Diff for "EarthHeatWatts"

• http://wiki-keithl.com/EarthHeatWatts

Earth Heating from Excess CO₂

I'm politically inclined to dismiss global warming. However, my first loyalty is to engineering, science, and mathematics. My political leanings affect my behavior but not the behavior of physical reality. 1+1=2, no matter how much I might wish for three or zero.

And as an engineer, I am paid to implement wishes using the tools provided by physical reality and with resources paid for mostly by others. If others are bullgoose crazy ideologues, I am unable to implement their silly fantasies, and if I am honest (not always, sigh) I won't take their money then not deliver their absurd desires. Way too many others just take the money and run.

All that by way of prologue, before delivering a calculation that nobody wants to pay for. Some will agree with the results, but most of those demand that someone else to pay for what they get.

Start with three numbers:

• Total human artificial energy consumption (much of it fossil fuel generation) is 510 Quads per year.
• The Earth radiates about 1 watt per square meter less than the Sun delivers.
  • Stated differently, the Earth accumulates about 1 Joule per square meter per second averaged over it's entire surface
• The surface area of the Earth is 510 million square kilometers
  • 5.1e14 square meters

A Quad is 1.055e18 Joules or 1.055e18 Watt-seconds, so 510 Quads is 5.38e20 Watt-seconds per year.

There are 8766 hours per year, and 3600 seconds per hour, so there are 3.156e7 seconds per year.

So, 510 Quads = 5.38e20 Watt-seconds per 3.156e7 seconds = 1.7e13 Watts, 17 Terawatts, or 17,000 1 Gigawatt power plants.

1 watt per square meter for 5.1e14 square meters is 510 Terawatts.

Hence, the ratio of Earth heat accumulation to human power consumption is 510/17 or a factor of 30. Almost all of what we do with that power consumption is temporary with no accumulation of permanent value, and some of it (like disposable packaging) converts resources (like ores and plastic feedstocks) into landfill (or worse, ocean-fill) garbage.

We can't keep that up forever. Indeed, while there is still a lot of carbon fuel underground, if we add all of that to the atmosphere and oceans (where most CO₂ and heat is absorbed for now), that 1W per square meter number will rise, and the accumulated heat will rise as a square-law parabola, a hockey stick graph. Too slowly for 99% of us to notice, much less understand. When most of us do, it will be far too late to remediate.

Are we doomed? Not if the subset of us who can do the calculations (including engineers) say NO to demands/incentives to engineer our own doom. Joe and Jane Lunchpail may be innumerate and thoughtless, but they cannot destroy the world without the destructive toys we create for them. Don't give destructive weapons to children, or to adults who behave like children.

Engineers should know better. Many of us have voluntarily taken professional oaths, and those oaths must include taking full responsibility for the systems we enable.

If we are asked to help create Earth destroying systems, Just Say NO.