Quote:
Originally Posted by Javed
Capturing energy as the Earth cools is something I hadn't heard of before. It seems counter-intuitive to get energy from something that is cooling instead of heating. This, however, is a fascinating concept that could be very useful. I wonder how cost effective this would be as a way of obtaining energy.
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You obtain energy when there is a heat gradient, that is, when there is one thing that is hot and another thing that is cold. When they are in contact, the hot thing cools down and the cold thing heats up. Eventually they are at the same temperature.
As long as heat is flowing from one object to another, energy can be generated.
It is just that in this case, the hot thing is the earth, and the cold thing is the infinite cold of deep space. In other words, you are getting energy from something that is heating, deep space.
Otherwise, this is just a simple application of the
thermocouple, which was discovered in 1834.