Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

the_fungible_man t1_jci0mls wrote

Reply to comment by dangil in Energy can not dissappear or be created, only change form, right? Earth is blasted by the sun 24/7, where does the excess energy go, because I guess it doesn't stay here or we'd cook by mr_greenmash

>Basically every form of energy on earth available to humanity or not comes from the sun’s energy.

Two significant exceptions come to mind:

  • Nuclear energy does not come from the Sun.

  • Geothermal energy is not powered by the Sun.

11

viscence t1_jci1l90 wrote

Oddly enough you can somewhat argue about both of these, as billions of years ago the gravitational effect of what would become the sun had a significant impact in getting that energy into what would become the earth... or that nuclear energy comes from isotopes formed from previous stars. It just becomes a matter of definitions at some point though.

7

dangil t1_jci19cf wrote

Heavy nucleus were forged in a Star. Not ours though

Geothermal energy is basically gravitational energy from the formation of the solar system. Also related to the sun.

2

Grindipo t1_jcld3tw wrote

Is it you, Lord Kelvin ?

The heat inside Earth comes from the radioactive decay of, well, radioactive elements inside.

It is true that the accretion of a planet releases a lot af heat, but without the radioactivity, the Earth would have cooled in less than a billion year.

2