[HDThoreaun]

Why is converting U-238 to KCALs nonsensical? It's just different units of energy. I've wondered before how much energy a power plant creates in terms of how much a person uses per day, seems like an interesting thought to me.

[cinntaile]

You can't eat it.

[sebzim4500]

GPT-4 has the social awareness to figure out what question the user is actually asking, which is:

"If humans had the ability to perfectly extract energy from gasoline/nuclear fuel then how much would we need to survive a week?"

Saying "no you can't eat gasoline" would be a pointlessly pedantic answer.

[cinntaile]

Your analogy is different from the situation we're presented with here. The question I answered is why converting to kcal is nonsensical. Yes it's just a different unit but... Kcal is nowadays used for things you eat (and exercise because it makes sense to use the same unit), it doesn't really make sense to convert radioactive material to that unit.

[sebzim4500]

Converting from MeV to kcal is not nonsensical, both are units of energy. They are just conventionally used in different contexts.

For example, it is not 'nonsensical' to ask for the distance to the nearest shop in angstroms, but it would be unusual.