[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I would encourage more people to work on this research, as such research is vitally important. Any highly motivated go-getter individual should be able to get something going within four months time.
It might be worth adding -- given the confluence of overlapping postings this weekend -- that this basic idea of thermal diode array can also be applied to a hybridized mechanical heat pump system.
There is something which is a bit mysterious, and truly anomalous (at least I have seen no good mainstream explanation for it) about the situation of cathode discharges; and the so-called "negative resistance" effect which is often seen there (actually is is negative differential resistance) ... and diodes are in the low-end of that superset (cathode effects).
IOW - Getting electrons into the physical state of what is called "ballistic" acceleration from a cathode - is the point in time (picosecond) when a possible energy gain, from some extra-dimensional source (Dirac epo field) is possible. There is also the Casimir angle to understanding the energy balance of ballistic discharges.
If energy is recoverable using ambient thermal noise, then it is likely to be much more robust when using the heat from the first or second stages of a Linde-type heat pump. The advantage of this kind of hybrid system is that about half the energy input which is required to make liquid air is recoverable by the simple expedient of expanding liquid air through a turbine, and the big advantage there - is that the cooling effect of expanding liquid air increases the Carnot spread of any heat engine, so that the previously mentioned Stirling is conceivably getting closer to unity.
If at the same time, some of the thermal energy is rectified into current, that might be enough to push a compound system over the top.
To be honest, I think that doing this would require so much precision engineering and man-hours of effort -- that it is waaaay beyond the capabilities of any unaffiliated inventor without an eight figure grant; but heck... getting even close to OU might be what gets you that grant in the first place.
...at least in a future society which sees the advantage of such R&D which is only possible once we are able, as intelligent voters, to accomplish some kind of "regime change" away from the present Petrocracy. That may mean a third party: but even the threat of a grassroots movement to a "green" party would have both the major parties retuning 'payola' handouts from big oil, and switching horses. That is the best thing about having a fluid two party system: they share the common interest of keeping the power split between two, and no more than two.
Jones
