Could heat from fossil fuels contribute to global warming?

Question

From mechanical engineering school I remember that energy cannot be created or destroyed and that heat is the lowest form of all energy. In turn, all forms of energy in use such as mechanical or electrical must ultimately be reduced to heat.
The Earth has lots of stored potential energy in the form of chemicals, coal, oil, natural gas, etc. that is dormant until man releases it. Doesn't all this dormant potential energy ultimately become heat that is released into the atmosphere? Radiation heat transfer must remove some of the heat but only in proportion to the Earth's temperature. Where is all this energy (heat) that all the thousands of power plants, oil burning engines, campfires, etc. going?

Answer 1

The amount of heat released by burning fossil fuels is minuscule in the extreme compared to the amount of energy delivered to the planet by sunlight, and therefore it has a vanishingly small impact on the temperature of the planet.

Global warming is due exclusively to variations in the heat balance between incoming energy in the form of sunlight and heat radiated away into space because the planet is hotter than space.

Changes in the CO2 level have changed that balance by reducing the amount of energy the Earth has been radiating away at the current temperature. The balance will be reestablished as that extra energy builds up on Earth in the form of heat. As the Earth heats up the amount of energy radiated away increases. At some point the balance will be reestablished and the Earth will stop heating up.

Answer 2

Highly unlikely. The energy budget of the Earth greatly exceeds expenditures by this species. The global warming issue involves the greenhouse effect. This keeps the planet about 100 degrees hotter than the temperature derived strictly by considering the distance from the sun (and resultant received energy) and heat radiated away as infrared.
The greenhouse effect derives from infrared-trapping gases such as methane, water, and carbon dioxide. All else being equal (is it ever?), industrial, agricultural, and residential release of carbon dioxide stored long ago over a relatively short time has raised the concentration of CO2 in the air and some still say it is meaningless. Go figure (do the math).

Answer 3

Well, some of the heat released by buring fossil fuels in a car's engine or in a power plant is transformed into mechanical energy (which in turns make the car/turbine move or spin). The other, larger part is "wasted" (released to the environment, or the "cold source" in physics talk). But the heat released even by all the cars in the world isn't enough to really increase global temperature (by much anyway).

Answer 4

Global Warming, or specifically the idea that human activity is influencing such a phenomnon, is a false theory.

The planet has been undergoing cycles of heating and cooling for much longer than there has been any sort of Human civilization. According to wiki: "the world has seen cycles of glaciation with ice sheets advancing and retreating on 40,000 and 100,000 year time scales. The last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago."

Obviously, human civilization had no influences on these fluxuations in temperatures. The world is currently in just another interglacial period.

Additionally, there is evidence that the Sun is currently undergoing a period of warming, which would, of course, alter global temperatures. Again, human factors cannot influence this change.

Answer 5

Ideally, this excess heat would radiate out into space and the normal temperature would be maintained. Unfortunately, the burning of fossil fuels creates greenhouse gases, which blocks the heat from leaving. So it is the gases, not the heat) generated from the fossil fuels that contributes to global warming.

Answer 6

Technically, yes. It would warm the planet up a little bit. However, the greenhouse gases that fossil fuels produce will have a much larger effect. That's because they trap energy from the sun, which is way, way more energy than anything we use.

Answer 7

It surely does contribute to it. All uses of energy are subject to the second principle of thermodynamics; and any system that is not completely efficient, is in some measure transfering heat energy into the atmosphere.

However, I imagine most of the impact is in greenhouse gases. Teh amount of energy we are releasing is small compared to the cumulative effects of greenhouse gases.

Answer 8

well I guess it is lingering around which is why they call it global warming...greenhouse gasses and whatnot. Sounds like a good question to ask a professor. Go to a local college website and find the listings for professor emails. Find a biology or geology or environmental sciences professor and email him! Tell him you are thinking about taking his class or something lol

Answer 9

Not enough to impact global temperatures, perhaps in localized communities temperatures will vary, but globally the biggest impact is from normal solar cycles.

Answer 10

lots of it is actually reconverted to mechanical or electrical energy.

seriously, you're an engineer, what do think they burn all the fuels for?