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I live in a cold climate. In the winter, I heat up my house by passing electricity through the resistor in my radiator. This is dumb; the electricity could be d
by ced 9y ago
I live in a cold climate. In the winter, I heat up my house by passing electricity through the resistor in my radiator. This is dumb; the electricity could be doing something useful instead. Why couldn't we have BTC-mining radiators, that emit heat as a by-product of their computations?
- jokoon 9y agoI still wonder if heating a house with transistor is efficient. Gotta ask a scientist I guess. I mean there must be energy spent switching transistors back and forth.
- majewsky 9y agoWhat do you mean by "efficient"? That word is usually used to describe the fraction of energy that goes into a machine and is then not lost to heat. Since the purpose of a heater is to produce heat, it's pretty much impossible for it to waste energy.
- anonfunction 9y agoSome things produce more heat than others.
- PeterisP 9y agoFor passive heating, anything puts out exactly as much heat as it consumes electricity; there's no way around thermodynamics to gain or lose power there. Yes, there can be heat pump systems with e.g. underground connections, and pumping heat can be more effective than generating heat; but for pure heating, generating heat, the simplest resistor heater is just as 100% efficient as any complex electronic device, all the electricity spent results in just as much heat.
- rabidrat 9y agoAnd you know what happens to that energy when it's done doing its useful work? It's dissipated as heat :)
- adammunich 9y agoSome energy gets turned to light inside ba MOSFET but that quickly turns into heat too.
- ClassyJacket 9y agoIt's exactly as efficient as heating is with a resistor. That energy spent switching transistors is spent as heat. :)
- stale2002 9y agoThey do have those, they just aren't a super good idea. If you care about heating efficiency, spend the money on a heat pump, which will get you 300% efficiency.
- brink 9y agoThey do https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z_bvYNWR4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Z_bvYNWR4k
- ybrah 9y agoSome guy on /biz/ has a bunker full of server racks that mined XMR. He got the bunker from a military auction. He said that he did not require heating for the bunker because the heat produced by the mining was enough to keep the entire buker warm. All he had to do is have good ventilation.