Heat Management

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Nothing is perfectly efficient, not even thermal devices that operate on heat, even in ideal cases. The only exceptions are when you are maximizing heat generation or moving heat around (which can actually exceed 100% efficiency). From an engineering perspective, those device inefficiencies result in heat generation. Heat can also come from the external environment, like if you happen to be piloting a subterrene deep down in the depths of the Earth, or less fantastically, when you are being warmed by the sun's rays.

As said in the article about Heat, heat is a flow of entropy with an associated energy, and neither entropy nor energy can be destroyed. Therefore, the heat must be moved somewhere else, or kept in a place where it won't bother you (insulation - though in practice, nothing is a perfect insulator, and so the heat transfer will occur, just on a very slow timescale).

The cause of it all

Most, if not all losses that generate heat, can be traced down to three major things: Friction, electrical resistance, and energy conversion. It's impractical and pretty much nearly impossible to eliminate friction, and unless you have superconductors with zero electrical resistance, we're stuck with plain old copper wiring and semiconductors. As for energy conversion, it turns out that there is only one form of energy conversion which we can make 100% efficient: directly generating heat. We can achieve this with a variety of means, such as with electrical resistors; indeed, your typical home electric heater is a good example of such a perfectly efficient device.

The most famous example of how energy conversion is lossy is Carnot's ideal heat engine . From a thermodynamical perspective, the reason that fundamental inefficiencies and waste heat exist, comes down to the impossibility of absolute zero. Thanks so much, Heisenberg!

For when the heat comes from outside, not within

Heat Shields

Heat Shields

Credit

Authors: Qalqulserut, Rocketman1999