An invention thats needed and would be worth billions

[FluffyMcDeath]

@ Kenny

It's not the transformers that are the problem, generally. High efficiency transformers are available that are 99% efficient and even crap transformers are better than 95%.

So if you are drawing 100 Watts, 5 Watts are getting burned up in the crappy transformer, and that's quite a bit but everything is going through the transformer so it gets hot. The real problem is the remaining 95 Watts which are dissipated by the system, mostly as heat, only that loss is distributed over more componants so the heat is less noticable. The real way to heat the transformer less is to reduce the amount of power the rest of the system needs.

[smithy]

Calculate the kind of power you need to warm a 5x8x2.5m room by 8C and you get a feeling of what is just being wasted.

I bet only a fraction of that 8C rise is down to electrical stuff... there is a much bigger energy-emitter in the room - YOU!

A human being emits a lot of heat!  Try putting a hat & gloves on, a big coat and covering as much skin as possible... I bet you'll find your room will barely rise in temperature at all! :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

@KennyR

ever heard of super conduction? Might be usefull with your invention :-)

[smithy]

A human being emits a lot of heat!

Doh!  This is the real reason for global warming.

In 1950 there were 2.5 billion people in the world, today there are 6.3 billion - those extra 3.8 billion people are probably responsible for the average temperature to have risen by 0.6C (http://carto.eu.org/article2480.html) in the last 54 years....

Over the next 46 years, according to the US Censor Bureau (http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html), global population growth will slow down... perhaps this will cause, a slowdown in the average temperature rise.

[iamaboringperson]

Simple - but with one flaw: they're very inefficient.

As mentioned a number of times before they are quite efficient! 95% ? The worst you're likely to find would be 97-98% efficient!

What alternatives are there?

Well, if you're prepared to switch to DC, you could try a plain old voltage divider circuit. It's just two resistors! ...and a great big heat sink to take the heat from the resistors away.

Then there is a voltage regulator circuit.  They too just cause the extra voltage to turn to heat.

The physics teacher that I had when I started my second diploma course enjoyed rambleing on and on about the formula that can be used to work out what value capacitor is required to run a red LED from the mains! The formula contained Pi, and all sorts of things.


So, there you have it. There are alternatives, but they don't really have many advantages (except for size and weight).  And they're all less efficient.

[blobrana]

OH, Oh!,
i know this one....

Has anyone mentioned superconducting nano tubes?

replace all the wires  with nano tubes ...

[KennyR]

iamaboringperson wrote:
Well, if you're prepared to switch to DC, you could try a plain old voltage divider circuit. It's just two resistors! ...and a great big heat sink to take the heat from the resistors away.

Then there is a voltage regulator circuit. They too just cause the extra voltage to turn to heat.

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.

[FluffyMcDeath]

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.

[iamaboringperson]

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.

[T_Bone]

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.

[blobrana]

@T_Bone
>>lossy

Hum, i once saw a piece of `Art` that had hundreds of striplight tubes planted in a field under a power-pylon...

Of course they all lit up at night...




:smoke: