608
16 Energy Flow in the Production of Order
Table 16.1 Earth: sources of
power (in 10 12 W)
Source
Power (TW)
Solar and lunar
Sunlight (174,000 input)
128,000
Water condensation
40,000
Hurricane heat (↑ strato.)
600
Hurricane wind
3
Geohydropeftos (water falls) ∼40
Wind (from thermal gradients)
∼16
Water waves (from wind)
∼2
Tornado
∼1 × 10 −5
Ocean thermals
∼5
Tidal from Moon and Sun
3.7
Ocean height variation
1.1
Seabed frictional heat
2.4
Earth viscoflexing heat
0.2
Moonlight
0.12
Solar wind (p, e − , He
++ , etc.)
0.0016
Solar neutrinos
∼2 × 10 −27
Geologic
Geothermal
47
Earth radioactivity
20
238 U decay
7.7
235 U decay
0.3
232 Th decay
8
40 K decay
4
Core relic heat flow
25
Iron core heat of solidification
1.9
Mantle viscous heat
∼0.1
Other cosmic sources
Extrasolar cosmic rays
0.01
Starlight
0.0035
Relic microwaves
0.0016
Cosmic dust heating
0.001
Asteroid and comet collisions
3 × 10 −4
Relic gravitational waves
2 × 10 −22
Relic neutrinos
∼1 × 10 −46
Radiation to space
174,050
Photosynthesis storage rate
∼1800
Human usage (2013)
18
is about 3 × 10 −32 . The estimate for relic ggravitational wave density uses ρ GW ≤ 0.15 ρ c and the
Dyson estimate of damping in the Earth of ε ≈ 10 −21 .