Fossil fuel would I guess be chemically stored fusion energy from a long time ago

  • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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    1 year ago

    I could be wrong, but I think geothermal may be the (sole?) exception to that. That heat is from the formation of the planet and radioactive decay (fission). That heat/energy would have coalesced during the accretion process regardless of whether the sun was adding energy. Again, I think. If I’m wrong, please enlighten as this is an interesting topic.

    Edit: I was thinking I might be technically wrong since we can’t really “renew” geothermal energy, but Wikipedia does have it classified as renewable:

    Geothermal power is considered to be a sustainable, renewable source of energy because the heat extraction is small compared with the Earth’s heat content.

    • BandoCalrissian@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Radioactive elements were formed in the last moments of a collapsing star, so even those were formed during fusion.

      • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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        1 year ago

        That is true. I guess it depends on how much of the heat is generated via fission processes and how much is just stored from planetary accretion. I don’t have any numbers for that at this moment, but I will certainly concede that geothermal is fusion-assisted lol.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 year ago

      Maybe tidal energy would also be an exception? It’s from the motion of the moon, which is the result of ancient planetary collisions?

      • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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        1 year ago

        Ooh, yeah. Didn’t even think of tidal energy. I don’t think we get any significant amounts from it currently, but it’s being actively developed.

        I guess if we want to get super pedantic about it, it would also be fusion-assisted since without the sun’s energy keeping the oceans in a liquid state, it would be frozen and unable to generate any power.

    • Admiral Patrick@dubvee.org
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      1 year ago

      Wind: The sun (a giant fusion reactor) heats the atmosphere which generates the wind (highly simplified).

      Hydro: Driven by the water cycle where the sun plays a key role in the “evaporation, condensation, precipitation” process.

    • JohnDClay@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 year ago

      Wind is due to the asemetric effects of heating different parts of the globe different amounts. Hydro is from rain and snow which is evaporated with the sun