To find out how many households can be served by the power station, we can divide the total amount of electricity generated by the power station by the average electricity consumption of an American household.
Given:
- Electricity generated by the power station: \( 2.496 \times 10^{10} \) kWh
- Average electricity consumption per household: \( 1.04 \times 10^{4} \) kWh
Now, we can calculate the number of households served:
\[ \text{Number of households} = \frac{\text{Electricity generated by the power station}}{\text{Average electricity consumption per household}} \]
\[ \text{Number of households} = \frac{2.496 \times 10^{10}}{1.04 \times 10^{4}} \]
To divide the numbers in scientific notation, we first divide the coefficients and then subtract the exponents.
Calculating the coefficients:
\[ \frac{2.496}{1.04} \approx 2.4 \]
Calculating the exponents: \[ 10^{10 - 4} = 10^{6} \]
Now, multiply the results: \[ \text{Number of households} \approx 2.4 \times 10^{6} \]
Thus, in scientific notation, the number of households that can be served is:
\[ \boxed{2.4 \times 10^{6}} \]