system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If a battery sits without being used for a long time, it loses charge. Where is this energy going?
gpt
90 percent of the time, if you aren’t sure where your missing energy is going, it’s being used to create heat. In the case of batteries, this is slow enough that you wouldn’t notice the increased temperature without using one of the most precise thermometers available and heavily insulating the battery.