3 ms·
Not even close. Global energy use is around 170,000 TWh/year (1). This includes electricity generation, as well as fuel for transport, burning wood for heat, e
by thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
Not even close.
Global energy use is around 170,000 TWh/year (1). This includes electricity generation, as well as fuel for transport, burning wood for heat, etc.
Heat flow from mantle is 403,000 TWh/year (2)
Solar irradiance is ~1200W/m2, which adds up to massive 5B TWh/year.
Extra radiative forcing from greenhouse gases in IPCC scenarios is ~3W/m2, or around 12.5M TWh/year.
The radiative forcing is two orders of magnitude larger than our energy use.
(1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consumption https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_consum...
(2) https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo.2007.44 https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo.2007.44
- veltas 5y agoThanks, this is the calculation I was looking for.
- sokoloff 5y agoI believe total annual solar irradiance is closer to 1.5BTWh/yr. The 1200-ish W/m/m figure is hitting a flat plate circle, not hitting the whole spherical surface. Taking 173,000TW of continuous solar energy* times 24h/d times 365.25 d/yr yields a little over 1.5B TWhr/yr * https://news.mit.edu/2011/energy-scale-part3-1026 https://news.mit.edu/2011/energy-scale-part3-1026