4 ms·
He will change the world if he can get 50-60% efficiency. Photovoltaic cells would be out and parabolic mirrors aimed at a heating elements would take their pla
by hop 16y ago
He will change the world if he can get 50-60% efficiency. Photovoltaic cells would be out and parabolic mirrors aimed at a heating elements would take their place - even better, tubes running under asphalt streets all circulating water through JTEC heat exchangers.
A huge unmet need is extraction of heat energy at lower temperature differentials - it could put to use tons of waste energy at industrial plants, your car exhaust, h20 that leaves current steam generators, etc... The JTEC has the potential to make use of all this would-be entropy.
- sliverstorm 16y ago> A huge unmet need is extraction of heat energy at lower temperature differentials That, of course, would still be a real challenge. I didn't see any specifics, but notice his ceramic membrane was built to withstand 400 C. That's very hot.
- ck2 16y agoBut what if it's double the efficiency at twice the cost to produce? It does sound rather more complex than a solar cell.
- cma 16y agoAssuming it has the same lifetime/maintenance costs, then the profitability will be double that of the alternative.
- eru 16y agoThere's not much you can do to get useful work out of low temperature differentials. Carnot's theorem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_heat_engine#Carnot.27s_theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnot_heat_engine#Carnot.27s_t...) says that the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is n = 1 - T_cold / T_hot, where the temperatures are given on the Kelvin scale (i.e. absolute temperatures). That means between say 20 Celsius and 45 Celsius you will never convert more than 8% of the thermal energy that needs to flow from hot to cold into useful work.