Comment on Can enough solar pannels decrease the global temps?
scarabic@lemmy.world 3 weeks agoPlants fixing carbon also converts energy to a form that isn’t heat, so I think we should count that along with reflection as a way that solar energy doesn’t become terrestrial heat.
when that electricity (photons absorbed by solar cells dumped into the grid) they’ll almost certainly be used in an application that generates heat, as well - data centers, phones, refrigerators, cars, they all generate heat as a byproduct of using that power.
I don’t think this is in any way a problem.
Yeah I think you’re somewhat repeating what was said above. No one said it was a problem, but the point was that solar panels don’t cool the earth because even if they do convert some sunlight into electricity instead of heat, it will soon become heat anyway when the electricity gets used.
Eheran@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Correct, but not only is it extremely little, this stored energy is also quickly released again after the organism dies.
scarabic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Quick in geologic time. But this is what fossil fuels are, so it’s an order of magnitude or two different than the time in which generated electricity will be used.
And you’re right, it’s very small. Everything we know is pretty small, even combined. The amount of energy the sun imparts to the Earth every day equals what humanity would use over about 12 years at current levels.
Eheran@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, quickly as in years. There is no more coal or oil formed today, there are now organisms that can digest every part of organic stuff. There were none back then for example for lignin from wood, which is where we got coal from.