Would nuclear fusion cause global warming?

[pgrmdave]

If we were able to create a controlled fusion reactor that could provide vast amounts of electricity, would the increased usage of electricity cause any noticable global warming? How would one estimate the increase in the Earth's temperature due to the use of electricity?

[Buffy]

I would think that would depend on what the mix of electrical devices is now and how it would change with cheap energy.

 

All electrical devices have an inherent level of aggregate resistance, but all of it is different and its not in a fixed ratio to the wattage consumed due to the fact that the variance on efficiency is large.

 

I can tell you that my heating bills are very low because the number of machines in the house is plenty to keep it warm in the winter! We shut them down as much as possible in the summer not to keep the electric bill down, but to keep it from getting too hot!

 

Also, if fusion were easily available, greenhouse gas production would drop dramatically, and heat from other types of power would drop as well.

 

Without justifiable positions on a lot of assumptions being made about these variables, I'd say you could come up with any answer you want to this question! :phones:

 

High wattage,

Buffy

[Pyrotex]

If we were able to create a controlled fusion reactor that could provide vast amounts of electricity, would the increased usage of electricity cause any noticable global warming? How would one estimate the increase in the Earth's temperature due to the use of electricity?

For starters, one might take the path of the physicist who was trying to design the world's best horse racing track; first, he assumed perfectly spherical horses.

 

Production of electricity by many methods involves the production of heat energy and the conversion of some percentage of that into electricity. But eventually, the electricity will also be turned into heat energy when it's used. So, one could look at the gross heat energy produced by all the plants in the world; that would be a close approx to the amount of heat being dumped into the biosphere.

 

Some electricity is produced by winds, water falling, and perhaps ocean tides in Japan. These "rob" some energy from the environment and turn it into electricity. But eventually, it must be returned to environment as mechanical or heat energy. So, it's a wash. No EXTRA energy is added to the biosphere.

 

If we have fusion someday soon, then the same applies. If it produces 10 gigawatts of heat energy with, say, 40% efficiency, then you get 4 gigawatts of electricity. But you are still adding 10 gigawatts of heat into the biosphere.

 

The tricky part is not the impact of electricity usage but of unintended side-effects of "BURNING" stuff, which produces CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Calculating the effect of these is far more difficult. But fusion doesn't produce them. Burning oil or coal does, no matter how "clean" they do it.

[Zythryn]

The amount of energy released as heat is miniscule in terms of the effect on the global climate.

As fusion produces no CO2 or Methane, the more fusion power that replaces coal/oil/natural gas energy plants the better.