The heatpump, with more energy out than in (FACT)

[Nabo00o]

Do not be so sure of that infringer, even if it is the cheapest technology aviable to make all our cars into free driving petrobiles
Of course, the heat pump will definitely not be the cheapest and powerfull technology available, but it proves a point of immence importance.

Now to the heat pump again, it will need a sufficient high temperature to start, because in a way, it uses the heat as a medium to channel in extra energy potentials. And in the case of a possible overunity machine, a small ammount of heat input to start the system isn't such a big loss.

Still you seem to fall away from my main reason to belive why that a heat pump can eceed unity, because it creates a temperature potential of much greater energy potential than input, and that this energy potential does in no way reflect on the energy allready existing in the system in the form of heat, as that is another form of potential, but still usable  energy of course.

Hmm, any more reasons I have forgot to mention?

[spinner]

Hello Spinner:

The FE confusion arises, I think, from the fact that environmental heat is as free as sun and/or wind, but, I agree that this is far from being OU in the sense "we FE woo woos" understand OU.

The National Institute of Oceanic Technology (NIOT) from India has developped a process called "Low temperature thermal desalination" (LTTD) based on the Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) technology, that uses the same principle of taking massive amounts of heat from the environment to generate distilled water. From the economic point of view, you use 180 watts of commercial electric energy (basically to pump sea water and create a partial vaccum chamber with a vaccum pump) to generate 1 cubic meter of distilled water. The process also takes around 36 Kw in the form of environmental heat for every cubic meter of water produced, but nobody has to pay for it, hence is "free".  If you compare the economic energy cost of this process with the current main technology used for desalination (Reverse Osmosis) that uses an average of 3,5 Kw of electric energy (to pump the water at high pressure through the membranes) per each cubic meter of water produced, you can see that the LTTD is far more convenient.

I doubt that anyone would really miss the environmental heat, that ultimately comes from solar energy, as long as the sun shines in the sky.

Regards.

@ChileanOne
Hello! Glad to talk to you here!
Thank you very much for a very good post and info about LTTD process. It's good to see an implementation of scientifical understanding of Nature..

I glimpsed through an article, it's nice to see some real action. This is a very good project, using "a conventional understanding and alternative - 'ambient' energy".

I was never really impressed by a current (popular) sea-water desalination methods (using a "brute force", relatively low efficient "reverse osmosis" and a high quality energy for producing drinking water), but this LTTD process appears much more natural. Of course it has a minuses, too (weather/ambient/location dependable, not suitable for a small-scale use, etc...). Still, a very promissing challenge...

@Nab00o
Yes, I think I understand what you mean... A "high CoP" heat pump should produce large enough "thermal difference"/potential, that a carefully made heat to mechanical converter (like Stirling), to electricity conversion (el. generator) may produce enough electricity for the system to be able to self-sustain... (constantly operating - pumping heat from "somewhere" (untill the "heat source" dies...))

But you're forgetting that a potential (temperature) difference is not equal to the work/energy potential... A large "heat" but small "temperature" difference reservoir has a much larger "work" / energy potential than a large temp./small heat capacity difference...

In a way, it's the same as V/I terms of electricity...

Yes, it appears that  a CoP 4 heat pump (currently there are a CoP 6, 7 and even >10 Thermodynamic devices....) would allowed a self-sustaining of a heat-pumping... Surprisingly, that would not broke any TD laws.... The energy would still be pumped out some EXTERNAL source.... But we wouldn't need any imput of (additional, electrical) energy... Our home "heat pump" would be completelly driven by a surrounding heat....
As NO electricity connections, only X kW of a pumped thermal energy... So, where's the catch

Do you know any such device? Is there some kind of conspiracy involved? ??
Thanks for answering.

[Nabo00o]

@ChileanOne
Hello! Glad to talk to you here!
Thank you very much for a very good post and info about LTTD process. It's good to see an implementation of scientifical understanding of Nature..

I glimpsed through an article, it's nice to see some real action. This is a very good project, using "a conventional understanding and alternative - 'ambient' energy".

I was never really impressed by a current (popular) sea-water desalination methods (using a "brute force", relatively low efficient "reverse osmosis" and a high quality energy for producing drinking water), but this LTTD process appears much more natural. Of course it has a minuses, too (weather/ambient/location dependable, not suitable for a small-scale use, etc...). Still, a very promissing challenge...

@Nab00o
Yes, I think I understand what you mean... A "high CoP" heat pump should produce large enough "thermal difference"/potential, that a carefully made heat to mechanical converter (like Stirling), to electricity conversion (el. generator) may produce enough electricity for the system to be able to self-sustain... (constantly operating - pumping heat from "somewhere" (untill the "heat source" dies...))

