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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 12, Issue 24

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  • From: "Simon Forman" <calroc@mindspring.com>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 12, Issue 24
  • Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 10:59:15 -0800

I think it goes like this: As energy is radiated from concentrated sources
(like the Sun and the planets, who got their initial energy from the start
of the Universe) it flies off into space and thins out.
If you point a very sensitive thermometer at the "background" of space, i.e.
where there are no stars, you find that the temperature of the Universe is
about 3 degrees above absolute zero (around -270 degrees centigrade, I
think...)

This three degree background heat is the "Elephant Graveyard" of energy.
It's where our indestructable energy goes to become "lost forever". The
background heat is extrememly uniform, so uniform that there is no way to
get any usable work out of the tiny energy gradients that do exist. So once
any energy gets so difuse and thin that it joins the background heat it
becomes unavailable to participate in the processes of the Universe. That's
why we want to get as much out of it as we can before we must inevitably let
it go... :)


> how can energy be "lost forever" without violating the law of conservation
of mass and energy? JMR

----- Original Message -----
From: Jonathan Raney <JRaney@co.whatcom.wa.us>
To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:51 AM
Subject: [permaculture] Re: permaculture Digest, Vol 12, Issue 24







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