Why isn't the heat from using electricity included in earth's energy budget?

[ding]

Anyone ever look closely at Earth's energy budget. I mean really close. Close enough that you know how all the numbers add up? If you haven't, go ahead and do that now because I have a question.

The Energy Budget | Center for Science Education

Accounting for all the energy that enters and leaves the Earth system helps us understand how the planet maintains a habitable temperature. This accounting of energy is known as Earth’s radiation budget.

scied.ucar.edu

Why isn't the heat from using electricity included in earth's energy budget?

 

[Montrovant]

What a weirdly specific thing to complain about. Are you upset that they also didn't include the heat from burning fossil fuels specifically in the energy budget? Or maybe the increase/decrease in heat as the overall population of animals on the planet changes?

 

[$ecular#eckler]

Probably minuscule compared to the number emitted from the surface.

Rocket launches probably produce more units.

 

[ding]

Probably minuscule compared to the number emitted from the surface.

Rocket launches probably produce more units.

Can you define minuscule?

 

[ding]

What a weirdly specific thing to complain about. Are you upset that they also didn't include the heat from burning fossil fuels specifically in the energy budget? Or maybe the increase/decrease in heat as the overall population of animals on the planet changes?

Who's complaining? I'm asking a question. Are you saying heat from electricity usage should be ignored?

 

[daveman]

Unless it's running through superconductors, electricity produces heat.

Electricity explained​

Use of electricity​

Total U.S. electricity consumption in 2021 was about 3.93 trillion kWh and 13 times greater than electricity use in 1950.
-------

Heating and cooling are the largest residential electricity uses​

Heating and cooling/air conditioning account for the largest annual uses of electricity in the residential sector. Because these uses are mainly weather related, the amounts and their shares of total annual residential electricity consumption vary from year to year.

Electrical devices either generate waste heat or move heat.

 

[sparky]

~S~

 

[Montrovant]

Who's complaining? I'm asking a question. Are you saying heat from electricity usage should be ignored?

I'm pointing out that the energy budget doesn't break down where the energy leaving the planet is coming from. If the energy budget just measures the overall energy entering and leaving the planet without giving specifics about the various ways energy on the planet is generated, why would you think that this one type of energy (heat from electrical use) should be looked at?

 

[ReinyDays]

Electrical energy is not thermal energy ... this is like asking why dirt doesn't taste like bread ... what you're asking about is called frictional energy, developed from the frictional forces ... yes, it's electrical friction (or resistance) that makes your cheap outlets heat up and catch fire ... V / I = R ...

Not sure about your cheesy chart ... how long did it take for you to find the absolute worse available? ... there are better ... anyway, this chart was drawn for high school children ... you yourself should know we just can't add vector magnitudes, the garbage you posted is an attempt to explain things without using vectors to children who haven't been taught how to add ... remember all that trig needed to do so? ...

1361 W/m^2 + 250 W/m^2 = 0

Except that we measure only 248 W/m^2 out-bound ... leaving the 2 W/m^2 for global warming ... we're ignoring the energy we receive for Alpha Centari and Sirius ... human's measly 30 exowatt-hours per year has even less effect on climate ... I assume you're adult enough to know how aluminum is refined ...

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Anyone ever look closely at Earth's energy budget. I mean really close. Close enough that you know how all the numbers add up? If you haven't, go ahead and do that now because I have a question.

View attachment 650708

The Energy Budget | Center for Science Education

Accounting for all the energy that enters and leaves the Earth system helps us understand how the planet maintains a habitable temperature. This accounting of energy is known as Earth’s radiation budget.

scied.ucar.edu

Why isn't the heat from using electricity included in earth's energy budget?

This sounds like an interesting enough question. How much is the "waste heat" from our activities in relation to the overall energy of the system.

It sounds like the amount of "waste heat" humans generate is about 0.028W/m^2. That's 2 orders of magnitude less than the estimated 2.9W/m^2 due to human produced forcings (eg CO2 etc.)

I other words, not enough to really alter the overall concept of AGW as a serious concern.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008GL036465

 

[ding]

This sounds like an interesting enough question. How much is the "waste heat" from our activities in relation to the overall energy of the system.

It sounds like the amount of "waste heat" humans generate is about 0.028W/m^2. That's 2 orders of magnitude less than the estimated 2.9W/m^2 due to human produced forcings (eg CO2 etc.)

I other words, not enough to really alter the overall concept of AGW as a serious concern.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2008GL036465

Which is based upon the surface area of the planet, right?

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Which is based upon the surface area of the planet, right?

Not sure I'm following the question. The units are in /m^2 so it's normalized to area.

 

[ding]

Not sure I'm following the question. The units are in /m^2 so it's normalized to area.

They took the total amount of electricity consumed in the world in Watts and divided that by the total surface area of the planet in m^2.

But electricity isn't consumed all over the planet. In fact the majority of electricity is consumed in a relatively small area with respect to the total surface area of the planet. A much much smaller area. Certainly much less than 2 orders of magnitude. That much concentrated heat must show itself, right?

