Waste heat

Waste heat happens when something gets hot, like when we cook food on a stove or use electronics like a computer or phone. When something gets hot, it can make more heat than it needs, which is called waste heat.

Think of it like playing with a toy oven. When we turn on the oven, it gets hot inside, just like in a real oven. The hot air inside the oven makes our toy food like cupcakes or pizzas cook. But the outside of the toy oven also gets warm and sometimes even hot. Even though we don't need the outside of the toy oven to be hot, it gets hot anyway, and that's called waste heat.

Waste heat isn't a bad thing by itself because it's natural for things that get hot. But sometimes we don't want waste heat because it can be a waste of energy. Waste heat can use extra energy that we don't need or want to pay for.

For example, think of a car engine. When we drive our car, the engine gets really hot. But that heat doesn't just stay in the engine. It also goes out the exhaust pipe and into the air around the car. This means our car is using more energy to make waste heat that we don't need or want.

Overall, waste heat is just extra heat that something makes that we might not need or that can use up more energy than we want. But it's also a natural part of how things work when they get hot.