相关论文: Electricity instead of heat

The mitigation of climate change requires a fundamental transition of the energy system. Affordability, reliability and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions constitute central but often conflicting targets for this energy transition.…

From the steam engine to current nano-devices, the design of efficient thermal machines has been instrumental in modern societies. In its essence a thermal engine can be thought as a working substance, in contact with two or more baths,…

The transition from a fossil-based energy economy to one based on renewable energy is driven by the double challenge of climate change and resource depletion. Building a renewable energy infrastructure requires an upfront energy investment…

Thermoelectricity describes phenomena that allow us to convert heat into electricity and vice versa. The practical implications of this conversion are obvious. However, research on thermoelectric effects also leads to a deep understanding…

It is argued that a typical many body energy eigenstate has a well defined thermodynamic entropy and that individual eigenstates possess thermodynamic characteristics analogous to those of generic isolated systems. We examine large systems…

We introduce a new class of mesoscopic heat engines consisting of a tunnel junction coupled to a linear thermal bath. Work is produced by transporting electrons up against a voltage bias like in ordinary thermoelectrics but heat is…

Aspects of the dynamical glass transition are considered within a mean field spin glass model. At the dynamical transition the the system condenses in a state of lower entropy. The difference, the information entropy or complexity, is…

Growth of intermittent renewable energy and climate change make it increasingly difficult to manage electricity demand variability. Centralized storage can help but is costly. An alternative is to shift demand. Cooling and heating demands…

Water can be transitioned to an enhanced heat-conducting phase by supercooling only the water at the bottom of a container. The temperature gradient across the 4 cm in the center of an 8 cm long column of water with a 397 mW heat source at…

Thermoelectric devices are heat engines, which operate as generators or refrigerators using the conduction electrons as a working fluid. The thermoelectric heat-to-work conversion efficiency has always been typically quite low, but much…

The concept of thermal machines has evolved from the canonical steam engine to the recently proposed nanoscopic quantum systems as working fluids. The latter obey quantum open system dynamics and frequently operate in non-equilibrium…

A simple and effective approach to thermodynamics is suggested, which solves the major difficulties in the traditional presentation of the subject. The internal energy is introduced from the behavior of deformable bodies, whereas the…

A transition to a fully global renewable energy infrastructure is potentially possible in no more than a few decades, even using current wind/solar technologies. We demonstrate that at its completion this transition would terminate…

Previous formulations of heating and transport associated with strong magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) turbulence are generalized to incorporate separate internal energy equations for electrons and protons. Electron heat conduction is included.…

To phase-out fossil fuels, energy systems must shift to renewable electricity as the main source of primary energy. In this paper, we analyze how electrification can support the integration of fluctuating renewables, like wind and PV, and…

Global warming arises from 'temperature forcing', a net imbalance between energy fluxes entering and leaving the climate system and arising within it. Humanity introduces temperature forcing through greenhouse gas emissions, agriculture,…

Our Society is in high need of alternatives to fossil fuels. Nanoporous systems filled with aqueous electrolytes show great promises for harvesting the osmotic energy of sea water or waste heat. At the core of energy conversion in such…

The lately proposed vacuum matter coupling model (arXiv:1303.6568) seems to be able to provide solutions to a variety of problems in cosmology. This coupling expressed by a transition term between vacuum energy and matter, but we point out…

Over the past decades, research on two-dimensional melting has established that both first-order and continuous hexatic-liquid transitions can occur, influenced by various factors in the potential energy and system details. The fundamental…

It is possible to extract work from a quantum-mechanical system whose dynamics is governed by a time-dependent cyclic Hamiltonian. An energy bath is required to operate such a quantum engine in place of the heat bath used to run a…