The work addresses the thorny problem of waste heat. Thanks to the second law of thermodynamics, a small amount of heat will always be released into the planet's atmosphere no matter what energy source we use — be it nuclear, solar, or wind — because no energy system is 100 percent efficient.
"You can think of it like a leaky bathtub," study coauthor Manasvi Lingam, an astrobiologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, told LiveScience. A small leak in a bathtub that's barely filled doesn't let out a lot of water. But as the tub continues to get filled — and our energy demands grow — that tiny leak can flood the whole house, Lingam explained.
I thought the problem was that CO~2~ was acting like a blanket trapping in all the heat. Is this "heat leaking" really a problem? If so, what about solar cells then?
That is eerily similar. But then again, stuff like this probably also happened 2000 years ago. Just start doomprepping if people start wearing black and take up horseriding!