But there are some doubters.

why can't we convert ambient heat to electricity?

The reason we don't do it must be either
A. its impossible (laws of thermodynamics?),
B. we haven't got the technology yet -- but which one?

Would it be possible in the future to use something like this to turn ambient heat to electricity?   http://phys.org/news/2012-03-efficiency.html


Read the discussion here and then be less convinced.   https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/122kc0/why_cant_we_convert_ambient_...




But all is not lost as devices actually exist and work it seems.

Thermoelectric ambient energy harvester


Perpetua Power Puck. Source: Perpetua Power

Thermoelectric generators directly convert waste heat into electricity.

The Perpetua Power Puck is the first to use a thermoelectric semiconductor on a flexible substrate and because they're flexible the pucks - which have pins to disperse excess heat - can conform to curved heat producing surfaces such as hot water pipes or pumps.

Initially the pucks are being marketed as power sources for wireless sensors at sites such as power plants and dams.

Affixing the gadget to a surface just 10 degrees Celsius warmer than the surrounding temperature can produce more than five volts and several hundred microwatts of power, enough for a typical wireless sensor.   

First developed by the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the energy harvester technology was introduced to the private sector when a group of University of Oregon graduate students created a business plan and marketing strategy for the technology through the joint UO/PNNL.

Along with technology veterans from Hewlett-Packard, one of the students founded Perpetua Power to commercialize the technology.

The company received an exclusive license from PNNL to incorporate the technology into its new product called the Perpetua Power Puck™.

It's currently being marketed for industrial automation, military and other uses.   

The Thermoelectric Ambient Energy Harvester produces electricity whenever there is a temperature difference across the device's two ends.

Energy harvesters replace or extend the life of traditional batteries used in wireless sensors or radio frequency transmitters.

Not having to travel to remote locations to check on batteries in equipment that monitors the integrity of dams or pipelines, for example, saves valuable time and money.

Energy harvesters are expected to last as long as the sensors and transmitters they power.   

Engineered to be paired with a wireless sensor module, the Perpetua Power Puck series is designed to provide reliable energy for the life of a wireless system.

Power Pucks can save multiple battery replacement cycles, leading to significant cost savings and reduction of batteries in landfills.

Read more at: https://www.printedelectronicsworld.com/articles/1437/thermoelectric-ambient-ene...

minarchist wrote on Feb 25^th, 2019 at 2:13pm:


As the nano's r a energy generator and not a energy storage , KWH wont be used at all and I think that's the confusion of the picture.
They would have a KW output with so many Volts and AMP's.. The picture doesn't make sense.
I did take the 15 hours into account (2300 divided by 15 is 160 ). That's really the only way to find how much energy the phone uses.
As a power source you need enough for the full power of the motor.... If they combine the nano's with battery storage It will probable work better as no one drives a car 24 hours a day and when your not using the vehicle it can charge its own batteries and wont need so many.

Yes if they become viable it will be interesting to see their failure rate and how they compensate for it.

The looney Greeny Tweedledum is trying to make energy from the ambient heat of her overheated "mind" which was overheated by Global Warming and rendered functionless by exposure to high concentrations of dangerous poisonous Carbon Dioxide gas.

Is she going to use that energy to campaign for the Greenies ?

Back to reality and sanity and another ambient energy scavenging system that actually works in the lab by sucking electromagnetic energy from the ether - shades of Tesla who would be cheering from his grave.


Ambient Energy Harnessed for Small Electronic Devices
2011-07-07 11:40:00Article ID: 578460


Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Manos Tentzeris displays an inkjet-printed rectifying antenna used to convert microwave energy to DC power. This grid was printed on flexible Kapton material and is expected to operate with frequencies as high as 10 gigahertz when complete. Credit: Georgia Tech Photo: Gary Meek

Researchers have discovered a way to capture and harness energy transmitted by such sources as radio and television transmitters, cell phone networks and satellite communications systems. By scavenging this ambient energy from the air around us, the technique could provide a new way to power networks of wireless sensors, microprocessors and communications chips.

“There is a large amount of electromagnetic energy all around us, but nobody has been able to tap into it,” said Manos Tentzeris, a professor in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering who is leading the research. “We are using an ultra-wideband antenna that lets us exploit a variety of signals in different frequency ranges, giving us greatly increased power-gathering capability.”

Tentzeris and his team are using inkjet printers to combine sensors, antennas and energy scavenging capabilities on paper or flexible polymers. The resulting self powered wireless sensors could be used for chemical, biological, heat and stress sensing for defense and industry; radio-frequency identification (RFID) tagging for manufacturing and shipping, and monitoring tasks in many fields including communications and power usage.

