Like fossil fuels come from organic matter that grew because of the sun. Is there any form of energy on that cannot be traced back to the sun in some way?

  • palebluethought@lemmy.world
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    18 days ago

    The heat in the Earth’s mantle and core comes from the gravitational potential energy of the original stellar dust clouds the Earth originally accreted from. So, geothermal energy mostly isn’t. And there’s also evidence that a few natural uranium deposits have undergone natural nuclear fission chain reactions. That one’s a pretty negligible amount, though. Other than that, no, it all traces back to the sun.

    • fishos@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      Earth wouldn’t have coalesced without the sun in the middle. Otherwise we’d still be a gas blob.

      Nuclear materials were formed in supernovas. They wouldn’t exist in the first place without a star.

      • palebluethought@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Nuclear materials were formed in supernovas. They wouldn’t exist in the first place without a star.

        Well, yeah, sure. But that star is not the Sun.

        Earth wouldn’t have coalesced without the sun in the middle. Otherwise we’d still be a gas blob.

        I mean, sure? It wouldn’t be a gas blob, but it would be a very different system. But that still has nothing to do with it – even if the gravity of the sun influences how the earth coalesces, it’s still not where the thermal energy of the core came from. That came from the potential of the dust itself.

        • fishos@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Which wouldn’t have the potential if the larger sun didn’t form first to create the gravity to allow the rest to form.

          Star != Sun is just pointlessly pedantic. You’re not trying to learn anything, just be a smartass.

          • palebluethought@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            Which wouldn’t have the potential if the larger sun didn’t form first to create the gravity to allow the rest to form.

            This is simply incorrect. The gravitational potential of the body would be there regardless of what else is going on around it. And either way, the OP’s question was not about some hypothetical where the sun doesn’t exist, it’s about where energy came from in the real world.

            Star != Sun is just pointlessly pedantic. You’re not trying to learn anything, just be a smartass.

            ? The OP’s question was literally “is there energy on earth that didn’t come from the sun.” I am not the one being pedantic here.