HN Explorer

Ask HN: How much energy buried in the Earth?

1 points by dougSF70 ↗ HN
Plankton and Trees are at the bottom of the food chain. Sun's energy across life time of solar system has fueled life on this planet by promoting growth of bottom of the food chain. Over the past 4.571 bn years, the Sun has produced X joules of energy. Of this 0.04696% has reached the earth. Of this 70% hits the earth's surface. 66% warms the sea and 33% hits the land. Assuming 30% of land is flora then Sun has delivered 1.80E+40 Joules of Energy to forests and 1.20E+41 Joules to the ocean. etc , etc With some extra assumptions could work out how much of the Sun's energy remains stored in the planet in the form or oil and coal. [Slow day in the office]

3 comments

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PaulHoule
A huge amount of energy from gravitational collapse or radioactive isotopes from somebody else's star and/or neutron star collision is also trapped inside the earth as geothermal energy, certainly more than all the fossil fuels.
sigmaprimus
I think what you are looking to do is find the amount of biomass stored in the earth's surface, crust and oceans, and then apply a value of stored energy for that amount.

This is part of the carbon cycle.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/CarbonCycle https://www.fs.usda.gov/ccrc/topics/global-carbon

One factor that must be accounted for is the large amount of energy that ends up locked into fossilized life, basically a percentage of life is transformed into minerals and stone (Like seashells, petrified wood or limestone) and although the energy is still there it is in an unusable form at this point in time.

dougSF70
That's right. It must be possible to get to an approximate value for stored fossil fuels based on the idea that we convert the sun's energy (light and gravity) into stored energy (fossil fuels) over time. The earth is like a giant battery wirelessly charging via the sun.