Can Humans Generate Enough Heat to Power the World?

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Humans generate an average of 116 watts of heat each, totaling approximately 812 billion watts for the global population of 7 billion. This amount of energy exceeds France's daily consumption by 800%. However, even if this thermal energy could be harnessed and converted to electricity, it would still fall short of the output from a nuclear power plant in California, which produces around 2.1 thousand megawatts. Discussions highlight the impracticality of harvesting human-generated heat, suggesting it would be ineffective. The feasibility of utilizing human heat energy remains a topic of skepticism.
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The average heat produced by one human is 116 watts. There 7 billion people in the world today. That equals 812 billion watts of energy. How do I explain this to the average person.
Thanks Don East
 
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Don East said:
The average heat produced by one human is 116 watts. There 7 billion people in the world today. That equals 812 billion watts of energy. How do I explain this to the average person.
Thanks Don East

What's the point? And a Watt is a unit of power, not of energy...
 
What's there to explain?
 
Don East said:
The average heat produced by one human is 116 watts. There 7 billion people in the world today. That equals 812 billion watts of energy. How do I explain this to the average person.
Thanks Don East


It means we are generating 800% as much energy as the whole of France consumes in a day. Tap our enegies for only a day and France will be sorted for the next eight days. :)
 
Last edited:
boit said:
It means that were we to somehow pool our thermal energies and convert same to electricy, we wouldn't match the nuclear power plant in Califonia which delivers almost thre times that much (some 2.1 thousand Mega Watts of power).

Check your math.
 
Nugatory said:
Check your math.


Checked and edited accordingly. My bad.
 
yea so let's get all the humans in the world and set them on fire and let the aliens enjoy the energy :P
there is no possible way to harvest radiated human energy i believe , and it would be useless nonetheless
 

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