Teragram To Kilogram Converter

1. Leave the mode on Teragrams to kilograms. Switch to kg to Tg to go back, or to short tons for a US comparison.
2. Enter the mass. Decimals such as 0.25 Tg work, and so does e-notation such as 3.2e11 kg.
3. Read the kilograms at once. The cards add tonnes, megatonnes, gigagrams, petagrams and a power-of-ten form.

A teragram (symbol Tg) is a metric unit of mass equal to 10^12 grams, which is one billion kilograms. The name joins the SI prefix tera, meaning 10^12, to the gram.

Mass prefixes attach to the gram, not the kilogram. NIST SP 330 states that multiples of the unit of mass are formed on the name gram and the symbol g. That is why the unit is a teragram and not a gigakilogram.

Tera arrived in 1960, when the CGPM added mega, giga and tera for multiples, according to the NIST prefix history. Its symbol is a capital T. Every multiple prefix from mega upward is written in uppercase.

In practice the teragram is the same size as the megatonne. A metric tonne is 10^6 g, so 10^12 g / 10^6 g = 10^6 tonnes. When a report says 1 million metric tons, it is describing 1 Tg.

You multiply by 10^9, because tera is 10^12 g, kilo is 10^3 g, and 10^12 / 10^3 = 10^9.

1. Write the teragrams, for example 0.25.
2. Move the decimal point 9 places to the right, adding zeros as needed: 0.25 becomes 250,000,000.
3. Label it kg. In scientific notation you add 9 to the exponent, so 2.5 x 10^-1 Tg becomes 2.5 x 10^8 kg.

The tool shifts the decimal point of the number you typed instead of doing floating point math, so the digits you enter come back exactly. The scientific notation calculator helps if you want to check the exponent step by hand.

A round figure. 15 Tg x 10^9 = 15,000,000,000 kg. That is 15 million tonnes, or 15 Mt.

A national total. The US EPA reports 2022 US gross greenhouse gas emissions of 6,343 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent. That is 6,343 Tg, which is 6.343 x 10^12 kg or 6.343 Pg.

Reverse. A table lists 3.2 x 10^11 kg. Divide by 10^9 to get 320 Tg, or 320 Mt.

A US comparison. 50 Tg is 50 million metric tonnes, but about 55.1 million short tons, because a US ton is only 907.18474 kg.

The factor of 10^9 never changes. What changes the meaning of your number is what the mass describes and how it is labeled.

CO2 Equivalent or Actual Mass

Emissions totals are often in CO2 equivalent (CO2 Eq.), which weights each gas by its global warming potential. A teragram of CO2 Eq. is not a teragram of methane. The conversion to kilograms is the same, but the substance is not.

Metric Tons or US Tons

A metric ton (tonne) is 1,000 kg. A US short ton is 907.18474 kg and a UK long ton is 1,016.0469088 kg. The same number of tons gives three different masses.

Upper or Lower Case

Tg is tera. There is no lowercase t prefix, but the lowercase t alone is the tonne symbol. Writing 5 t when you mean 5 Tg is off by a factor of one million.

Rounded Source Figures

Inventory totals carry uncertainty. Converting 6,343 Tg to kilograms gives 13 digits, but only the first few are meaningful.

A teragram and a megatonne are the same mass. The gigagram, or kilotonne, is 1,000 times smaller, and the petagram, or gigatonne, is 1,000 times larger.

The 500 kt row matters in inventory work: UNFCCC reporting guidelines, quoted in the EPA inventory, use 500 kilotonnes of CO2 equivalent as a cap for calling a category insignificant. That is 0.5 Tg.

Reading National Emissions Inventories

EPA gives totals in million metric tons (MMT) of CO2 equivalent, and every MMT is 1 Tg. Kilograms let you drop those totals into SI formulas or per-person math.

Plugging Big Masses into SI Formulas

Physics and chemistry equations expect kilograms. A mass given as 2.4 Tg becomes 2.4 x 10^9 kg before it goes into a density, energy or flow calculation.

Household to National Scale

A single home is measured in tonnes, a country in teragrams. The carbon footprint cost calculator works at the household end of that range.

Each row is computed from 1 Tg = 10^9 kg = 10^6 t. Short tons are rounded to the nearest whole ton.

For pound figures, the kg to lbs converter takes the kilogram column straight across. One teragram is about 2,204,622,622 lb.

1. Using 10^12 for Kilograms

10^12 is the number of grams in a teragram. For kilograms the factor is 10^9.

2. Treating Million Tons as Million Tonnes

A US source quoting million tons may mean short tons. One teragram is about 1.102 million short tons.

3. Reading MMT as a Different Unit

MMT, Mt and Tg are three labels for the same mass. Converting MMT to Tg changes nothing.

4. Miscounting the Zeros

Nine zeros are easy to slip. Check with the scientific notation card, where only the exponent moves.

5. Mixing CO2 and Carbon

A teragram of carbon is not a teragram of CO2. The CO2 mass is about 44/12 times larger.

The Tg to kg conversion is exact. Any error comes from the source figure, its label, or the rounding you choose afterward.

One teragram is exactly 1,000,000,000 kg, which is 10^9 kg.

Yes. 1 Tg = 10^12 g and 1 Mt = 10^6 tonnes x 10^6 g = 10^12 g, so the two are equal.

Yes. MMT stands for million metric tons, and 1 million metric tons is exactly 1 Tg.

There are 10^12 grams in a teragram, one trillion grams.

There are 1,000 Tg in 1 Pg, because peta is 1,000 times larger than tera.

Half a teragram is 500,000,000 kg, or 500,000 tonnes. It also equals 500 Gg.

One teragram is about 1,102,311 short tons, since a short ton is 907.18474 kg.

The prefix symbol T is uppercase and the gram symbol g is always lowercase. A capital G would read as giga.

Divide the kilograms by 10^9. For example, 7.5 x 10^10 kg is 75 Tg.

No. The converter runs in your browser and nothing goes to our servers. Saved results stay in this browser only.

• Inventory of US greenhouse gas emissions and sinks, 6,343 million metric tons CO2 equivalent in 2022 (US Environmental Protection Agency).
• SI prefixes table, tera T = 10^12 (BIPM, International Bureau of Weights and Measures).
• Rule that mass prefixes attach to the gram and symbol g (NIST SP 330, Section 3).
• Metric SI prefixes, including when tera was added in 1960 (NIST Office of Weights and Measures).
• SI units of mass, including 1,000 kg = 1 megagram or metric ton (NIST Office of Weights and Measures).