X-Message-Number: 33400
From: 
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:53:23 -0500 (EST)
Subject: long term free energy

At CI the cost of energy is not a major expense and our cryostats do not  
rely on electric energy. Even so, there can be spurts of price of oil or  

anything else, and independence would be nice.  Liquid nitrogen is not a  major
expense either, but it would be comforting to be able to generate our own  
without paying for energy. 
 
Several types of energy are potentially nearly unlimited in magnitude and  
eventually relatively cheap. But the outstanding candidate for the long  
term is Seebeck electric energy.
 
The thermoelectric effects were discovered almost 300 years ago, and we  
consider a circuit with different materials on the two sides. If an electric  
voltage is applied across the circuit, one junction will become cooler and 
the  other warmer, the Peltier effect, which can be used e.g. for 
refrigeration (or  heating) with no moving parts. The reverse is the Seebeck 

effect--use of a  temperature difference to produce a voltage. (When Mae and I  
lived 
in  Arizona, our house used thermo-electric heating and cooling.)
 
What makes Seebeck electric energy outstanding, compared say to solar or  
tidal or wind energy, is that it is available always and everywhere, not just 
 when the sun is shining or the tide is changing or the wind blowing. A 
Seebeck  generator requires only a temperature difference between two nearby 
locations,  and these always exist--e.g. surface and subsurface temperature 
differences  always exist, on  land or at sea, although of course some will be 
more  attractive than others. 
 
A simple Seebeck circuit, using temperature difference to measure voltage,  
is called a thermocouple. A bunch of thermocouples in series is a 

thermopile,  the voltages additive..  Once built, a thermopile has no 
maintenance 
cost,  since it has  no moving parts, and after you pay for the gadget your 
energy  is free. (I'll omit some very minor quibbles.) 
 
So far the capital cost is not in the competitive range, but it will get  
there.
 
Robert Ettinger
 

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