Re:Nuclear Fission Fuel Is Inexhaustible (2022)
by Ratalala on Sunday July 16, 2023 @07:23PM
(#36752416)
Interesting read.
I once wondered what would be the contribution to atmospheric heat of the combustion of cigarettes, and waved it as probably insignificant.
A quick googling suggests burning a cigarette releases 7.8 J/mg of tobacco[1], that a cigarette weighs around 1 g, and that about 5 trillions (5e12) cigarettes are smoked annually [2].
This amounts to 3.9e16 J, or, averaged over one year, 1.2e9 W; corresponding to the total US energy consumption around 1730, according to the figure in parent's link.
Insignificant today, but not a few centuries back.
[1] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/307705601_Heat_Emis... [2] https://www.vitalstrategies.org/tobacco-atlas-global-tobacco...
Thermodynamics would like to have a word:
> […] the Earth has only one mechanism for releasing heat to space, and that’s via (infrared) radiation. We understand the phenomenon perfectly well, and can predict the surface temperature of the planet as a function of how much energy the human race produces. The upshot is that at a 2.3% growth rate (conveniently chosen to represent a 10× increase every century), we would reach boiling temperature in about 400 years.
https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist...