I think either kcurie's solar energy figure or my interpretation of it were off by a factor of 1000, which is not entirely surprising given the ambiguity in the meaning of the word "calorie".

Calorie - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The calorie was never an SI unit. Modern definitions for calorie fall into 3 classes:

• The small calorie or gram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 joules.
• The large calorie or kilogram calorie approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 kJ, and exactly 1000 small calories.
• The megacalorie or ton calorie^{[citation needed]} approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 tonne of water by 1 °C. This is about 4.184 MJ, and exactly 1000 large calories.

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