The Myth of Heat Losses


A lot of people are talking about heat losses. There seems to be a basic misunderstanding. Some people think, current is somehow turned into heat. How would that work? An electron just becomes a photon? Oh yeah right. No way.


Heat is just a side effect of current flow. It is finally the fact, that you let that current flow from positive to negative of the supply.


Your circuit has a max amp due to conductor diameter, above which it will heat up due to electron friction, uo to the ooint of melting and selfdisconnection - if the supply delivers enough current.


The actual Losses are due to our conventional way of using electricity, which is consumer marked oriented:


We always let the current flow eighter to Ground (the house ground), to the battery minus or to the elwctrical grid companies negative pole (that alternates 50 or 60hz).


There is no particular need in doing so. We only need to let the current flow from a higher voltage to a lower voltage.


By creating a potential(voltage) diffrence by our own, we keep control over where we drain the current, and there it won't be lost. Tesla battery switching seems to do a similar thing.


Of course we still face high recharching losses in batteries, due to general low efficiency. But we may have some other options these days to create potential diffrences.


So I hope this makes some of you considering to look at it less in a consumer way.


Therefor my view about heat losses, for example in a transistor, is: the heat is an unrelated sideeffect of the fact, that people even in 2018 still just flush the current trough the transistor to ground - which is barbaric. Even in a simple tank circuit we can bounce a current back and forth without letting most of the current flow to ground, and if there is a transistor in this bounce circuit that heats up, then fine - seemingly there is a high current flowing trough - otherwise the tank circuit wouldn't work anyway.


So heat losse are a myth. Heat is a sideeffect of current flow. That's all. Wheter we waste our current by directly draining it to ground or not, that is the question.