Posted on 03/21/2008 5:08:59 AM PDT by saganite
I think it’s a company with only one asset .... a website. However any any improvement in this technology with be valuable.
The internal combustion engine in real world conditions gets about 20% Carnot efficiency. It certainly was good enough to build an economy on.
If they can manage 30% efficiency, they have a real chance to replace gasoline engines. At this level, they also compete well with steam turbine electrical generation.
If they can get to 50% then the diesel engine goes too.
At 10% if it is cheap enough, there are many reasonable applications such as alternator replacement and auxilliary electric power on semi trucks.
Peltier effects are cool and some real advances are being made but quantum gap devices offer some real alternatives and theoretical vast improvements in effiency.
Couple this with big advances in Solid Oxide fuel cells, the fundimental technology of modern society is going to change radically in the next twenty years.
Thanks for the ping.
Your comment about solid oxide fuel cells sent me off on a discovery tour from Wikipedia to current articles. As recently as this month some company is claiming 15KW/Litre density with their fuel cell. According to the article that would beat the then current best density by a factor of 4. I can see great applications for these things in generating emergency power, say after a hurricane, and power in remote sites. I’m sure the military is loving it. What is the potential of SOFC for large scale power production?
I was talking about low grade waste heat energy recovery in industry. If I am trying to use waste heat from steam condensate, the maximum heat available is at 212F, usually a bit less. If my heat sink in the summer is a cooling tower, I can manage 80F cool water temperature.
The carnot efficiency in this case is about 20%. This is the theoretical maximum efficiency. Real world efficiency is less, about 10 to 15% at best. The closer you get to perfect, the more it costs. Even at 20% efficiency (impossible under the conditions I just described), the savings on electricity would not pay back the investment before the thermo-electric devices would need replaced unless they become dirt cheap.
I was not talking about higher heat sources, where the carnot efficiency is higher and the economics are more favorable. However, call me a skeptic if you wish, but I'd be surprised that the cost and reliability (they go together) of a large scale generating system would ever compete financially with mechanical electricity generation. It will have it's place, just as solar, hydro, and wind will, but I think it will serve a supporting role and not the main role. For instance, I can see using thermo-electrics to capture heat in a power plant that leaks through insulation, or in vents to capture heat going to atmosphere. They would enhance the overall plant efficiency in that case.
The economics really all depend upon the price of fuel.
With cheap abundant coal and minimal emissions limits, the economics of a coal fired steam turbine are hard to beat.
With government pressure to limit stack emissions, there is going to be a real pressure on the power industry to burn less coal. I know the technology is still a few years away but there is a real posibility for the industry to change from turbine generation to SOFC generation. This has two main benefits, the primary generation is about 70% more efficient and the waste heat is of much higher quality. Instead of a delta of 120 degrees, you are looking at more than 500 degrees. It is enough to drive a secondary steam turbine or if the technology is ready, thermoelectric generators.
There are millions of dollars being invested in SOFC power generation both for small and large scale applications. Money is being invested because the potential benefits are huge. The fuel cells are significantly more efficient than current power plants and they put out high quality heat which in itself is useful.
We are just beginning to see products hitting the streets. The company you read about has the potential to shake up the market. They are expecting to get significantly better power density in the future. Their process is easier to manufacture in industrial quantities and have solved several problems that have plagued SOFC fuel cells most notably, seal leaks and low temperature connections to the cell.
It’s nothing more than a solid state heat pump. They have been using this technology for ages to refrigerate a space, but it had very limited practical applications because it was so inefficient.
If this new version of the tech pans out, we will have refrigerators and airconditioners that have no moving parts and do not utilize freon or refrigerant of any kind. Just simply apply a voltage to a metal plate(or in this case, semiconductor material) and it will get cold.
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