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The second law still applies no matter where you get the heat. GHG is a problem because it reduces the earth's ability to reject waste heat by several tens of j
by Schroedingersat 4y ago
The second law still applies no matter where you get the heat. GHG is a problem because it reduces the earth's ability to reject waste heat by several tens of joules for every joule of work we get.
Simply moving tens of joules of heat to the surface would have the same effect even if doing it affordably weren't scifi.
There's a limited budget of everything on earth's surface from metals to waste heat to space and we're running head first into all of them.
We could spend it on allowing a tiny portion of the world to be wasteful and craven, or we could use it for everyone to thrive.
- tomp 4y agoLOL no. Humanity’s heat sources (burning fossil fuels, fission, geothermal) are a drop in the bucket compared to solar irradiation and the resulting heat.
- Schroedingersat 4y agoLol no the bucket's about 5% full, we couldn't even all live as wealthy americnans do now. Current primary energy: 17TW Total insolation: ~ 180PW Total GHG forcing: 5W/m^2 Ratio of insolation to total forcing: 40:1 USA domestic and imported primary energy per capita: 14kW Ratio to world average: 7 Remaining headroom above US averag for 5W/m^2 (catastrophuc climate change): 75kW per person. Remaining headroom above US average for 1W/m^2 (still bad): 3kW per person