I recently had a discussion about ACs and how they heat up cities.

Then I found an article about theoretical increase of efficiency of acs by using the heat pulled from a room to run a thermoelectric device and getting some of the energy back that was used in the ac.

I‘ve had this downstream thought many times already: since hot air is basically just energy stored. Could we theoretically pull (all?) the energy from the air (depending on desired temp) to cool it and casually fuel our society’s energy needs?

  • Hacksaw
    1·
    10 months ago

    Sounds like you’re on the right track there. As far as energy goes, you’re right, when things are dissipated, or all the same, you can’t extract anything. You need a differential, like a hot place and a cold one, a high voltage and a low one, a fast object and a slow/stopped one, a high object and a low one. The higher the differential the more you’re going to be able to extract. If it’s too small you might not be able to get any useful work out at all.