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Friday, Mar. 14, 2025

Is waste heat from industrial activity the reason the planet is warming?

Sue Bin Park, Skeptical Science
no

Waste heat’s contribution to global warming is a small fraction of that brought about by carbon dioxide.

Waste heat comes from the thermal energy released by human energy use, such as when power plants burn coal or combustion engines burn gasoline.

Dividing the total amount of waste heat by Earth’s surface area, Flanner found about 0.03 Watts per square meter of total warming was from waste heat, about 1%. Carbon dioxide’s greenhouse gas effect added 2.9 Watts per square meter.

Zhang and Caldeira published in 2015 that 1.71% of warming was from the direct heat energy released by fossil fuel combustion, the main source of waste heat.

Carbon dioxide, which makes it more difficult for heat to escape the atmosphere, is the primary driver of climate change. While reducing waste heat is beneficial for efficiency, addressing global warming requires lowering greenhouse gas emissions.

See a full discussion of this at Skeptical Science

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