CPT Q. 033: Do the steam jets in CPT have sufficient energy to reach earth’s escape velocity?
Q. 33. In your 2003 ICC paper you wrote that steam from the fountains of the deep might have reached escape velocity. However, later you included a note saying that a further calculation had shown there would not be sufficient energy. Please explain how you arrived at the lower
2 x 106 J/kgnumber for the specific energy available.
Response: The error was that I incorrectly included a factor of density when I calculated the amount of thermal specific energy available. The density of water is about 1000 kg/m3, so I overestimated the available thermal specific energy by a factor of 1000. It was an embarrassing error, but at least I caught it not long after the conference.
The lower 2 x 106 J/kg value for the amount of thermal energy available is obtained by multiplying an estimate for the temperature drop in the jet, which I took to be 1000 °C, by the specific heat of steam at 100 °C, 2080 J/(kg-°C).