Published on April 21, 2009 By ReuelKB In The Environment

I haven't thought about this for very long, but it seems to me that with a little bit of work and some creativity, global warming can be a pretty good thing for us.  

The sun, essentially acts as a gigantic power plant that transmits energy.  The earth receives some of this energy with some of it being absorbed and some of it being emitted away (with the emitted energy being gone).  When you absorb more than you emit, you get global warming, and the other way around you get global cooling.  

It seems to me, that if you were clever enough, you can use this extra free energy to your advantage.  Most of our energy has come from the sun in one way or another.  Solar power is obvious, but wind power comes from pressure changes caused by heat from the sun, hydro power relies a bit on water evaporation, and fossil fuels all used to originally come from plants that got energy from the sun.  If we could get better at storing these forms of energy, which generally are endothermic reactions, you could at least use all this extra energy from the sun.  

I guess one problem is that we simply don't use enough energy, and so many of these potential methods to use this extra energy from global warming are simply not economical because of it.  Hmmm, we shouldn't be trying to cap energy usage then.  I'm all for using energy more efficiently, and reduce waste, but we shouldn't reduce potentially productive uses of energy just so that we can stop this extra warming from occuring.  Well, since it's not yet economical, we don't have the tech yet to grab all this energy, and I can see a reason to limit any warming that may occur, after all, we'd get lots of free energy if our planet was lobbed into the sun, but we'd kinda die from not being able to handle it.

Actually, if CO2 were the cause of global warming, it would be kinda cool in that regard.  The more energy we use, the more CO2 put into the atmosphere, the more sun we get, the more energy we get to keep fueling our energy usage.

Hmm, have to think more on this.  One question I have that I don't know the answer to right now is if energy usage is a net endothermic or exothermic reaction.  I mean, I know using electricity gives off waste in the form of heat.  But heat was usually behind the creation of energy in the first place.  Take a coal generator.  You burn coal, and that releaseses heat, which evaporates water to turn a turbine.  Electricity goes to your computer, and your computer does useful stuff and releases heat.  Is this whole process a net endothermic or exothermic reaction.  Gut feeling tells me that it is endothermic net.  

Sun light came to this planet and went into some plants that eventually became coal.  This is endothermic.  Coal was heated, and this was exothermic.  Water evaporated - endothermic.  Water eventually condenses and cools, exothermic.  Power lines and electronic devices release heat - exothermic.  

Now the electricity forms energy which originally came from sunlight.  Only some of the energy becomes heat, because if all of it became heat, it would be 100% waste (unless the purpose of the electronic device was to become a heater).  Electronic devices are not 100% wasteful, so therefore, some of the sunlight does not end up as heat.  I think...

Point is, shouldn't it be possible to use all this extra heat to our advantage?  Tired, and I probably made a few errors, but if anyone has any comments, would be glad to hear them.

 

 


Comments
on Apr 21, 2009

Hmm, thinking about it another way.  Energy must move somewhere, and if energy is coming to earth from the sun, it must be absorbed somewhere.  The concern with global warming, is that this energy is being absorbed in the air, thus increasing temperatures, and causing potentially bad things to happen.  You also hear complaints about how the ice caps are melting, and that's because they too are absorbing this energy.  

When we use energy, some of it gets radiated through heat to be consumed by the air around whatever is using the energy.  The rest of the energy is merely absorbed somewhere else.  Might lightbulb is radiating heat and light from the energy it gets.  The heat gets absorbed in the air, and the light gets absorbed into the air and walls, etc.  Eventually, this energy will probably be released as heat.  

We can't indefinitely keep absorbing all this energy and expect everything to be fine in the very long run.  If heat doesn't get radiated back into space, we'll run out of places where we can keep the energy absorbed.  We also can't perpetually recycle the heat, since that would seem to violate the 2nd law where entropy must increase.  

When we use energy, for the most part we are simply transfering it from one place to another, where it is absorbed from an energy source, emitted, then absorbed by other things.  In the long run, we'd run out of places to absorb the energy on this planet, before it adversely affects us.  

Heh, if you really want to be cynical, we'll eventually run out places to absorb energy period, in this whole universe, and this race and all other things will die out eventually it seems, but let me not go off on a tangent.

In the end, something must be done with the energy given here by the sun.  Ideally we can absorb the useful sun rays and spit out the used up heat radiation.  

In anycase, we are going to consume more energy, and simply trying to limit our energy usage will only be a temporary solution.  Best thing we can do is make use of these solar rays, as much as we can, before it gets absorbed into the atmosphere.  We can also find other places, other than our atmosphere to hold the used up heat radiation until such time when we can figure out how to spit the bloody stuff out.  But, as we consume more and more energy, and we will, we are going to end up with more and more heat radiation, so global warming from CO2 isn't really the big issue.  

I mean, even solar panels will warm our Earth it seems.  Granted, it will take a while, but the energy created by these will be used up and create heat radiation.  Same with wind power, and hydro power, etc.  If we are going to use energy, green or not, we are going to have to put the energy somewhere.  

Hmm, maybe actually I'm wrong.  We know that the earth emits radiation back into space, and this actually isn't really useful as a matter of fact, making my whole premise wrong.  Yes, energy usage in general will release heat, but our earth releases heat into space.  

Yeah, tired.  All of a sudden, I can see a lot of issues regarding my post.  Well, I'll have to think on it more then.  Seems like I've realized quite a bit already by just writing about it.

on Apr 21, 2009

Only if you like a longer growing season in Canada....nobody's eating the poor polar bears.

on Apr 21, 2009

Well, it'll get warmer in the mid to high latitudes.  That'll be good for us.

Low latitudes and folks at sea level will be in a spot of trouble...with the heat waves, the flooding, and the dying.

But who cares?  We don't live there.

~Zoo

on Apr 22, 2009

Low latitudes and folks at sea level will be in a spot of trouble...with the heat waves, the flooding, and the dying.

But who cares? We don't live there.

That will take care of some carbon production...good thinking.

on Apr 22, 2009

That will take care of some carbon production...good thinking.

Heh.  I don't think the people that will be dying are the major producers of CO2.  Most are poor and living in slums in dangerous areas like flood plains.  They'll be washed away.

~Zoo

on Apr 23, 2009

Heh. I don't think the people that will be dying are the major producers of CO2. Most are poor and living in slums in dangerous areas like flood plains. They'll be washed away.

Ah I'm sure some of them have old SUV's or they are cutting/burning down the rain forests. The planet needs an enema once in awhile. After all there are no more big wars to thin the herd.