iamaboringperson wrote:
FluffyMcDeath wrote:
KennyR wrote:
Yeah, you could be right - the problem isn't transformers, it's resistors. Someone needs a way to make a resistor that can't and won't heat up.
That would be brilliant, but the real problem is ....
Whatever energy saving thing you develop, it better be cheaper than what's already being used. Why? Because the guy who's designing the gear you're going to buy isn't going to be paying your power bill so he doesn't have to worry about it.
When it comes to consumer items, consumers are dumb on average and don't care how much they will have to pay for power in the furture in whatever form; gas, coal, petrol, electricity. Cheap to buy trumps saves power over time.
Only big companies and municipalities and governments look into that kind of performance. They have accountants who can figure out the number of beans payed over equipment lifetimes. Joe Blo don't know.
More importantly, resistors produce heat basically due to the fact that electrons keep 'bumping' into the bit's of carbon etc. (other insulator materials) in the resistor.
The electrons are doing work. And in this world you don't get energy out of nothing. Electrical energy converts to heat energy. (So that there is always an equal amount of energy (and matter, for that matter) in the universe)
Heatless resistors are impossible.
Although you might be able to convert to magnetic energy instead to some extent, but then you have to compensate for the inductance, is there a way to induce a magnetic field without shoring up an inductance? Even a straight wire seems to shore up a field, does anyone know how much power is shored up in a few miles of powerline?
It would be lossy, I know, but if there's a necessity for heat tradeoff it could be usefull.