A presentation on this energy scavenging technology was given July 6 at the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Symposium in Spokane, Wash. The discovery is based on research supported by multiple sponsors, including the National Science Foundation, the Federal Highway Administration and Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

Communications devices transmit energy in many different frequency ranges, or bands. The team’s scavenging devices can capture this energy, convert it from AC to DC, and then store it in capacitors and batteries. The scavenging technology can take advantage presently of frequencies from FM radio to radar, a range spanning 100 megahertz (MHz) to 15 gigahertz (GHz) or higher.

Scavenging experiments utilizing TV bands have already yielded power amounting to hundreds of microwatts, and multi-band systems are expected to generate one milliwatt or more. That amount of power is enough to operate many small electronic devices, including a variety of sensors and microprocessors.

And by combining energy scavenging technology with supercapacitors and cycled operation, the Georgia Tech team expects to power devices requiring above 50 milliwatts. In this approach, energy builds up in a battery-like supercapacitor and is utilized when the required power level is reached.

The researchers have already successfully operated a temperature sensor using electromagnetic energy captured from a television station that was half a kilometer distant. They are preparing another demonstration in which a microprocessor-based microcontroller would be activated simply by holding it in the air.

Exploiting a range of electromagnetic bands increases the dependability of energy scavenging devices, explained Tentzeris, who is also a faculty researcher in the Georgia Electronic Design Center at Georgia Tech. If one frequency range fades temporarily due to usage variations, the system can still exploit other frequencies.

The scavenging device could be used by itself or in tandem with other generating technologies. For example, scavenged energy could assist a solar element to charge a battery during the day. At night, when solar cells don’t provide power, scavenged energy would continue to increase the battery charge or would prevent discharging.

Utilizing ambient electromagnetic energy could also provide a form of system backup. If a battery or a solar-collector/battery package failed completely, scavenged energy could allow the system to transmit a wireless distress signal while also potentially maintaining critical functionalities.

The researchers are utilizing inkjet technology to print these energy scavenging devices on paper or flexible paper-like polymers – a technique they already using to produce sensors and antennas. The result would be paper-based wireless sensors that are self-powered, low cost and able to function independently almost anywhere.

A bit more here

https://www.newswise.com/doescience/?article_id=578460

Yes sounds very perpetual motion doesn't it.....

Once you dig deeper there are reams of stuff about this technique.

But it is not easy to understand as it quickly gets very technical but then NASA is involved and you need an IQ > 150 to even be allowed to enter the NASA front door.




https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmech.2017.00013/full




Now in Japan they reckon they have made one.

Turning background room temperature heat into energy
February 15, 2018, University of Tsukuba


Crystal structure. Credit: Univetsity of Tsukuba

Every time we convert energy from one form to another, part of that energy is lost in the form of heat. Trying to efficiently get that energy back is very difficult once it is lost to the environment. Thermoelectric devices can change heat energy into electricity, and vice versa. But to capture energy from heat efficiently, these devices typically need to work at high temperatures with a large temperature difference.


Now researchers centered at Japan's University of Tsukuba have developed a new kind of thermoelectric system that can harness small energy differences at low temperatures. They recently reported their results in Applied Physics Express.

"Thermoelectric batteries like ours have been proposed before, but those have been based on liquid-based cells, which are impractical for real-world applications. We created a thin-film device that operates on the same principle but with two types of solid redox material that produce a change in the potential difference in the cell over a heating and cooling cycle," says first author Takayuki Shibata.

Changing the temperature alters the ability of different layers in the device to hold on to electrons. If one layer has a greater affinity for electrons that another, this creates a potential difference. The flow of electrons from one layer to the other can then be harnessed to do work as the cell is discharged, in the same way that a normal battery works.

The researchers tested their devices for harvesting waste heat energy near room temperature. Their device produced an electrical energy of 2.3 meV per heat cycle between around 25 and 50 degrees Celsius. This result reflected an efficiency of around 1.0 percent, although the theoretical maximum for this device should be around 8.7 percent.

Corresponding author Yutaka Moritomo says, "We still have some work to do on improving the efficiency, but we expect that these issues will be overcome by optimizing the anode and cathode materials. Importantly, we have shown that solid-state thermoelectric batteries are viable and our film deposition method could be extended to large areas. This technology offers realistic prospects for large-scale heat energy recovery, which could be help a range of industries become more efficient."


https://phys.org/news/2018-02-background-room-temperature-energy.html

So we are led to beleive there are tens of kws of 'ambient heat' that can be easily turned into power?

it will be lucky enough to power a torch.

It masqerades as a 'cooler' something that doesnt really exist.