In The Lord Of the Rings: The Two Towers, we see a flashback of Gandalf fighting the Balrog. At the duel's climax, the Wizard causes lightning to strike his sword Glamdring, making it glow, and then stabs the Balrog in the chest, killing the demon.
The stored energy of a 3-mile lightning bolt can be from 1-10 GJ. It's possible that all of the energy was stored in the sword, making staveless Gandalf the Grey high Small Building to low Large Building-class. However, it's also possible that not all of it was.
I mean, if the energy were literally stored in the sword blade (which on its own probably weighs about 1.5 lbs—swords aren't very heavy) then the metal would glow so brightly—scratch that. It would be vaporized. Like, easily. So there's some kind of magic happening here.
I didn't quantify much, did I? I merely figured out that "Wow, this Wizard is doing magic." And the thing that sucks about magic is that it's harder to quantify. Yes, I can sometimes find out how much energy was expended by such and such a spell, but invisible energy storage is harder. This is why this site is mostly dragon and laser stuff right now.
Okay, in conclusion, Gandalf can use Glamdring to store at least hundreds of megajoules of electrical energy and release it as what appears to be heat energy. Since we don't see the comparative effect of over a ton of TNT detonating when Gandalf stabs his enemy, it's possible that the Balrog has attack negation abilities.
P.S. I just found out that right now this site has more views from Norway than from the US. Takk, dear Norwegian person(s)! Google Translate says that means thank you.
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