3 ms·
> Wouldn't extracting too much energy from the earth's core cool it down, at least a little bit? The earth generates ~50 terawatts of energy through radiation/
by tylerhou 2y ago
> Wouldn't extracting too much energy from the earth's core cool it down, at least a little bit?
The earth generates ~50 terawatts of energy through radiation/other processes, while global energy consumption over the last year was 0.003 terawatts. I think we're fine.
- lurk2 2y agoWhere are you getting 0.003 terawatts? Another user elsewhere in the thread[0] claimed "Global total energy (not just electricity) consumption is currently 180,000TWh/year, or about 20TW." Google is showing me other figures like 25,000 terawatt hours of electricity consumption annually. [0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43234856 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43234856
- tylerhou 2y agoOops, I missed the thousands. So 3 TW, which is larger, going by Google stats, and 20 TW by the other users. So that's not negligible.
- boxed 2y agoOne might also be careful to count energy properly. The fossil fuel industry has been counting "total energy" including losses to make fossil look bigger and harder to replace. But a gas car throws away like 70% of the energy, so going electric, you don't need the same energy to run the car. Not even close.