HomeSPOILER: Yes it does,...(like almost any other activity, remember thermodynamics?) but infinitesimally especially compared to other sources. It is rediculously little!
Redundant thermal energy released by nuclear power plants vs. the thermal energy as provided by the sun
This notebook is a first stab at an approximate calculation to get an idea of the magnitude of the redundant thermal energy that is released by nuclear power plants as compared to that which is supplied by the sun through irridiating Earth.
Calculate the incident infra-red solar energy at the surface of Earth.
Earth radius in meters is:
polar_radius = 6357e03
Approximate Earth surface exposed to solar irradiance can be calculated from $\pi\cdot r^2$. This can be though of as a disc (plane) facing the sun (i.e. perpendicular to the rays) that is illuminated by sunlight.
print('irradated surface area: ', earth_disc_surface,'m^2')
Sunlight's composition at ground level, per square meter, with the sun at the zenith, is about 527 watts of infrared radiation, 445 watts of visible light, and 32 watts of ultraviolet radiation.
https://ag.tennessee.edu/solar/Pages/What%20Is%20Solar%20Energy/Sunlight.aspx
Total solar infrared power available at the surface is thus:
print('Total power: ',earth_sol_power / 1e12, 'Tera Watt' )
print('Total power: ',earth_sol_power / 1e15, 'Peta Watt')
Total power: 67.34874660984273 Peta Watt
Total energy delivered over a year is thus:
print('Total energy: ', earth_sol_power * 24 * 365 / 1e18, 'Exa Watt hour' )
Calculate the total thermal energy released by all nuclear power plants on Earth
Nuclear energy now provides about 10% of the world's electricity from about 440 power reactors. In 2018 nuclear plants supplied 2563 TWh of electricity.
Nuclear power plants usually have efficiency about 33%. In modern nuclear power plants the overall thermodynamic efficiency is about one-third (33%), so 3000 MWth of thermal power from the fission reaction is needed to generate 1000 MWe of electrical power.
efficiency = 0.33
thermal_energy = electric_energy / efficiency
print('Initial thermal: ', thermal_energy / 1e12, 'Tera Watt hour')
print('Released thermal: ', released_energy / 1e12, 'Tera Watt hour')
Ratio of solar infrared energy and heat released by nuclear power plants
The ratio of thermal energy released by all nuclear power plants in the world over the period of a year, to the total delivered thermal energy by the sun over the period of a year is given below.
Jupyter notebook can be found here: https://gitlab.com/JayBeRayBearGun/energy/-/tree/master#