# Does all of our energy come from the Sun? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249 "2019-01-05T15:27:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/1 "2019-01-05T15:27:43Z")
I remember my high school physics teacher saying, > [@](#): > > All of our energy sources, e.g. oil, coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, PV arrays, and wind, got their energy from the Sun. The only exception is the energy produced by nuclear power plants. Is that true? ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/2 "2019-01-05T15:31:04Z")
No. Gravity produces heat in the earths core that we take advantage of. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/3 "2019-01-05T15:52:21Z")
Most of the heat in the Earth’s core is due to natural radioactivity, not the initial gravitational energy. But it’s still not from the Sun. There’s also tidal energy, which does ultimately come from the Solar System’s initial gravitational energy. It’s not used to a very great degree yet by humans, but it can be, and there are a few proof-of-concept projects for it. Still, the vast majority does come from the Sun. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/4 "2019-01-05T16:06:28Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > No. Gravity produces heat in the earths core that we take advantage of. Can you elaborate what you mean by this? Gravity was involved in initially generating earth’s heat, but it’s not a very active process. There’s two ways earth is heated internally. One is remnant heat from its formation. And sure, that’s related to gravity, but it does implicitly rely on the formation of the sun to kick off the process in the first place. And that process is ongoing in that the earth is slowly expanding and cooling from that initial formation. The remnant heat is still slowly bleeding off. It will be billions more years before it’s gone. So that came from the sun in a real sense. The other way the earth’s interior is heated way (and probably the majority) is via radioactive decay. And it is a source that does not come from the sun - it comes from other suns. The heavier elements present at the formation of the solar system are due to supernovas. So, the vast majority of our energy ultimately comes from the sun. It can be argued a small fraction from the formation of the earth (which was also driven by the sun but less directly). And another small fraction from other suns. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/5 "2019-01-05T16:24:20Z")
I wouldn’t call the heat of the Earth’s coalescence “driven by the Sun”, not even indirectly. Before the Solar System was a star and planets, it was a diffuse cloud of gas and dust, and that cloud already had gravitational potential energy. That’s the energy that’s relevant here, and it didn’t come from the Sun, since the Sun didn’t even exist at that time. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/6 "2019-01-05T19:20:03Z")
[Iceland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power_in_Iceland) gets over half of its energy from geothermal sources. There are other geothermal plants around the world, including in [N. CA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geysers), for example. ---
**Author:** ![filmstar-en](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/50afbb/32.png) [@filmstar-en](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmstar-en)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/7 "2019-01-05T19:44:37Z")
There are also tidal power stations like this one in France that as been in operation since 1966. > **[Rance Tidal Power Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rance_Tidal_Power_Station)** > > The Rance Tidal Power Station is a tidal power station located on the estuary of the Rance River in Brittany, France. > Opened in 1966 as the world's first tidal power station, it is currently operated by Électricité de France and was for 45 years the largest tidal power station in the world by installed capacity until the South Korean Sihwa Lake Tidal Power Station surpassed it in 2011.\[unreliable source?\] > Its 24 turbines reach peak output at 240 megawatts (MW) and average 57 MW, a capacity fa... There are not many around the world, but there are some big projects planned. Since the turbines are driven by the tide, you could say they are Moon powered. ---
**Author:** ![rat\_avatar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rat_avatar/32/255_2.png) [@rat\_avatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rat_avatar)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2019, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/8 "2019-01-05T23:01:41Z")
The Earth-moon also produces a little tidal heating but not very large. Of the ~47 terawatts of internal heat released by the Earth, about half is thought to be from radioactive heating and significant portion is from the mantel and not the core. Tidal heating through friction is small with ~3.7 terawatts in total with ~2.5 TW from the main lunar tidal component (M2). The rest of the tidal heating is other lunar and solar components that are probably too complicated for this forum. Other factors like heat released due to primordial heat, crystallization and other factors make up the remainder but this is also on the edge of our knowledge and is increasingly speculative. Older texts will tend to claim numbers like 90% of the heat is from radiogenic sources, but those are based on very dated assumptions. For the primordial energy, a portion of it is from differentiation sources like the _negative_ potential energy from infall, accretional energy and accreational heat is from the conversion of the kinetic energy of impacting bodies to thermal energy. Obviously some of this energy also resulted in the rotation which goes back tot he tidal component. As noted above the _primordial energy_ is not attributable to the sun, but it provides 175,000 terawatts of energy which is much larger than the ~47 terawatts internal heat or the ~3.7 terawatts from tidal heating. Note: Exact numbers on the origins of Earth’s internal heat is not firmly established, so the numbers above related to primordial heat, radiogenic decay, tidal heating, and other sources have been summarized. ---
