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Is there some reason nuclear isn’t considered while wind is?

zahlman 1y ago
Wind energy ultimately results from solar energy: solar radiation differentially heats the atmosphere, causing atmospheric gases to expand, causing a pressure gradient, etc. Similarly, energy from our Sun enables plants and animals to grow, producing carbon-rich materials (fossil fuels, wood etc.) when they die that can be burned to release energy. Nuclear power, on the other hand, releases energy stored in fissile heavy elements that were produced by the death of previous stars. There is no natural process using incident light from the Sun to create them.
- kulahan 1y ago
  That makes complete sense - thank you for explaining. It's correct that nuclear would not be in this group here.
stouset 1y ago
Earth is a sphere with a fixed surface area. We have one way to shed heat energy off our planet: thermal radiation. There’s no convecting or conducting into space. That makes it pretty easy to calculate the thermodynamic equilibrium temperature of earth, given the amount of energy we receive from the sun. Notably this is much less than our actual, observed temperature thanks to greenhouse gases. Creating energy here adds to this equilibrium calculation. This applies to oil, coal, nuclear, fusion, and any mythical new energy source you want to come up with. If the energy is released here, it shows up as an increase in our equilibrium temperature. Thankfully right now, the added energy doesn’t add up to much. But in surprisingly short order, using more and more energy will add up and produce a noticeable (and fatal) rise in Earth’s equilibrium temperature. Once we hit that point, our options are to stop using more energy or to boil the oceans. That’s thermodynamically unavoidable. There’s no way around it either. Capture more solar and beam it here? That just directly contributes to our energy excess. Pump excess heat into objects and launch them into space? That’s literally worse than just not having produced the energy here in the first place.

Wind energy ultimately results from solar energy: solar radiation differentially heats the atmosphere, causing atmospheric gases to expand, causing a pressure gradient, etc. Similarly, energy from our Sun enables plants and animals to grow, producing carbon-rich materials (fossil fuels, wood etc.) when they die that can be burned to release energy. Nuclear power, on the other hand, releases energy stored in fissile heavy elements that were produced by the death of previous stars. There is no natural process using incident light from the Sun to create them.

kulahan 1y ago
That makes complete sense - thank you for explaining. It's correct that nuclear would not be in this group here.

stouset 1y ago

Earth is a sphere with a fixed surface area. We have one way to shed heat energy off our planet: thermal radiation. There’s no convecting or conducting into space. That makes it pretty easy to calculate the thermodynamic equilibrium temperature of earth, given the amount of energy we receive from the sun. Notably this is much less than our actual, observed temperature thanks to greenhouse gases. Creating energy here adds to this equilibrium calculation. This applies to oil, coal, nuclear, fusion, and any mythical new energy source you want to come up with. If the energy is released here, it shows up as an increase in our equilibrium temperature. Thankfully right now, the added energy doesn’t add up to much. But in surprisingly short order, using more and more energy will add up and produce a noticeable (and fatal) rise in Earth’s equilibrium temperature. Once we hit that point, our options are to stop using more energy or to boil the oceans. That’s thermodynamically unavoidable. There’s no way around it either. Capture more solar and beam it here? That just directly contributes to our energy excess. Pump excess heat into objects and launch them into space? That’s literally worse than just not having produced the energy here in the first place.