2 ms·
Sounds weird right? But it really is true: heat pumps pump heat, from one place to another, like a fridge and airco etc. Current heat pumps for home heating use
by ragebol 4y ago
Sounds weird right? But it really is true: heat pumps pump heat, from one place to another, like a fridge and airco etc. Current heat pumps for home heating use can pump about 3-5 units of energy from outside to inside while the pump requires 1 unit of energy to run.
Trick (to understand maybe?) is to not convert the energy from chemical to heat, but to take existing heat energy and pump that around.
- blueflow 4y agoPeltier elements have a efficiency of about 30% of converting temperature differences back to electricity. So if a heat pump pumps 5 times of the energy it needs around, you only need 20% of that converted back to electricity for it to be a self-sustainable perpetuum mobile. Of course this is impossible, but where is the error?
- ragebol 4y agoA heat pump takes heat produced elsewhere (eg in air outside). If that stops or it gets too cold, the heat pump stops working. It's not a perpetuum mobile because it needs an external energy source (eg. the sun to warm the air)
- MagnumOpus 4y agoI think Peltier modules or other thermo-electric generators only have <10% efficiency, not 30%.