Collectively, these estimates give us an order-of-magnitude picture of Earth’s sunlight budget. To be clear, “absorbed as heat” is the eventual fate of nearly all sunlight captured anywhere on Earth by anything. Wildlife may consume 10 times as much sunlight as humanity, but even nature only uses about 0.5 percent of the sunlight absorbed at ground level! Wind, for example, is largely powered by the temperature gradients produced by mass absorption of sunlight, ultimately making it solar power with extra steps. Cite: Clamons, S. “The Sunlight Budget of Earth.” Asimov Press (2025).