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My attempt to explain entropy to my eco-conscious friend turned into a heated debate
They just couldn't grasp how heat dissipation relates to renewable energy limitations.
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phoenix_knight1mo ago
Why get so technical about entropy? Renewable energy keeps improving, so maybe heat dissipation isn't the hard limit you're making it out to be lol. Couldn't better tech just work around those physics constraints over time?
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coleperry1mo ago
Seriously, you're brushing off entropy like it's just another engineering problem? The laws of thermodynamics aren't guidelines we can innovate our way out of, they're the absolute rules of the game. Every energy conversion, no matter how efficient, dumps waste heat into the environment, and that directly caps how much useful work we can extract. What happens when we hit that ceiling and our demand keeps growing, just throw more solar panels at it and hope the planet cools itself?
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max_mitchell1mo ago
Working around physics constraints? Entropy disagrees.
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thomasking1mo ago
Actually, I came across a study last week that calculated the theoretical maximum for global energy use before waste heat alone would warm the planet significantly. I mean, it basically said we'd hit a hard ceiling long before we power everyone's hyperloop dreams. So yeah, better tech can improve efficiency, but at some point you're just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Even if we master fusion or whatever, we're still dumping heat into a closed system. The laws aren't just stubborn, they're literally inescapable, no matter how many shiny panels we bolt on.
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