The Second Law and Energy
Sunday, April 6th, 2008
photo credit: Powerhouse Museum
This Nobel Prize-winning scientist admits to staying up late the night before his talk to bone up on thermodynamics. He puts his research to good use, discussing the history and application of the laws of thermodynamics, which have served as “the scientific foundation of how we harness energy, and the basis of the industrial revolution, the wealth of nations.”
Taking Watt’s 1765 steam engine, Stephen Chu illustrates basic principles of thermodynamics — that energy is conserved, that you can do work from heat, especially when you maximize the difference in temperature in the system and minimize heat dissipation from friction. Chu offers another form of the laws: You can’t win; you can’t break even; and you can’t leave the game.
The game hasn’t changed all that much in the past few centuries. Nations now burn coal for electricity, achieving around 40% thermal efficiency. Natural gas can be harnessed at higher efficiencies still, and if we could deploy temperature-resistant metals for boilers, even less energy would go to waste. This is a pressing matter, points out Chu, because the planet can no longer afford wanton use of carbon-based fuels. With too much CO2, our global “heat engine” has begun to tip toward a point of no return. So the big question for Chu is whether science can design “entropy engines that can generate sustainable (carbon-free) energy sources.
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