Collecting energy from thin air

[the_big_m_in_ok]

There is research being done on this its just that they can't publish anything on it yet!

There were a fair number patents issued for water desalination by air compression so strong, the water boiled like it was on top of Mt. Everest.  Sort of room temperature boiling, although whether the water "heated up" by being decompressed is unknown to me.

Steam from this process was used to turn power generating turbines and then cooled to distilled water.  Some processes were reasonably straightforward and other were complicated, but money was probably he deciding factor in inventing the original device, whatever that was. That's possibly a reason that more money isn't spent on such an expensive undertaking as to build a whole plant that may require about as much power as it generates.

People, unless they volunteer, usually make a very high priority to put food on the table.

--Lee

[Low-Q]

Low-Q, I am having a hard time seeing how it can work. I don't think there is enough of a temperature difference. The energy needed to keep a high enough difference would most likely cost more energy then what is made.

Imagine a regular electric oven. You want to heat the whole house with this single oven. What temperature do you need on 1m^2 surface to heat a 250m^3 of air in the house to 20 degrees C when it is 0 degrees outside? You use maybe 4kW of electricity to heat that oven - that is a HOT oven. Now, imagine this oven is replaced with a heat pump with COP 4. You now reduce electricity down to 1kW to maintain 4kW output. The remaining 3kW is supplied by the outside temperature - because that is how a heat pump work.

The temperature on the surface of the heatpump is now very high - ofcourse it is going to heat the whole house. Enough to run a "stirling engine" with acceptable power. One side of the motor is connected to the outside temperature (NOT to the cold side of the pump), and the other connected to the hot side of the pump. Now, the relative potential energy in the air outside will not change because the amount of air is "limitless". THAT is the key to the heat pump, and the very reason it is possible to have a COP greater than 1, and also the key to make a "selfrunner" if it is done right. It is NOT impossible. Moderate/expert engineering skills chould be able to do this properly. No problem.

We do NOT talk about energy from nothing - not over unity. That is pr date not possible.