With all this freezing cold temperatures gripping our continent, I was thinking about what good is the cold and how can we turn that negative of the bitter cold into a positive. I thought to myself, if we can put a man on the moon, surely man has found the ability to harness these freezing temperatures to create electricity. We have in a few ways mastered how to create electricity from fire, and wind, and the sun, and the natural flow of water, BUT, what about the cold and ice. So this post is dedicated to exploring the idea of creating electricity with the cold temperatures.
First lets look at what has been created to harness electricity with the use of fire. The following is a picture of a camp stove that creates power from the heat produced by the fire. It is costly and in my opinion only produces a minimal amount of power. But it is a good attempt, and a start.
This little light uses just a tea light candle and it can create 70 Lumens which is not too too bad for a lighting source. Again costly, but a good start and will in time see a reduction in price.
They have also come up with a concept that uses a pan that is heated whether its a burner on a stove that is fuel powered or a fire pit. Again costly and a valiant effort.
Norway and Siberia are some of the coldest places on this planet. Although where I live I feel like I live in the coldest part of the globe, however, Siberia and Norway have more of a constant temperature that is colder over the course of the entire year. Norway has discovered that if they took the constant temperature of the cold waters deep in their larger rivers and produced electricity from the constant cold 8 degree C water. The system is called the Drammen Heat pump. This is the river that produces this power.
How the Drammen heat pumps work
Water from the fjord at 8C is used to heat liquid ammonia at four times atmospheric pressure (4 bar), till it boils at 2C and evaporates
By increasing the pressure to 50 bar, the evaporated gas is heated to 120C
The gas is then used to heat the water in the heating system from 60C to 90C (the water goes out of the plant at 90C and comes back in at 60C)
Once the heat has transferred to the water, the ammonia gas changes back into a liquid state
The process begins again
This ability to create power has given many scientist something to think about, and expand upon, for the purposes of small scale homesteads and farms. Many of us have a constant water source close to our farms and homesteads. OR how about the concept of having a pump create a constant flow of water like a waterfall so the water does not freeze, flowing into a reservoir and the cold water of the reservoir can be used to create the power. Think about it folks, lets start thinking outside the box and help ourselves and use such a nuisance of a resource and make it a positive.
Happy "Power source" trails Folks
Sources:
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-31506073
https://www.lehmans.com/product/joi-heat-powered-led-light/for_the_homesteader
https://www.altitude-sports.com/products/biolite-biolite-basecamp-llll-blt-bca?gclid=CjwKCAiAhMLSBRBJEiwAlFrsTgibUMDr_Qw0qpgGHMfm7mLwUrjaBrxUTGO4gk0CEaNPpgWc_pMnHRoCsd0QAvD_BwE