3 ms·
Efficiency was what I was wondering. But maybe a few percent efficiency is about the best we can do with relatively small temperature differences? I think rad
by elihu 4y ago
Efficiency was what I was wondering. But maybe a few percent efficiency is about the best we can do with relatively small temperature differences? I think radio isotope thermal generators are usually only a few percent efficient.
It'd be interesting to try to propel a ship with the temperature differential between air and water.
- formerly_proven 4y agoRTGs have other issues as well, they need to radiate all heat on the "cold" side into space, so you're between a rock (high hot-cold temperature difference needed) and a hard place (need high cold temperature to radiate) even before you get to thermo-electric generators being inefficient.
- genewitch 4y agoiirc the stuff on probes is ~90W of TEM. I know a lot of people say "it's hard to cool stuff in space" but blackbody radiation is a thing. It's all just photons, in the end. the TEM just takes the high energy particles and slows them down enough to be "light" and takes a bit (10%?) of the energy from doing that and uses it to charge batteries. Kind of.