an average American household uses about 1.04 x 10^4 kwh (kilowatt hours) of electricity, a year. If a power station generates 2.496 x 10^10 kWh per year, how many households can it serve? Write your answer in scientific notation, expressed to the exact decimal place.
To find the number of households that a power station can serve, we need to divide the amount of electricity generated by the power station by the average electricity consumption of a household.
The number of households can be found by dividing the total generated electricity by the electricity consumption per household:
Number of households = Total generated electricity / Electricity consumption per household
In scientific notation, the calculation can be written as:
Number of households = (2.496 x 10^10 kWh) / (1.04 x 10^4 kWh)
To divide these numbers, we subtract the exponents:
Number of households = 2.496 x 10^10 / (1.04 x 10^4)
When dividing numbers in scientific notation, we subtract the exponents:
Number of households = 2.496 / 1.04 x 10^(10-4)
Number of households = 2.4 x 10^6
Therefore, the power station can serve approximately 2.4 x 10^6 households.