ElI5: Why can’t we use a renewably powered, industrial sized ice machine to replenish and cool the arctic?
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I’ll take a swing at this as an ELI5:
Without getting into too much detail, you can’t make or remove energy from the universe. Temperature can kind of be though as a measurement of “energy” of an item. When you cool something down (to make ice) you’re removing energy from the water, but that energy needs to go somewhere.
Think of a refrigerator. It’s cold inside, right, but have you ever felt a warm current of air coming from the back of it? That’s the excess “energy” that is being removed from the inside. The fridge takes the warmth from inside the fridge and punts it to the outside.
So in your scenario assuming we can sustainably power this massive ice machine. We still have the issue that you’re not solving climate change. For every ice cube you make (by reducing the energy of the water), your machine is exhausting the equal amount of energy as hot air out the back (plus extra as the machine probably will produce extra heat itself just by functioning) so you net at best assuming a lot of things 0 temperature change of the earth as a whole, but more likely much worse because we made a lot of assumptions that aren’t practical to begin with (sustainably powered, 100% efficient)
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