I'm confused on this topic of thermodynamics.
Applied to the light bulb, the second law of thermodynamics says that 100 units of electrical energy cannot be converted to 100 units of light energy. Instead, of the 100 units that are used to generate light, 95 are needed to heat the filament (thermal energy).
So it's 95% isn't?
https://www.uwsp.edu/cnr-ap/KEEP/nres633/PublishingImages/heatbulb.jpg
I don't understand the implications of thermoelectric generation.
Ok, please bear with me because I only have a high school level understanding of this stuff. I've never taken a class in thermodynamics or heat transfer.
I recently found out that electricity can be generated by placing two objects that are at different temperatures across a special semiconductor device and an electric potential will form between the plates. It is also my understanding that the electric potential is also proportional to the difference in temperature between the two objects.
I asked this question on another forum and I was told that it is because the thermal energy from the hotter object will flow to the cooler object because of a law of thermodynamics and that this 'flowing' is what induces the electric current. That was a good enough answer to the 'how' behind my question, but not the 'why'. What I don't understand is why there must be a second object that is at a different temperature. In science class I was told that matter at higher temperatures contains more thermal energy than matter at lower temperatures. So why can electricity only be generated when thermal energy flows between two points of unequal temperature? In other words, why can't you have, for example, a device that takes in a single "hot" object (I know this is not a precise term) and simply 'drains' the thermal energy out of it and converts it to electricity? Like, why doesn't there exist a device that can extract the thermal energy from matter and output electrical energy, thereby decreasing the temperature of the matter that is is extracting from? i.e., a thermal -> electric converter that does not require a difference in temperature.
EDIT: I mean a direct thermal to electric conversion, not an indirect device such as a steam turbine that exploits thermal energy to drive a mechanical process.
I heard some famous guy say in an interview that solid kinetic energy was "atom wiggliness" -- that's more vague than "vibration". But of course explanatory vagueness could be a good thing or a bad thing! For example:
- "Vibration" carries connotations of wave propagation of the wiggliness through the solid medium, vibrational conductivity (as just another way of saying thermal conductivity??) and a certain "coherence" (such as a predictable frequency distribution) of the vibration. It also raises interesting questions about whether the emitted radiation (e.g. IR heat emission) is related in its "wave properties" to the "wave properties" of the solid atom lattice vibrational movement.
- "Wiggliness" punts on all of that and doesn't claim to give a clear picture of it, which might be appropriate if those connotations aren't accurate enough to be a useful picture.
So, is "vibration" a more useful metaphor than "wiggliness" or vice versa?
Thanks for all thoughts!
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 71%. (I'm a bot)
> In 2020, consumption of renewable energy in the United States grew for the fifth year in a row, reaching a record high of 11.6 quadrillion British thermal units, or 12% of total U.S. energy consumption.
> Our U.S. renewable energy consumption by source and sector chart shows how much renewable energy by source each sector consumes.
> In this approach, we convert the noncombustible renewables from kilowatthours to Btu using the annual weighted-average Btu conversion rate for all fossil fuels burned to generate electricity in the United States during that year to estimate the amount of fossil energy replaced by these renewable sources.
> Wind energy accounted for about 26% of U.S. renewable energy consumption in 2020.
> Biofuels, including fuel ethanol, biodiesel, and other renewable fuels, accounted for about 17% of U.S. renewable energy consumption in 2020.
> Solar energy accounted for about 11% of U.S. renewable energy consumption in 2020.
Summary Source | FAQ | Feedback | Top keywords: energy^#1 renewable^#2 consumption^#3 U.S.^#4 fuel^#5
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You're almost immortal with your ability and can turn into a living embodiment of thermal energy. If it's summer and your friends are sweating bullets, take in the nearby heat to cool them down. You don't need to eat, sleep, or rest because you're now a thermal energy reactor and can live off nothing but heat. There isn't a limit to what you can absorb, if you want to, you could drain a star or volcano of all its energy.
It just came to me how awesowe it would be to get heat from the planets core. Like if you could dig down deep into the planet and place some blocks als the way to the bottom of your hole and derive energy from that. Would be needed to balanced of course
I've been looking to write a FanFic, was considering how my character can modify a Lancer Class Pursuit Craft and obvious answer is to beef up the sub-light engines (possibly from parts of a partially destroyed second Lancer), this would obviously generate more heat so I was considering adding thermal radiators like on the back of the Falcon when I remembered Thermoelectric Generators exist. This is basically free power that's is generated from what in the SW universe would be quite archaic technology so why is it being dumped into the void when our own space programs rely on the conservation of resources? It seems to happen across ship designs, from Freighter sized craft like the Falcon and the Scimitar (that daftly stores its thermal energy for a while to avoid detection then releases it) to Fighter class like the X-Wing, V-Wing, ARC-170 and ETA-2. Is there a reason for this or are we just looking at a remnant of lack of scientific knowledge from the 1970's production? I could possibly understand a lack of room on a Fighter sized space frame but to not have it in something the size of the Falcon seem daft, any cargo space loses would surely be made up financially by the fuel saved.
