where does all the electricity go

FlamBango

FlamBango

FlamBango

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Ok, stick with me here. I was just pondering this whist on the porcelaine throne.

So you have billions of electrical devices around the planet, all earthed, plus things like lightning conductors etc. Now where is all that electricity going. This is where all the knowledge from my grade E 'O' Level in Physics deserts me, but it cant just disappear can it, physics doesn't allow that.

So could we all be possibly sat on the planetary equivalent of a cheap maplins rechargeable battery that's about to crack open? Is this an environmental disaster that's slipped out of the radar of proper physicians?
 
Light, heat, sound etc.

"energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one form to another. For instance, chemical energy is converted to kinetic energy when a stick of dynamite explodes."
 
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CREATIVE!11 said:
Light, heat, sound etc.

"energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it can only be transformed from one form to another. For instance, chemical energy is converted to kinetic energy when a stick of dynamite explodes."
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Which is why, in a temperate climate like the UK where back ground heating is desirable for a good part of the year, nonsense like low energy light-bulbs is mostly nonsense....

(Because variable charging rates/fuel costs, they might save some money, but they wont save very much energy. The Green argument is mostly bogus...)
 
Orionaut said:
Which is why, in a temperate climate like the UK where back ground heating is desirable for a good part of the year, nonsense like low energy light-bulbs is mostly nonsense....

(Because variable charging rates/fuel costs, they might save some money, but they wont save very much energy. The Green argument is mostly bogus...)
Click to expand...

can you expand on this, not criticising but just interested to see where you're coming from - has someone worked through how much regular bulbs would contribute to heating a house etc.. and made a comparison somewhere?
 
Orionaut said:
Which is why, in a temperate climate like the UK where back ground heating is desirable for a good part of the year, nonsense like low energy light-bulbs is mostly nonsense....

(Because variable charging rates/fuel costs, they might save some money, but they wont save very much energy. The Green argument is mostly bogus...)
Click to expand...

Err, I don't have heating on all the time. Don't even have to use it in Summer and rarely in Spring/Autumn.
 
Welcome to the fascinating world of Nikolai Tesla !!

He figured that our planet is generating power in lots of different forms, in perpetual motion.
The problem isn't generating it, It's harnessing it in safe & useful ways.
 
Orionaut said:
Which is why, in a temperate climate like the UK where back ground heating is desirable for a good part of the year, nonsense like low energy light-bulbs is mostly nonsense....

(Because variable charging rates/fuel costs, they might save some money, but they wont save very much energy. The Green argument is mostly bogus...)
Click to expand...
That's a bit of a silly stand point. If I can do the same amount of work for less energy expended then why wouldn't I?

If every 60 watt light bulb was replaced with a 10 watt light bulb that produced exactly the same amount of light then 50 watts of energy would be saved. Extrapolate that over millions of light bulbs and that's a LOT of energy that doesn't need to be used. Fuel that doesn't need to be burned.

What you are proposing is that energy should be wasted for the sake of it.
 
Mostly doing work, plus extras like heat. Entropy stuff.

That stuff is weird for sure. Energy is getting more and more dispersed (entropy increases as the universe expands), from nuclear fusion in stars onwards, and gets more diffused as time goes by.

What we do (well, life in general) is kinda the reverse process, harness that energy, decrease entropy, in order to sustain ourselves.

I guess you could say that evolution and life in general is a mechanism that works towards optimising that process. That's how I see it anyway. Generating electricity to suit our needs is part of that.
 
Ultimately it is all lost as heat. Fuel is burnt, your TV converts the energy from the electricity into light, the TV gets warm in the process and that heat is absorbed into the atmosphere.

After that we all get hysterical over climate change and common sense flies out of the window.
 
dowie said:
can you expand on this, not criticising but just interested to see where you're coming from - has someone worked through how much regular bulbs would contribute to heating a house etc.. and made a comparison somewhere?
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All The energy used in light bulbs eventually goes to heat.

It may not be quite as effective as a dedicated heater in the short term since the heat mostly will go to the ceiling in any given room. But in a standard house lights used downstairs will heat the upstairs and if the lights are left on for a long time eventually the ceiling will radiate the heat back down into the room.

The only time where low eergy light fittings will actually save energy in the UK is at times of year when there is no need for background heat, IE during those 3 months or so of the year that people in the UK sometimes describe as "Summer".

