4 ms·

There must be a fair amount of friction happening as well. I wonder what happens to all the heat generated.

• hinkley 5y ago
  Helps keep soil from freezing. The extreme case is compost, which is decay-dominated, and ends up full of thermophiles (not unlike wine ends up dominated by the yeast that made the wine). A number of people have figured out how to heat greenhouses, outbuildings, or in one case college dormitories by scaling this up.
  • edgyquant 5y ago
    I’d be interested in how they were able to heat the dorm with compost, I’ve laid fresh compost before and when that stuff is stewing it stinks.
    • hinkley 5y ago
      They used a downdraft system which pulls air through the pile, heating it up. Then they ran the air through some heat exchangers, and finally out into some charcoal and through some planter boxes to absorb the moisture and some volatiles. It was quite involved. Large too.