this post was submitted on 06 Mar 2026
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I wonder how long until we can efficiently convert heat into energy, instead of just moving it around and generating even more heat
Heat IS energy.
Sorry, bad English. I mean electricity
We already can convert a heat differential into electricity.
Converting "just heat" into electricity is impossible though, that would break the laws of thermodynamics and create a perpetual motion machine. There is heat literally everywhere, even the coldest things we have made are not exactly 0K. So you could create electricity for free anywhere.
We're already close to the efficiency limit. Look up Carnot cycle.
The Carnot cycle is just for the Carnot engine. If we could use chemistry or quantum systems, it would have different efficiencies
No really if you could convert heat to motion more efficiently than the (ideal) Carnot engine, you could have perpetual motion since the Carnot engine is reversible.