Of course, people living in warmer climates will make significant benefits from these sorts of "Energy saving" technologies.

And because of the structuring of the pricing of different fuels and time dependent charging rates, there may well be money savings to be made.

But the fundamental "Green" energy saving argument is really rather marginal. At least in high latitudes anyway.
 
olivier renault said:
Mostly doing work, plus extras like heat. Entropy stuff.

That stuff is weird for sure. Energy is getting more and more dispersed (entropy increases as the universe expands), from nuclear fusion in stars onwards, and gets more diffused as time goes by.

What we do (well, life in general) is kinda the reverse process, harness that energy, decrease entropy, in order to sustain ourselves.

I guess you could say that evolution and life in general is a mechanism that works towards optimising that process. That's how I see it anyway. Generating electricity to suit our needs is part of that.
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Human activity doesn't decrease entropy, it increases it. Humans are "doing work" they are always doing more and more work too. Doing work is exchanging energy from one form to another and that creates heat.

In fact the only way for humans to reduce the effects of entropy on the universe is for them to not be there at all.
 
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Orionaut said:
All The energy used in light bulbs eventually goes to heat.

It may not be quite as effective as a dedicated heater in the short term since the heat mostly will go to the ceiling in any given room. But in a standard house lights used downstairs will heat the upstairs and if the lights are left on for a long time eventually the ceiling will radiate the heat back down into the room.

The only time where low eergy light fittings will actually save energy in the UK is at times of year when there is no need for background heat, IE during those 3 months or so of the year that people in the UK sometimes describe as "Summer".

Of course, people living in warmer climates will make significant benefits from these sorts of "Energy saving" technologies.

And because of the structuring of the pricing of different fuels and time dependent charging rates, there may well be money savings to be made.

But the fundamental "Green" energy saving argument is really rather marginal. At least in high latitudes anyway.
Click to expand...
I'll take your point that energy efficient light bulbs are nothing but a token gesture when compared to the burning of fossil fuels in factories, motor cars, blasting rockets into space etc.
 
Orionaut said:
All The energy used in light bulbs eventually goes to heat.

It may not be quite as effective as a dedicated heater in the short term since the heat mostly will go to the ceiling in any given room. But in a standard house lights used downstairs will heat the upstairs and if the lights are left on for a long time eventually the ceiling will radiate the heat back down into the room.

The only time where low eergy light fittings will actually save energy in the UK is at times of year when there is no need for background heat, IE during those 3 months or so of the year that people in the UK sometimes describe as "Summer".
Click to expand...

I understand what the pov/claim was - I was just interested if there was anything to support it? Thus the question of whether someone has worked through this somewhere and shown that they don't actually save energy overall because of some heating aspect of regular bulbs or whether this is just something you've thought of which may well not be correct? I mean the heating aspect could well be negligible relative to the energy savings from low energy bulbs.
 
dowie said:
I understand what the pov/claim was - I was just interested if there was anything to support it?
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The argument is that because Britain is a cold place then energy efficiency doesn't apply here. Energy wasted as heat is preferred to warm the atmosphere. What happens on other parts of the planet is irrelevant.
 
TallPaul1878 said:
The argument is that because Britain is a cold place then energy efficiency doesn't apply here. Energy wasted as heat is preferred to warm the atmosphere. What happens on other parts of the planet is irrelevant.
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Yes. I know... like I said I understand what the argument/claim was. I'm asking what there is to support it?

For example in warmer months that energy is potentially going to be wasted, in winter months how much of a difference does having regular lightbulbs make? etc.. Is your boiler really going to be using sufficiently less energy or is some more hot water going to be wasted etc..

I dunno, I'm just asking whether someone has worked through/studied this or whether it is just an assumption.
 
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dowie said:
Yes. I know... like I said I understand what the argument/claim was. I'm asking what there is to support it?
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There isn't anything. Without going into the climate science argument and all the hysteria that comes with it. There is no reason to support they waste of anything at all anyway. You wouldn't cook a whole sack of potatoes if you only wanted to have 1 baked potato would you?
 
Orionaut said:
The only time where low eergy light fittings will actually save energy in the UK is at times of year when there is no need for background heat, IE during those 3 months or so of the year that people in the UK sometimes describe as "Summer".
Click to expand...

Where on earth are you living that you need heating on for 9 months of the year?

I'd be getting worried if mine was on longer than 3 or 4 months :p
 
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