But you're forgetting that a potential (temperature) difference is not equal to the work/energy potential... A large "heat" but small "temperature" difference reservoir has a much larger "work" / energy potential than a large temp./small heat capacity difference...

In a way, it's the same as V/I terms of electricity...

Yes, it appears that  a CoP 4 heat pump (currently there are a CoP 6, 7 and even >10 Thermodynamic devices....) would allowed a self-sustaining of a heat-pumping... Surprisingly, that would not broke any TD laws.... The energy would still be pumped out some EXTERNAL source.... But we wouldn't need any imput of (additional, electrical) energy... Our home "heat pump" would be completelly driven by a surrounding heat....
As NO electricity connections, only X kW of a pumped thermal energy... So, where's the catch

Do you know any such device? Is there some kind of conspiracy involved? ??
Thanks for answering.

Bah! Just wrote a whole page then something with my browser screwed up and I lost it ;(

Anyway, the device is not in existance but all the components is, its only a matter of putting them together to make it work. Also, it would be far better to throw away the electric turbine that drives the heatpump and instead use the sterling engine to drive it, as it would be alot more efficient and would not need an electrical powersource for the gas compression.
I personally think that there is a problem both with the scientific community and with the power innterests (mainly oil), and since they both are happy with the way our world is today they will have a hard time changing to something as radical as this. Of course that goes for any other possible free energy machine cabeable of producing a usable output of energy

[greendoor]

Conservative science is tarnished with this fixation that free-energy, perpetual motion or overunity is impossible.  For this reason, the makers of any appliance (such as a heat pump) that offers free energy has to devise some semantics to make it appear acceptable.  This is why the term Coefficeint of Performance has become necessary - to avoid silly arguments like we have here.

A typical heat pump is really a sophisticated solar energy device.  The ambiant environment is used as a heat soak, so these things can work at night or on cloudy days - but basically the heat comes from the sun, or geothermal or whatever heat source is creating the heat energy.  The clever trick is to turn a lot of low temperature heat into a smaller amount of high temperature heat.  In that regard, it's a little like an electrical transformer than can turn low volts into high volts, at the expense of current.  So the total energy into this thing is always less that you get out, due to losses.  But to the consumer who doesn't have to pay for the ambiant heat energy, it's FREE ENERGY, baby. 

There NO reason why a heat pump cannot power a generator, and given a COP of 4, there is NO reason why the generator could not run the heat pump, and the surplus would be genuine free energy.  Clearly a Perpetuum Mobile of the 2nd kind.  Without a doubt.  And this fact should not be disputed.

So why aren't we seeing this being done?  Who cares about semantics - this is FREE ENERGY for the taking.  Ultimately, it will cool the earth a little.  Worried about global warming?  This is the solution.

I agree with the original poster - this fact needs to be pointed out, because obviously not many people understand that this is possible.  They are too indoctrinated with the 'laws of thermodynamics' mantra.  But this does not break the laws of thermodynamics - the source of energy is obvious.  And its free.  And yes, it could definately be engineered to run a self-sustaining perpetual motion machine with useful power output.  (If we can avoid the semantic disputes about whether a mechanical device that could break down in 100 years time is by definition 'perpetual' ...).

Do it.  Build it  Make yourself rich.  It's all possible.





 

[greendoor]

It would make a lot of sense to avoid some of the steps in the process - because a heat pump is made for people who want cheap heat.  But if we want cheap electricty, don't bother turning the compressed refrigerant into heat again - turn it into rotary motion.

So a decent commercial device would be a box that connects to a fluid loop buried in the ground that is the source of a high volume of low temperature heat.  We would need a starter motor to get this started, but once started, this would self power.  There would be a refrigerant compressor, that initially the starter motor would have to turn.  This compressor would compresses the low temp refrigerant and turn it into hot compressed liquid.  This liquid would then go to a turbine, where it expands and cools, driving a generator.  The energy available to the generator turbine is the sum of the energy being put into the compressor (initially from the starter motor) and the sum of the heat energy extracted from the loop embedded into the environment. 

The trick is to let the hot compressed refrigerant gas really expand so much that it gets very cold.  Have you ever seen the frost that forms around a car tyre when the air is being let out?  Expanding gases get very cold - because obviously the motion of the molecules has less friction between them as the distance between increases due to increasing volume. 

So this cool gas is pumped through the ambiant loop, and this causes the ambiant heat to continue to flow into the system. 

We know that with todays technology, a COP >3 is possible.  So allowing for losses in the turbine, compressor and generator, should still be able to get overunity with good engineering practices.  It won't be easy - but it should be possible.

Providing the generator is outputting more power than the compressor is consuming, the starter motor could be turned off and the system should self sustain.