Tonnes Of Oil Equivalent to Joules (toe to J)

1 tonne of oil equivalent equals 41,868,000,000 joules exactly.

1 tonne of oil equivalent = 41,868,000,000 joules

How to convert tonnes of oil equivalent to joules

To convert tonnes of oil equivalent to joules, multiply the number of tonnes of oil equivalent by 41,868,000,000. This factor is exact. To go the other way, multiply joules by 2.388458966×10⁻¹¹ (rounded).

joules = tonnes of oil equivalent × 41,868,000,000

Example: 10 tonnes of oil equivalent = 418,680,000,000 joules.

The 'calorie' on food labels is really a kilocalorie. The thermochemical calorie (4.184 J) is used here unless marked IT.

About these units

Tonne Of Oil Equivalent (toe)

Metric (SI)Current unit

Exactly 41.868 GJ, the energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. A standard unit in energy statistics.

Energy statisticians need a way to add up coal, gas, hydro and oil in one column, and the tonne of oil equivalent does that by expressing everything as the heat from burning a tonne of crude oil. Because crude oils differ in calorific value, the figure is a convention rather than a measurement, and more than one version circulates. The International Energy Agency uses 41.868 gigajoules, which is the figure used here. Other sources use 41.85 gigajoules, and a version based on the thermochemical calorie gives 44.769.

In everyday terms the IEA value is 11,630 kilowatt-hours, or about 39.7 million British thermal units, and it equals 10 gigacalories on the international steam table calorie. Smaller and larger steps are the kilogram of oil equivalent (one thousandth) and the megatoe and gigatoe. One toe is about 7.33 barrels of oil equivalent and 1.42857 tonnes of coal equivalent. Converting electricity into toe depends on an assumed plant efficiency, so national tables can differ.

1 tonne of oil equivalent = 41,868,000,000 joules (exactly).

Sources: Wikipedia: Tonne of oil equivalent; Wikipedia: Calorie

Joule (J)

Metric (SI)Current unit

The SI unit of energy: the work done by a force of one newton over one meter, or one watt for one second.

James Prescott Joule was born in Salford on 24 December 1818, the son of a wealthy brewer, and later ran the family brewery while treating science as a serious hobby. In June 1845 he told a British Association meeting in Cambridge about his best-known experiment: a falling weight turned a paddle wheel inside an insulated barrel of water, and the water warmed up. Mechanical work turned into heat at a fixed rate, which supported energy conservation and undermined the caloric theory of heat.

The unit came later. On 23 August 1882 Carl Wilhelm Siemens proposed at a British Association meeting that a unit of heat equal to 10 million ergs be named the joule, and in 1889 the second International Electrical Congress adopted it alongside the watt. Joule died that same year. In 1948 the CGPM added that the joule should be preferred to the calorie as the unit of heat, and it entered the SI in 1960.

For scale, one joule is about the energy needed to lift an apple of roughly 102 g by one meter. A 56 g tennis ball moving at 6 m/s carries about one joule of kinetic energy.

The joule is the reference unit for energy on this site.

Sources: Wikipedia: Joule; Wikipedia: James Prescott Joule

Related conversions

See all energy units.