-4)
Number of households = 2.4 × 10^6 households
Therefore, the power station can serve 2.4 × 10^6 households.
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To find out how many households a power station can serve, we can divide the total electricity generated by the annual electricity usage per household.
Step 1: Divide the total electricity generated by the annual electricity usage per household:
2.496 × 10^10 kWh ÷ 1.04 x 10^4 kWh
Step 2: When dividing numbers in scientific notation, we subtract the exponents and divide the coefficients:
2.496 ÷ 1.04 = 2.4
Step 3: Subtract the exponents: 10^10 ÷ 10^4 = 10^(10-4) = 10^6
Step 4: Combine the coefficient and the exponent: 2.4 x 10^6
Therefore, a power station can serve 2.4 x 10^6 households.
To find out how many households a power station can serve, we divide the total energy generated by the power station by the energy consumed by a single household.
Number of households = Total energy generated / Energy consumed per household
In scientific notation, this can be written as:
Number of households = (2.496×10^10 kWh) / (1.04×10^4 kWh)
To divide these two numbers, we subtract the exponents:
Number of households = 2.496×10^10 / 1.04×10^4
Dividing the coefficients gives us:
Number of households = 2.496 / 1.04
Simplifying the division gives us:
Number of households = 2.4
Therefore, a power station can serve 2.4 households.
Apologies for the mistake.
To find out how many households a power station can serve, we need to divide the total energy generated by the power station by the energy consumed per household.
Number of households = Total energy generated / Energy consumed per household
In scientific notation, this can be written as:
Number of households = (2.496×10^10 kWh) / (1.04×10^4 kWh)
To divide these two numbers, we subtract the exponents:
Number of households = 2.496×10^10 / 1.04×10^4
Dividing the coefficients gives us:
Number of households = 2.496 / 1.04 = 2.4
However, since we are asked to express the answer to the exact decimal place, we need to account for the significant figures in the given numbers.
The total energy generated has three significant figures (2.496), and the energy consumed per household has four significant figures (1.04).
To maintain the correct number of significant figures in our final answer, we round the result to three decimal places:
Number of households = 2.4
Therefore, a power station can serve 2.4 households. Note that the use of scientific notation in this case does not affect the number of significant figures in the final answer.