So, i was recently thinking about a few ideas that could possibly help with the current energy dilemma we are facing, such as the shortages of fuel and how most of the reliable sources and non-renewable. so i thought of a few ideas which may help us in the future however these may sound completely silly or impossible in reality. so here i go:
- The first method is related to energy in locomotives and re-using the wasted energy. We fill our cars with petroleum and this, in turn, produces chemical energy which is converted to kinetic energy, therefore, setting our vehicle motion. I did a bit of research and found out that 70 to 85 percent of the energy produced in cars is wasted. For example, this energy is wasted or lost from the car as light, heat, or sound energy. Mainly heat, that’s why cars are usually hot when the engines are running. so I thought what if we could re-capture this lost heat back into a car, for example, a metal rod from the engine which would conduct the waste energy which was turned into heat. So this wasted heat energy would be led into a micro-turbine generator which would have to be fitted into the vehicle. This heat would then heat a small pool of water in the micro-turbine generator, turning the turbine causing the copper coils to rotate and generate energy which would then be used to power the car. Overall this would basically double the amount of energy you would be getting from one portion of fuel making it much more efficient to use rather than letting this heat energy be wasted. However for this to work, it would have to be cost-effective, enough energy would have to be made for it to actually worth the price of all the extra fittings
. - My last idea is that, what if we had a device that could capture the heat energy in our surroundings. There is so much heat energy in our surroundings going to waste, what if we could harvest and make use of this energy, would we then have another way to re-use energy? so for example this device could be implanted under roads where the heat energy from the cars are then transferred from the cars, through the tarmac and road, into the device where this energy is harvested and stored. It could later be used for water heating or other processes to such as a turbine generator, or else it could even somehow be converted into another energy store for various uses.
These are my ideas which i have thought of, although they may sound silly or unrealistic i feel that we should try to make the most out of our energy to extend the life of our resources such as coal, natural gas and oil which are only in limited supply.