**Author:** ![Richox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Richox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richox)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/9 "2019-01-06T07:51:56Z")
I am also interested in the link between hydroelectricity and the sun. I get a ‘traditional’ hydroelectric arrangement may be an interception of the water cycle - sun heats ocean/lake, causes evaporation, clouds drop this as rain at a higher elevation and then it flows downhill and is used by a turbine to generate electricity. But how about glacial melt derived hydro electricity? Are all glaciers due to the sun? How about pumped hydro? like this cool place - > **[Okinawa Yanbaru Seawater Pumped Storage Power Station](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Yanbaru_Seawater_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station)** > > The Okinawa Yanbaru Seawater Pumped Storage Power Station (沖縄やんばる海水揚水発電所, Okinawa Yanbaru Kaisui Yōsui Hatsudensho) was an experimental hydroelectric power station located in Kunigami, Okinawa, Japan and operated by the Electric Power Development Company. It was the world’s first pumped-storage facility to use seawater for storing energy. Its maximum output was 30 MW. Construction of the plant started in 1987 and was completed in 1999 at a cost of ¥3.2 billion. It was dismantled in 2016 The powe... Rail stored energy? > **[ARES North America](https://aresnorthamerica.com/)** > > The Power of Gravity on ARES North America… ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/10 "2019-01-06T15:12:52Z")
> [@Richox](#): > > But how about glacial melt derived hydro electricity? Are all glaciers due to the sun? Depends, how are you turning the glaciers into water? ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/11 "2019-01-06T15:15:29Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Depends, how are you turning the glaciers into water? It doesn’t matter. It’s the gravitational potential energy of the glaciers that is turned into electricity. And that originally came from the Sun - the heat from the Sun vaporized water and lifted it into the sky, which fell as snow and became glaciers. ---
**Author:** ![scr4](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/59ef9b/32.png) [@scr4](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scr4)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/12 "2019-01-06T15:17:18Z")
> [@Richox](#): > > How about pumped hydro? like this cool place - > [Okinawa Yanbaru Seawater Pumped Storage Power Station - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Yanbaru_Seawater_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station) > > Rail stored energy? > [https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/](https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/) Those are not energy sources. They are energy storage devices. They store electrical energy that was generated by some other means. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/13 "2019-01-06T16:00:30Z")
The energy from nuclear plants doesn’t come from our sun, but it came from suns that existed before our sun due to the fusion of heavy elements that happened 5+ billion years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2019, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-all-of-our-energy-come-from-the-sun/827249/14 "2019-01-07T09:53:24Z")
> [@Richox](#): > > I am also interested in the link between hydroelectricity and the sun. > I get a ‘traditional’ hydroelectric arrangement may be an interception of the water cycle - sun heats ocean/lake, causes evaporation, clouds drop this as rain at a higher elevation and then it flows downhill and is used by a turbine to generate electricity. > > But how about glacial melt derived hydro electricity? Are all glaciers due to the sun? > How about pumped hydro? like this cool place - > [Okinawa Yanbaru Seawater Pumped Storage Power Station - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okinawa_Yanbaru_Seawater_Pumped_Storage_Power_Station) > > Rail stored energy? > [https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/](https://www.aresnorthamerica.com/) Hydroelectric, including indirect from glaciers, depends on water evaporating and raining down onto higher ground, thereby transforming some of the (solar) energy driving evaporation being transformed into gravitational energy (higher ground), then into kinetic energy as the water rushes down the tubes of the hydroelectric plant to drive the turbines. Whether the water is stored in a storage lake or in a glacier before being used to drive the turbines, it needs to undergo the evaporation/precipitation route to get to high ground.