On Mon, 07 Mar 2005 13:33:56 -0800 Brian Mury <b.mury@xxxxxxxx> wrote: > What happens to all the energy being used by my computer? It has to go > somewhere. It ends up as heat. Your light example is an easy one - a > lightbulb generates heat and light. The light gets absorbed by objects > (mostly the dark coloured ones) as heat. My motor in my hard drive is > using just enough energy to replace that which is lost to friction - > which generates heat. The energy used to move electrons inside a circuit > ends up as heat. Right But your comparison below assumes that the only heaters that involve electricity use are resistive coils or strips. A heat pump system uses electricity too, but it also takes advantage of the heat in the air (or ground, in some cases), and based on the electricity usage compared to the heat put into the house, it's more efficient that simple resistive heating. > An electric heater is about the only thing that is 100% efficient. If > you are heating with electricity, and turn on any electric device, you > should, in theory, break even. *If* you're just using a simple resistance heater. This assumption doesn't work with a heat pump style system. -- -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Charles Taylor <tomalek@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> * Chemistry instructor / Mad scientist / Linux enthusiast! -------------------------------------------------------------------- * Web: http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/ --------------------------------------------------------------------