One thing that’s not quite clear to me is what is meant by “the Earth” in these types of predictions. They’re measuring the average air temperature, sure, but the atmosphere isn’t the only thing increasing in temperature—our oceans and the outer layer of the Earth’s crust must also be warming during this time.
Where exactly does it stop, though? Obviously the Earth’s core isn’t getting 3°C hotter during this time.
It seems like just using the mass of the atmosphere would be too little, and using the entire Earth’s mass would be too much. It must be somewhere in between.
How efficient can it be to get power from greenhouse gas emissions? My idea is to just trap the emissions in containers and then put them into specialized transparent containers so sunlight will enter, get trapped in the gas, and turn into heat which can be used in a steam generator to turn turbines, and there you have power. Depending on how efficient it could be you could even want to pay other power plant industries for their emissions, or even regular people for their car emissions, and this will incentive people to go along with the plan. The purpose being to realize a dream of no emissions, regardless that we burn oil and coal.
One problem I'm thinking of is that to trap a lot of sunlight you'll want the gas pressurized inside these containers, but this will mean smaller containers will be more efficient: ever since I heard about area increasing exponentially compared to how dimensions increase, and volume increasing exponentially compared to area, I've been careful to think about how increasing volume might affect things, so I might be wrong but I think the larger containers will be much less efficient to pressurize, but smaller containers means we need more of them which means more material is needed to make them which increases costly expenses.
Another problem is that there will need to be a new component added to ALL things that emit greenhouse gases in order to trap it and this will be expensive, so an incentivizer for businesses and people to purchase this component would be really good. Something akin to how I turn in my recycle for money, people can turn in their pressurized gas for money but we would need to be able to afford to pay them for it. So this power plant needs to be profitable.
Another problem could be that you need a lot of water, but building by the ocean and using seawater might be a solution. A problem with that is that seawater is harder to boil than regular water, but maybe we can use the boiled seawater as drinkable water and sell that to help cover costs. But there is still another problem which is that there is a lot of leftover salt. But I had the idea before of combining a desalination plant and using the salt for thorium-based nuclear plants which use salt as fuel, and this thorium-based nuclear plant is actually non-detrimental to the environment like the past nuclear plants that are prone to meltdowns. So we have more power at our disposal and this power is likely enough to accrue profit to support the emission ma
... keep reading on reddit ➡My initial approach was to find the gamma ray point attenuation kernel, or the degree to which gamma radiation emanating from a point attenuates as it travels a distance through a material, in this case LH2. I have the A, alpha, and Beta coefficients for the G(muS Q) equation as constants of LH2, but I'm not sure integration of the point attenuation kernel across dS is the way to go.
What approach should I use? I only know 1 MeV, and tank depth and diameter. How do I find heat gain? I am but a lowly aerospace engineer and know too little of nuclear engineering, though I have taken one class on NTP. My textbook isn't helping.
Like if I have a really bright flashlight I can feel heat from the beam, but I can blast a speaker at max volume and I might even feel the vibrations in my hand, but there's no change in temperature.
Is this a glitch in the matrix?
Repeatable biogas application. First order from Russia.
OTTAWA, ONTARIO – TheNewswire - April 15, 2021 – Thermal Energy International Inc. (“Thermal Energy” or the “Company”) (TSXV:TMG), (OTC:TMGEF), an innovative cleantech company and global provider of energy efficiency and emissions reduction solutions, has announced it has received its second heat recovery order from one of the world’s largest brewers.
The order includes major equipment, engineering, and commissioning and is valued at over $500,000. Thermal Energy will design and deliver a customized FLU-ACE® system for the customer’s Russian production facility. The FLU-ACE® will be integrated with, and improve the efficiency of, the biogas generation system already present at the site.
The project is the second of its type for Thermal Energy in the sector, with the Company having previously supplied a similar FLU-ACE® biogas application to another leading beer producer, announced August 7, 2019. Over the last 24 months, the Company has secured heat recovery projects with three of the world’s top five brewers.
“This latest order demonstrates our ability to harness our established network of customers by supplying and servicing their sites around the world, while finding new methods of supporting their carbon reduction initiatives with innovative repeatable applications,” said William Crossland, CEO of Thermal Energy.
“With biogas generation, a standard process across many similar sites the world over, this application of our technology, especially within this sector, holds great opportunity for our Company.
“It emphasizes our capacity to meet the individual needs of the customer and the site – whether they require a full turnkey solution with installation or purely the supply of a Major Equipment Package (MEP) including engineering and commissioning, such as this latest example. This approach allows Thermal Energy to scale in new territories, such as Russia, and to accelerate growth by flexibly offering either turnkey or MEP solutions based on o
... keep reading on reddit ➡