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

They took the total amount of electricity consumed in the world in Watts and divided that by the total surface area of the planet in m^2.

But electricity isn't consumed all over the planet.

In science we OFTEN see things that are "normalized". For instance I used to measure the surface area of activated carbons using nitrogen adsorption (SBET) which measured the surface area in sq. m/g. Not every single gram of the carbon would have exactly the same surface area, but you normalize it to a /g basis.

In fact the majority of electricity is consumed in a relatively small area with respect to the total surface are of the planet. A much much smaller area. Certainly much less than 2 orders of magnitude. That much concentrated heat must show itself, right?

Think about what we are talking about here. You couched your question in terms of the overall flux of energy regardless of source and you want to know how much of that overall energy is produced. OBVIOUSLY on the earth there isn't exactly 86.4W/m2 of latent heat generation for every single square meter of the earth (look at the graphic you posted). It is a normalized value for comparison sake.

That's how these values are treated in the science.

 

[ding]

In science we OFTEN see things that are "normalized". For instance I used to measure the surface area of activated carbons using nitrogen adsorption (SBET) which measured the surface area in sq. m/g. Not every single gram of the carbon would have exactly the same surface area, but you normalize it to a /g basis.



Think about what we are talking about here. You couched your question in terms of the overall flux of energy regardless of source and you want to know how much of that overall energy is produced. OBVIOUSLY on the earth there isn't exactly 86.4W/m2 of latent heat generation for every single square meter of the earth (look at the graphic you posted). It is a normalized value for comparison sake.

That's how these values are treated in the science.

The main causes of the urban heat island effect are changes in the land surface by urban development along with waste heat generated by energy use. As population centers grow, they tend to change greater areas of land which then undergo a corresponding increase in average temperature.

 

[ding]

Electrical energy is not thermal energy ... this is like asking why dirt doesn't taste like bread ... what you're asking about is called frictional energy, developed from the frictional forces ... yes, it's electrical friction (or resistance) that makes your cheap outlets heat up and catch fire ... V / I = R ...

Not sure about your cheesy chart ... how long did it take for you to find the absolute worse available? ... there are better ... anyway, this chart was drawn for high school children ... you yourself should know we just can't add vector magnitudes, the garbage you posted is an attempt to explain things without using vectors to children who haven't been taught how to add ... remember all that trig needed to do so? ...

1361 W/m^2 + 250 W/m^2 = 0

Except that we measure only 248 W/m^2 out-bound ... leaving the 2 W/m^2 for global warming ... we're ignoring the energy we receive for Alpha Centari and Sirius ... human's measly 30 exowatt-hours per year has even less effect on climate ... I assume you're adult enough to know how aluminum is refined ...

All electricity used to perform work eventually becomes waste heat.

Maybe you could provide a better chart then.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

The main causes of the urban heat island effect are changes in the land surface by urban development along with waste heat generated by energy use. As population centers grow, they tend to change greater areas of land which then undergo a corresponding increase in average temperature.

This is part of the reason why UHIE doesn't impact the overall temperature trends. Because local stations in a larger sample don't have sufficient weight to offset the overall values and what is measured is NOT the absolute temperature but rather a deviation from a baseline.

The reason we normalize data is to smooth out heterogeneity into a more homogenous number.

Remember the example I gave of N2 surface area? If I tell you an activated carbon has 200m2/g surface area and you grab a single grain of it, say a sample of 0.01g and you measured the surface area it may not be exactly 200.00000m2/g. It may be more or less. If you get a larger sample you'll have a better estimate of what the overall surface area is.

That's the point of this. YOUR PICTURE IN THE OP is the exact same thing. No one believes that at every single point on the globe, down to a square picometer is fluxing that much energy shown in the cartoon. We represent the data on a NORMALIZED BASIS.

This is bog-standard science.

 

[ding]

This is part of the reason why UHIE doesn't impact the overall temperature trends.

That's hilarious.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

That's hilarious.

You are free to take it up with this paper.

"Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures. It is postulated that this is due to micro- and local-scale impacts dominating over the mesoscale urban heat island. Industrial sections of towns may well be significantly warmer than rural sites, but urban meteorological observations are more likely to be made within park cool islands than industrial regions."

Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found

Abstract All analyses of the impact of urban heat islands (UHIs) on in situ temperature observations suffer from inhomogeneities or biases in the data. These inhomogeneities make urban heat island analyses difficult and can lead to erroneous conclusions. To remove the biases caused by...

journals.ametsoc.org

 

[ding]

You are free to take it up with this paper.

"Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures. It is postulated that this is due to micro- and local-scale impacts dominating over the mesoscale urban heat island. Industrial sections of towns may well be significantly warmer than rural sites, but urban meteorological observations are more likely to be made within park cool islands than industrial regions."

Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found

Abstract All analyses of the impact of urban heat islands (UHIs) on in situ temperature observations suffer from inhomogeneities or biases in the data. These inhomogeneities make urban heat island analyses difficult and can lead to erroneous conclusions. To remove the biases caused by...

journals.ametsoc.org

18 terawatts per second over a concentrated area says otherwise.