Looks old and icky but its really new and cool
MIT’s Technology Review covers a cool technology from Ener-G-Rotor’s Inc:
Factories, data centers, power plants–even your clothes dryer–throw off waste heat that could be a useful source of energy.
The system uses the organic Rankin Cycle (ORC) to push a rotor and generate electricity. Because of efficiencies in the rotor design and the use of a low boiling point refrigerant it can generate electricity in heat of just 65 degrees centigrade:
Reducing the friction means that the rotor turns more easily, so the gas doesn’t need to exert as much force to generate electricity. That’s why the system can work at lower temperatures, which impart less energy to the gas.
The company expects to convert 10 to 15 percent of low-temperature waste heat into electricity, delivering a payback in two years or less in most cases,
Sweet! I can see this down in my basement next to the water heater and by the clothes dryer.
I wonder why somebody doesn’t just put a magnifying glass up over this thing in a hot sunny desert? That would get mighty hot, for free, and drive this bad boy.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Not to worry, by 2200 AD carbon dioxide atmospheric levels could approach 4% at which point vertebrates will cease exchanging oxygen in their hemoglobin and suck up CO2 instead. – Proceedings of the IEEE Nov 08
Sequestering CO2 at coal plants will help until nuclear plants come on line. New
technology may solve this otherwise we’ll have to distribute survival suits. Another solution is population control reducing the need for energy. Cowabunga chief!
Of course botulism and gangrene will make it through.