page_title: Waste heat
section_title: Biological
hierarchical_section_title: Waste heat / Sources / Biological
caption_attribution_description: Ratcliffe Power Plant, Nottinghamshire
context_page_description: Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility than the original energy source. Sources of waste heat include all manner of human activities, natural systems, and all organisms, for example, incandescent light bulbs get hot, a refrigerator warms the room air, an internal combustion engine generates high-temperature exhaust gases, and electronic components get warm when in operation.
  Instead of being "wasted" by release into the ambient environment, sometimes waste heat can be utilized by another process, or a portion of heat that would otherwise be wasted can be reused in the same process if make-up heat is added to the system.
  Thermal energy storage, which includes technologies both for short- and long-term retention of heat or cold, can create or improve the utility of waste heat. One example is waste heat from air conditioning machinery stored in a buffer tank to aid in night time heating. Another is seasonal thermal energy storage at a foundry in Sweden.
context_section_description: Animals, including humans, create heat as a result of metabolism.  In warm conditions, this heat exceeds a level required for homeostasis in warm-blooded animals, and is disposed of by various thermoregulation methods such as sweating and panting.  Fiala et al. modelled human thermoregulation.
caption: Cooling towers evaporating water at Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station, United Kingdom.
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