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by dredmorbius 339 days ago
One of the rather curious facts about the Sun is that its net energy emissions, on a unit-mass basis, are roughly the same as a mammalian metabolism.

That is, your body is converting mass to energy (the only way the conversion is possible) through chemical processes (ATP-mediated molecular breakdown in the Krebs cycle) at roughly the same rate that the Sun is converting mass to energy through fusion of hydrogen to helium (modulo some pathway hand-waving).

You'll need far more input chemical fuel (carbohydrates and fats, mostly) than the Sun needs of input hydrogen fuel. But the net energy release rate is roughly equivalent.

The biggest difference between you and the Sun is that it (presumably) weighs somewhat more than you do. So that per-unit-mass conversion is multiplied by a much greater mass.