Yesterday we had a visit from the fire engine, ambulance and police.
Serious stuff.
An apartment in our complex caught fire and the owner was overcome because of the fumes.
Luckly she is fine, only real loss is her sofa bed and due to smoke damage plus the fumes it will not be lived in for a period to evacuate the smell repaint and replace the sofa bed.
Lesson to learn.
Cheap phone battery, cheap chargers and cables.
Recharge taking place in full sun and temperatures above 30
Leaving on charge on a sofa that caught fire better on a hard flame proof surface.
How many of us plug in overnight and forget.
Just a word of warning after watching the effects.
Few years ago I had a client who burned her legs when the battery on her apple mac, exploded and caught fire. It said laptop and thats how she was using it. With apple charger you imagine its safe.
Modern mobiles will actually stop charging at a preset value (usually 80%) instead of trickle charging at 100%
For older Android mobiles (or those that don’t have this hardware feature) I install AccuBattery. It will sound an alarm (your choice) at a preset charge percentage. It is not the same and can be annoying but it will make your battery live longer (and prevent it from overheating)
I used to keep my old Samsung (Galaxy S9+) on a wireless charger by the front door displaying the IP camera feed for the front door… Then the battery swelled up…
Lucky I noticed…
My current handset - is a 2023 Galaxy S23 Ultra - Android 16 - it charges to 100%… I got it 2nd hand last year - I’d NEVER pay over $1000 for a phone, and the S23 Ultra sold for over $2000 in 2023 - I’d NEVER pay that much for a phone!
Anyway I usually keep it on charge by my desk (wireless charging) when working… But I don’t charge it over night…
When I was in Melbourne recently - I had a “mishap” and wasn’t carrying my debit/credit card or other cards (drivers licence / photo ID, Medicare, Health Insurance etc). I stayed at my brother’s place weekend before last - and on waking on on Saturday morning, despite not being used overnight - the battery was showing 4% - WTF? And it refused to charge on the charger I bought with me… I started to panic - as - my debit / credit card Google PayPass was my PHONE!
Borrowed another charger off my brother and it eventually charged up again… Haven’t seen it display the same symptom since - but it’s a concern…
I have several PEV (personal electric vehicles) - an e-bike (which is kinda SNAFU ATM) and two e-scooters… I NEVER charged them after a big ride… I give them a good 2 hours to cool down…
There’s big signs on Sydney and Melbourne train stations - home built e-bikes (i.e. regular tredley with a third party motor installed and a battery) are banned from taking onto trains… Due to battery fires… Some of those home jobs look AWFUL… Truly ugly hacks - done by shonky amateurs who gave up trying to refit the chain - so they’re effectively electric motorcycles… I have a mate who’s done 2 conversions of regular bikes to e-bike (his first one got stolen twice - the 2nd time never recovered) - with mid-drive motor on the crank and a battery mount that looks like a “storebought” one - i.e. his bike looks like it came from the factory that way…
Anyway - I sometimes take my Segway scooter on trains here in Perth - but they’re not allowed on during peak hour…
Someone must have done the calculation.
It is not only charging … all generated electricity ends up as heat.
What is the heat value of a megawatt-hour of power?
How many megawatt-hours does the world generate?
Do any of the generation methods subtract heat?
Simple calculation once we have the facts.
I asked a few questions
"
Direct energy consumption from electricity use—often referred to as “waste heat”—heats the Earth by a minuscule amount, averaging roughly 0.0053 \text{ W/m}^2 globally. This is entirely dwarfed by the planet’s greenhouse effect (trapped heat), which causes an energy imbalance of roughly 0.90 \text{ W/m}^2 (about 170 times larger). [1, 2, 3]
Here is the breakdown of how the Earth is heated and where our energy fits in:
The Direct Effect: Waste Heat
Every bit of electricity we generate and consume eventually turns into heat, which dissipates into the atmosphere. [1]
Global Average: The total waste heat from power generation distributed across the Earth’s surface provides an estimated heating rate of 0.0053 \text{ W/m}^2. [1]
Local Effects: While extremely small on a global scale, waste heat can be more concentrated in heavily populated or highly industrialized areas. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The Indirect Effect: Greenhouse Gases
By far the largest way electricity use heats the Earth is indirectly. Because the majority of our global electricity is still generated by burning fossil fuels like coal and gas, it emits carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These gases blanket the atmosphere and trap a massive amount of the sun’s energy. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
By Comparison: Natural Energy
To put this into perspective, the global energy budget operates on a massive scale:
Incoming Solar Radiation: The Earth continuously receives an average of about 240 \text{ W/m}^2 of solar power.
Energy Imbalance: Because of greenhouse gases, the Earth’s total energy budget is currently out of balance by about 0.90 \text{ W/m}^2. [1, 2, 3]
The direct heat from our electricity use accounts for less than 1\% of the total planetary warming, with the vast majority coming from the greenhouse gases emitted to produce it. [1, 2]"
I think that settles it.
Yes all electricity becomes heat , but it is a trivial contribution to global warming compared to fossil fuel use.
You can argue all you like - but BURNING hydrocarbons to make more kinetic energy (they were created hundreds of millions of years ago from sunlight) is VASTLY more wasteful (and heat generating) than using photons from the sun to make electricity directly and transmit it elsewhere (wind, wave or tide movement to generate electicity)…
I guess it could be argued that using radioactivity with the finite supply of radioactive isotopes (e.g. uranium) we have, is more efficient than burning hydrocarbons, and technically it is, but humans are shit at being infallible, and fallibilty when it comes to nuclear fission is an unacceptable risk… and you still gotta find somewhere safe to deposit the waste… Where? It nearly always comes down to “there’s nobody in Australia - lets dump our radioactive garbage there”…
Modern mobiles will actually stop charging at a preset value (usually 80%) instead of trickle charging at 100%
In my family there are two Samsung mobiles with Android. That feature must be enabled through settings to only charge until 85%. It is the Ahorro de energia option (In English would be “safe of energy”)
Neville
How new ?
My tablet and phone, both about 1 year old , seem to charge to 100%
They are both Samsung models.
As indicated above
Note
NEVER put any battery charger in the sofa … BIG mistake.
As I read, it was 415TWh in 2025 (and it’s the AI only, exluding web, email and “normal” servers).
For example Hungary could run for ~ 9 years with that amount of energy, assuming the yearly consumption does not change.
I believe you mean “efficiency”.
The power grid itself has losses, resistance of wires, transformators, etc. as I remember from my school days the efficiency of the power grid is about 90..95%.
Th efficiency of the power plant is another question.
So if our households require 3000 kWh in a year, probably a power plant producing 3100…3300kWh per year is required.
Lot of electricity producing still needs fossil fuels.
Sun power plants are not reliable, the generated power can change from zero to maximum in fraction of a second - depending on weather conditions.
Nuclear power plants cannot change the generated power that quick, only couple percents per minute, hence the “production” needs to be planned precisely in prior, based on statiscical data. That prediction cannot be 100% accurate, so the difference must be supplied by power plants, which can be fired up and shut down very quick. Nowadays the combined cycle power plant is the fastest to start/stop. The fuel of such a power plant is gas, which is mostly fossil fuel…
I meant that all electricity eventually becomes heat … as @jeremy says
.We can calculate how much
1kWh is 3.6 million joules
So your 415TWh is 415 x 3.6 x 10^12 joules
Yes, heat can not be converted back into electricity because of the second law of thermodynsmics. We can convert a local heat difference into electricity … power stations need a cool sink.
