World Energy
Gerard Westendorp
The idea is to give an overview of global numbers, that are "non
political". (ie, the page is not written to prove a preconceived outcome)
I am still looking for some good numbers, for example, the cost per Watt
of nuclear power.
If you have any good numbers, or find mistakes in mine, I would be
interested.
the web page:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~westy31/WorldEnergy/WorldEnergy.html
Gerard
Uncle Al
Earth's surface area is 510 million km^2. Internal heat loss from the
Earth is 4.2x10^13 Watts, or 0.82 watt/m^2 or 1.3x10^21 J/year.
Global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human
energy consumption from all primary sources. Global warming is caused
by the globe.
"A human eats about 10 MJ of energy per day. This is 115 Watts of
power."
7 billion people, then 8x10^11 watts radiated continuously or
2.5x10^19 J into the world/year from human metabolism alone. Global
warming is exacerbated by the Third World.
These are inconvenient truths.
--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.htm
Roland Franzius
> Gerard Westendorp wrote:
>> I decided to make a web page on world energy.
>> The idea is to give an overview of global numbers, that are "non
>> political". (ie, the page is not written to prove a preconceived outcome)
>>
>> I am still looking for some good numbers, for example, the cost per Watt
>> of nuclear power.
>>
>> If you have any good numbers, or find mistakes in mine, I would be
>> interested.
>>
>> the web page:
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~westy31/WorldEnergy/WorldEnergy.html
>
> Earth's surface area is 510 million km^2. Internal heat loss from the
> Earth is 4.2x10^13 Watts, or 0.82 watt/m^2 or 1.3x10^21 J/year.
> Global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human
> energy consumption from all primary sources. Global warming is caused
> by the globe.
>
> "A human eats about 10 MJ of energy per day. This is 115 Watts of
> power."
>
> 7 billion people, then 8x10^11 watts radiated continuously or
> 2.5x10^19 J into the world/year from human metabolism alone. Global
> warming is exacerbated by the Third World.
>
> These are inconvenient truths.
>
No, thats convenient phrase mounting of no physical background. Since
humans radiate at 37 centigrade while bacteria and fungi radiate at 0-25
centigrade humans are a good way to avoid global warming by
preprocessing crop and reducing entropy impact.
Your argument is only a disstraction from the simple truth, that humans
set free a small part of the earths inner energy. The resulting entropy
is added to the isolating coat from volume bound fuel sources of all
kinds and thereby they manage to thicken the isolating coating by some
percent.
--
Roland Franzius
Gerry Quinn
@xs4all.nl says...
Your numbers look reasonable to me, although technology and other
factors will change them over time. The price per watt of nuclear
power will always be a bit controversial because some people will
propose extremely high disposal costs; I can only suggest that you
check out lots of different sources and come to a reasonable
assessment.
- Gerry Quinn
Dirk Bruere at NeoPax
> Gerard Westendorp wrote:
>> I decided to make a web page on world energy.
>> The idea is to give an overview of global numbers, that are "non
>> political". (ie, the page is not written to prove a preconceived outcome)
>>
>> I am still looking for some good numbers, for example, the cost per Watt
>> of nuclear power.
>>
>> If you have any good numbers, or find mistakes in mine, I would be
>> interested.
>>
>> the web page:
>> http://www.xs4all.nl/~westy31/WorldEnergy/WorldEnergy.html
>
> Earth's surface area is 510 million km^2. Internal heat loss from the
> Earth is 4.2x10^13 Watts, or 0.82 watt/m^2 or 1.3x10^21 J/year.
> Global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human
> energy consumption from all primary sources. Global warming is caused
> by the globe.
>
> "A human eats about 10 MJ of energy per day. This is 115 Watts of
> power."
>
> 7 billion people, then 8x10^11 watts radiated continuously or
> 2.5x10^19 J into the world/year from human metabolism alone. Global
> warming is exacerbated by the Third World.
>
> These are inconvenient truths.
>
But onto more important and urgent matters.
When the stars are right and Great Cthulhu returns to drag the Earth
into interstellar space, just how long have we got before the atmosphere
begins to liquify? And what will the final temp of the Earth's surface be?
--
Dirk
http://www.transcendence.me.uk/ - Transcendence UK
http://www.theconsensus.org/ - A UK political party
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onetribe - Occult Talk Show
Gerard Westendorp
[..]
> Earth's surface area is 510 million km^2. Internal heat loss from the
> Earth is 4.2x10^13 Watts, or 0.82 watt/m^2 or 1.3x10^21 J/year.
> Global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human
> energy consumption from all primary sources. Global warming is caused
> by the globe.
>
> "A human eats about 10 MJ of energy per day. This is 115 Watts of
> power."
>
> 7 billion people, then 8x10^11 watts radiated continuously or
> 2.5x10^19 J into the world/year from human metabolism alone. Global
> warming is exacerbated by the Third World.
>
> These are inconvenient truths.
In case you were not joking:
Sunlight: 1.7E17 Watt
Geothermal: 4.4E13 Watt
Human metabolism: 5.7E11 Watt
Human energy use: 1.5E13 Watt
Gerard
Phillip Helbig---undress to reply
<Uncl...@hate.spam.net> writes:
> Earth's surface area is 510 million km^2. Internal heat loss from the
> Earth is 4.2x10^13 Watts, or 0.82 watt/m^2 or 1.3x10^21 J/year.
