| Re: Can body heat be converted into energy? |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
Group: alt.philosophy · Group Profile
Author: dlzcdlzc Date: Aug 19, 2008 10:25
Dear Sanny:
On Aug 19, 9:17Â am, Sanny hotmail.com> wrote:
...> But the Big Question is that is there any way to get
> the heat from air and turn that energy into useful way?
Works good for drying paint.
> Is there any way of getting the heat from environment
> for generating power?
Not without a "cold sink". Heat is essentially "lost work", some of
which can be regained when it flows from hot to cold.
Consider the RTGs used by the Pioneer spacecraft. It used plutonium-
containing ceramic as the hot source, the 3 K background temperature
as a cold sink, and a thermopile to convert much of that waste heat
into electrical power.
And of course Nature does exactly what you suggest when she evaporates
water, let's it fall as rain, and lets it run donw rivers (where we
dam it and collect some of the work). And winds also derive from the
flow from hot to cold...
And you always get back less work than you put into a system. The
nature of the second law of thermodynamics.
David A. Smith
| 
