3 ms·
Ok, of course true that sum of heat from sun that reaches earth remains constant no matter whether we use it. However, how it’s stored/used on the earth is ano
by tikej 6y ago
Ok, of course true that sum of heat from sun that reaches earth remains constant no matter whether we use it. However, how it’s stored/used on the earth is another matter. E.g. if it’s absorbed by plants/fungi/other life forms and stored as biomass, part of it doesn’t contribute to heating of the atmosphere/oceans, contrarily to when it’s converted to electricity (where large part is lost due to heating of the solar panels) and then used to computing, where from physics perspective it’s mostly heating (only tiny part is converted to useful work).
Also what about the Manufacruring/production of devices to convert solar/wind energy to electricity and to mine bitcoins? It’s based on non-renewable elements (of course any chemical process is reversible given enough energy but Entropy still grows mercilessly) and requires a lot of extra energy.
EDIT: as far as we know, thermodynamically all energy will become heat at the end (although not sure if it should be called heat, since there will be no flux). However, we as humanity are/should be quite concerned first about decades and earth’s atmosphere/oceans (and connected parts) not millennia and energetically balance Earth as whole to come.
In principle energy from sun could also be stored in form of chemical bonds energy (as it’s the case for biomass) or even nuclear energy (yup, sun-powered nuclear fusion sounds unlikely but why not ;). Then biomass (less efficiently) or nuclei/atoms could be ejected from earth allowing to disperse sun’s thermal energy somewhere else.