I recently learned that waste heat will boil the oceans in about 400 years.
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN cites it in energy debates as an illustration of the long-term thermal limits of exponential energy consumption growth.
What it is
Sabine Hossenfelder explains that waste heat from ever-growing energy use could eventually boil the oceans in a few centuries, whatever the energy source. She discusses proposed ways to cool the planet.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2023 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends nostromo · 2024-01 · on “What it will take to unleash the potential of geothermal power? (2021)”
It’s based on extrapolation of current trends, so I doubt it’ll actually happen. Besides, we’d all die before it got to that. But here are some sources that describe it: [this video] (commentary from Sabrine Hossenfelder, highly recommended) [LINK] [LINK]
Recommends alxmng · 2024-06 · on “Fusion tech finds geothermal energy application”
You might enjoy Sabine Hossenfelder's video exploring this "I recently learned that waste heat will boil the oceans in about 400 years": [this video] It turns out we can probably solve this by building planetary chimneys 5km tall that move heat to the outer atmosphere.
Cites audunw · 2023-06 · on “the US solar market is projected to triple in size by 2028”
I think we should start talking about the possible climate impact of waste heat from nuclear thermal power plants too. I'm definitely pro-nuclear, wherever it makes sense, in the short term. As long as it's never at the expensive of building renewables too. But many nuclear proponents talk as if nuclear is the end-goal for power generation. That we should just replace everything with nuclear. But if we do, it's going to get harder to bring the Earths climate back to equilibrium, since a world on 100% nuclear power would add a lot of heat to planet. Not as bad as greenhouse gases, but significant enough to make reversal harder. Sabine Hossenfelder has a video covering the topic: [this video] I thi
Cites wcoenen · 2023-09 · on “Tidal Energy Is Not Renewable”
I'm not sure the author realized this, but they're actually making a statement about how crazy exponential growth is. Not about the sustainability of tidal power. This becomes obvious once you look closer at what that 2% growth rate (as assumed in the post) implies. Our global energy consumption in 2008 was estimated to be 474 exajoules. The total energy received by the earth from the sun during a year is about 5 million exajoules, a fraction of which reaches the surface. 5 million is much more than 474. But at a seemingly modest 2% per year growth rate (as it was between 1980 and 2006), our energy consumption will match those 5 million exajoules in less than 500 years! Think about that: if
Cites audunw · 2024-03 · on “The lithium-ion battery may not be the best bet for EVs”
No matter which energy source you use, increasing energy use will eventually cause problems. With nuclear power, eventually you'll add so much waste heat added to the atmosphere that it will be worse than greenhouse gases: If we continue increasing energy consumption at current rates and cover it with nuclear power the ocean will boil in 400 years: [this video] Obviously that's not meant to be a serious scenario. But it's illustrative. I don't see the problem of lifting everyone up while using less energy. We just gotta be smart about the solutions we make, rather than just brute-forcing it by using lots of energy. Like: I prefer to bike to work. That makes my life better. I also prefer living in