> Global geothermal flow rates are more than twice the rate of human
> energy consumption from all primary sources. Global warming is caused
> by the globe.
Foul! Objection, Your Honour! Up until the last sentence, everything
is true. Without the heat the Earth generates, it would have cooled
down more. In fact, this was long used as an argument against a very
old Earth. Only when it was realised that heat produced by
radioactivity slows down the cooling was it clear that the Earth can be
as old as is required by geology. However, your last sentence is
deliberate misrepresentation, since "global warming" refers to the
increase in global average temperature in the last few decades as
compared to its value in the last few centuries. I have never heard
anyone use the term "global warming" to refer to the heat generated by
the Earth through radioactive processes.
> "A human eats about 10 MJ of energy per day. This is 115 Watts of
> power."
Right; we generate about as much energy per time (i.e. power) as a
bright conventional light bulb.
> 7 billion people, then 8x10^11 watts radiated continuously or
> 2.5x10^19 J into the world/year from human metabolism alone. Global
> warming is exacerbated by the Third World.
To a negligible degree, if at all. The amount of energy received from
the Sun is much larger than that radiated by humans. In any case, the
energy radiated by humans ultimately stems from the Sun. (Or do you
think The Matrix is valid science?)
Global warming has nothing to do with energy generated on or by or in
the Earth, by humans or otherwise. (You're in good company; James Randi
has apparently fallen for this and his correction of falling for even
more baloney didn't address this point. This is all over the
blogosphere.) Rather, it has to do with the greenhouse effect, i.e.
energy which comes in cannot be re-radiated at a longer wavelength.
John Forkosh
Nice page. You might want to google "energy balance" (along with
some terms like atmosphere or insolation to filter out false hits)
to augment your diagram with, say, the effect of clouds, which you
mention later but don't illustrate (and effects of aerosols, etc),
e.g.,
http://www.physicalgeography.net/fundamentals/7i.html
Energy balance diagrams like this are, as the url suggests,
fundamental, and you can find lots of them illustrating many
important contributions. (I take it your "30% reflection subtracted"
represents albedo, which you also might want to explicitly illustrate
on the diagram.)
You also might want to add a pointer to a page like
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_atmospheric_radiative_transfer_codes
When you describe your page as "simplest model I can think of",
this kind of pointer might help interested readers go into more detail.
The simplest realistic one-dimensional models solve the radiative transfer
problem (just using graphs like your "CO2 pressure in atmosphere"
doesn't account for pressure and temperature line broadening, and
other effects). More realism requires three-dimensional general
circulation models (e.g., http://www.giss.nasa.gov/tools/ ) that also
incorporate realistic ocean models, etc (including, like you point
out, snow distribution, and also vegetation, etc). In any case,
some kind of short bibliography for "further reading" that points out
the scope/limitations of your intentionally simple model might be useful.
--
John Forkosh ( mailto: j...@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
Joseph Warner
news:4b3fe645$0$22919$e4fe...@news.xs4all.nl...
Your website is a nice introduction. I think a discussion on
what is left out of the models needs to be included.
some of those are the changing eccentricity of the Earth's orbit,
the nutation of the Earth's axis, There is some data on the
increased plant growth versus CO2 concentration. I am not sure if
you factored that into the equation. Another is cloud cover.
You mentioned that a 10% change in the energy output from the Sun
reaching Earth would give a temperature increase of 6 C larger
than burning fissile fuels under you model. Maybe a statement on
what the increase in the Sun's temperature would need to give
that amount of increase and whether is within the normal
temperature variation of the Sun. Also, as the Earth's
eccentricity changes the average distance between the Earth and
the Sun changes.
On your Geothermal or maybe it should be call Sun/Geothermal you
forgot solar sea power. There has been a one demonstration in the
eighties. Dr. Zener, I believe, is the one that came up with the
concept in the 1970. At that time it was estimate that a few
thousands of these plants could be built without disrupting the
deep ocean currents. The capacity maximum capacity would be a few
Terawatts of production.
Nuclear energy costs are not the only category of cost that may
not include all the unidentified costs. For the coal industry
the cost of acid in atmosphere or the cost associated with the
release of radon. But you may mention that the cost of nuclear
power may come down if thorium is used in place of uranium or
plutonium. Also, the cost of disposal for nuclear waste material
has not been well determined for political reasons.
For your super power grid. DC voltage lines works will. DC
voltage lines with HTS wires will work better. I am not up on the
current length we can make HTS wires but I do know HTS motors and
magnets have been made.
On the portability of hydrogen.
One can compress hydrogen gas. But there are carbon compound
(mainly graphite impregnated with various metals) that will store
at room temperature hydrogen with an hydrogen density exceed that
for liquid hydrogen. It is fairly safe from my understanding as
the hydrogen is under relatively low pressure and the material
itself tend to burn and not to explode.
I hope some of this is useful.
Gerard Westendorp
I incorporated some of the remarks.
I refrained from listing links for further reading, because I would need
to do quite a lot of work for that. I guess people can easily Google up
some stuff themselves, if they want.
Gerard