The ground in a circuit doesn’t dissipate energy — the energy gets dissipated elsewhere. That’s what ground is: it’s what we call the electrical part of a circuit where the energy has already been dissipated (I’m being a little casual with my electricity, but I think it’s a valid statement nonetheless — ground is defined as the zero potential).
You can try this out by plugging a wire from hot to ground in your house (please don’t do this). The energy gets dissipated in the wires. This is bad, because it is a lot of energy dissipated very quickly. Best case you throw the breaker. Worst case you burn down your house.
You can run it through a very large grid of aluminum fins which get hot, and you know, I don’t know, boil water with it or something to be used for uh, purposes, such as heated water. :)
No, you can’t.
The ground in a circuit doesn’t dissipate energy — the energy gets dissipated elsewhere. That’s what ground is: it’s what we call the electrical part of a circuit where the energy has already been dissipated (I’m being a little casual with my electricity, but I think it’s a valid statement nonetheless — ground is defined as the zero potential).
You can try this out by plugging a wire from hot to ground in your house (please don’t do this). The energy gets dissipated in the wires. This is bad, because it is a lot of energy dissipated very quickly. Best case you throw the breaker. Worst case you burn down your house.
You can run it through a very large grid of aluminum fins which get hot, and you know, I don’t know, boil water with it or something to be used for uh, purposes, such as heated water. :)
So… You can use it. As exactly described. By the description of the problem.
Sorry for being snarky, but this is exactly what the “paying people to use your energy” part of this situation is.
Yep absolutely — a few kW? I can burn that no problem. A MW? Well…that takes a little more thought. A GW? That’s a whole different ballgame.
Haha, thanks for taking my comment with humor and stride. Yeah, you’re right. I still think having too much energy is a good problem to have overall.
I do microsolar and when my batteries are full (rare), I just unplug them. The solar panels just sit baking in the sun, and then cool off at night.
What is microsolar? Tried looking it up, didn’t come up with much.
It’s having a very small (typically less than 2 kW) solar system