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You live on the river. And it is hot! But once you get down
below 5 feet, the river is not hot - it is always a cool 50
degrees F.
The river heat sink cooler incorporates an air pump, two
lengths of hose and a series of salvaged car radiators.
The radiators are hooked in series and lowered
into the
river. One hose takes air down, the other takes it up.
The pump can run off solar in the day, electricity at night.
Air from the living space is pumped down and drops heat
into the water. On returning up thru the hose the air is 20
degrees cooler. Repeat.
Not an mfd (whispers)
https://en.wikipedi...ater_source_cooling Great idea. [4and20, Jun 29 2013]
Honolulu Seawater HVAC
http://honoluluswac.com/ Large scale... [pashute, Aug 18 2013]
[link]
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//The pump can run off solar in the day, electricity at
night.// |
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Why not power it with the river? |
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Ha, I read that as "River as heat sink". Didn't know where to put my face. |
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This is quite an old idea - it's not widely implemented because not enough people live adjacent to a river. |
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(Interestingly, one of the new, green-energy technologies I saw at a convention was the reverse of this, a heat-pump to suck warmth out of a river to heat your home.) |
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The [link] suggests you might need deeper water and longer pipes, although it does suggest that long pipes are a terrible expense for some reason. |
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Works until you try to implement it on a mass scale; raising
the ambient temperature of a major body of water even
one or two degrees can have devastating ecological
consequences. This happened in my state* (river water was
diverted as both a motive source and a cooling medium )
during the second boom of the industrial revolution, and
vital wildlife stocks such as Atlantic Salmon are only now
fully recovering. Other species, such as the Northern
Softshelled Turtle** did not fare as well. |
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* thermal pollution was just one of many forms of pollution
suffered by Maine's waterways in the last couple of
centuries. |
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** after searching for a link, I have concluded that this may
be a coloquial name. The quest is ongoing. |
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The alternative is ground heat-exchange, relying on
the stable temperature of the ground even a few
metres below the surface. |
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First, [Marked-for-deletion] widely known to exist,
the vast majority of power plants do it. |
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//5 feet, the river is not hot - it is always a cool 50
degrees F.// |
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I question that assertion. The vast majority of
rivers
have large sections of turbulent flow, and are
fairly
well mixed. |
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That is a good wikipedia article. I like the canucks
using domestic clean water so as not to pollute with
heat. |
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I too wonder about the expense. Probably it is the
scale. I envision this as cooling one room, or a boat
cabin. |
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[bungston], you live So Cal... |
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//Why not power it with the river?// |
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Provided that all components resist collapse, it should be possible to draw water from above a small weir, and dump it below. No moving parts. Water is a better heat transfer medium than air, in any case. |
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I was trying to interest a businessman in an
energy-from-sea idea. He told us to look up what
they were doing in Greece, since they had hotels
with need for air conditioning, and all on the
beach. We found a company that was doing sea-
thermal cooling, and were supposed to contact
them the next day. (Can't find it anymore. Giving
similar link to Honolulu Seawater HVAC) |
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It was May 4th 2010. The next morning riots broke
out and mobs burnt down several buildings
including the bank where three people and a yet
unborn baby were murdered. A lot of cooling was
needed... |
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Air is a really inefficient heat transfer medium. Better to pump water through the circuit, and have an air/water cooler in the building. |
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This would be a good way of making a conventional air conditioner much more efficient as it would be rejecting heat to cold water not hot air, at the proce of warming up the river. |
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But, ultimately, what [MechE] said - Widely Known To Exist. |
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It's Green Leatherback Turtles. Not extinct, but extinct in
Maine. |
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