[defrost]

Having a building heating amount as a base unit is likely an error of scale - not incorrect, just not particularly useful or enlightening when it comes to making a model of energy flows and cascades about the planet.

> It probably makes what the entire grid consumes look microscopic.

The entire US grid? Entire global electricity grid? Probably?

Have a shot at putting numbers and units to some of this ... Total amount of daily solar energy fall, total amount of daily energy radiation to space, daily residual energy at sea / surface layer, historic and current human energy consumption (broken into electricity, heat, ??) etc.

It's a handy exercise.