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Hello Bitcoin world!

First time listener, first time caller...first....timer.

I'll be as brief as possible. I've got a client who has developed a prototype machine that essentially captures, stores, and when necessary, distributes the waste heat generated from high capacity computing. The prototype and the concept is mostly being pushed out over Energy Efficiency related networks. While my client is a Bitcoin miner on the side, I thought it was time to start engaging the Bitcoin communities a little as well.

In a nutshell, the system is a node in a larger distributed network that is sending high capacity computation back out to the grid for others (maybe you?) to use. In putting that data out to the grid (presumably to similar type machines) the waste heat is locally captured and directed accordingly.

While there are a ton of applications for that extra computing power, your community seems to have the greatest immediate use and quite frankly, the most available source of expertise.

In the coming weeks, we'll be starting a KS or Indie campaign to raise money for R&D. Ideally, we'd actually like to crowd source a lot of the R&D particularly as we develop the distributed networking capacity. There is R&D related to materials as well, but that's wet lab based and will address different issues.

www.3xergy.com

Would love your comments / questions on the thread, but please feel free to reach out directly via the website's contact form.

Thanks ya'll!

I don't get it. Why would anybody in their right mind want to heat a building using the waste heat from electrical devices when it's far more energy efficient to just use a heat pump? ???

Air source heat pumps are generally only effective in moderately cool and warm climates. Also, their efficiency / cheapness of use has as much to do with KWh rates as anything else. Electrons are cheap these days, especially with nat gas power plants replacing coal.

It's at the proof of concept stage right now. It's important to prove that we can consistently capture, radiate, and store thermal energy essentially using data packets.   

The idea is that it's doing these things with one electrical input rather than multiple inputs going to a separate water heater or furnace / HVAC system. 

We are partnering with an entity whose technology comes pretty close to revolutionizing air conditioning - it's pretty big and would only really scale at the data center level, but again, if we can get that going, prove the concept, the efficiency factors can be further modeled and improved on for (hopefully) home or even community level use. 

I'm re-posting from a question someone had on another thread. might be a clearer on the concept.

"We are based in the US and while there are definitely mining applications, the idea is that the computational load across a larger distributed network essentially becomes the "fuel" to keep the components hot and transferring heat. There's also local computational demand, so theoretically, the device could control anything in your house with a CPU or GPU. Globally, the collective computational power could be tapped by you, or third parties for whatever it's needed for - advanced math, research, whatever. It's not an uncommon model actually. SETI uses a similar platform where they will use a portion of your home computer's power to run calcs - but it's extremely limiting. This prototype is VERY powerful computationally speaking. Essentially, when you plug it into a network of other "like minded" devices, you've got access to a super computer that just so happens to heat / coool your home, give you got water, and act as a smart meter for all of your other digital devices.

That's the idea anyway!"

Do you honestly expect anyone to believe such nonsense?

I'm not sure how to take that one - "believe" what? That there's a working prototype? The theory behind its application on a distributed network? Mining? I'm not saying we don't have a lot of work to do - we do. I'm just looking for genuine feedback.

Did you visit our site? There are solid photos of the build here. http://www.3xergy.com/wp/the-chc-prototype/
 
(Umm - embarrassing admission - how do I post pics in my post? I'd like to drop in some mods my client made to the prototype this weekend....)

Fun fact - he was using 5 gallon plastic paint bucks in the thermal storage but the temp was getting too hot and compromising the plastic's integrity. Gearing up to fabricate something more capable of handling high temps.

Maybe people who run mass BTC mining operations or botting set ups could use this as an alternative to heat their house in the winter and it might even out the cost of their power bill.

Aren't you really talking about shifting the computing of computations that you are now doing, to other people's computers, via the Net, so that their computers get hot rather than yours? Then you get the results of the computation back for your own use, while the people get their heat off their computers for their own use.

Isn't this what the mining pools are doing already?

:)

Yea you're gettin it!

Mining is just one application where a distributed network would add value. There are also applications to smart grid / demand side management, and the whole "internet of things" possibilities.

Well the heat is going to be generated from high capacity computer processing so might as well capture it and use it because you can't mine cryptos with a heat pump :)

Would it be profitable for people to invest in a mining op if I started one because my electricity bill is the same every month no matter how much electricity I use.

There you go - we're trying to pull more outputs out of less inputs.

I'm sure there is a model there - again admittedly, I know very little about the mining world.

What part of the world are you in? I pay the same every month but December. That is when I have to settle my account. Either they owe me a credit or I owe them extra.

I live in the US, my job gives me housing and I pay a certain amount each month no matter how much electricity, heat, water, or anything I use.

Start a big PHS Mining Operation then. Get a couple of thousand Antminer S3s :P

Yeah I was wondering what the profit would be, would you have an estimate?

Would Maxwell's dæmon classify as combined heating and computation?

We have digital money storage, so why not digital energy storage? Store the heat as 1's and 0's!

"Demonic device converts information to energy";  http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101114/full/news.2010.606.html

"information is being converted to energy", says Sano.

"This is a beautiful experimental demonstration that information has a thermodynamic content," says Christopher Jarzynski.

There are actually refrigerators that use thermocouple action in reverse.

A thermocouple has 2 dissimilar metals welded or otherwise attached together. When heat is applied at the joint, and is convected down the metals, a current is generated in the metals. If the metals are wires attached at the ends, and only one of the ends is heated, the current flows in a circuit around the wire loop.

What is interesting is, if you induce and electric current in the wires rather than heating one of the joints, as the current flows (must be DC), heat is transferred from one of the dissimilar metal joints to the other. Refrigerators have been made that use this process, though the last thing I heard years ago was that they aren't very efficient.

Next step. Transfer an Internet signal from one computer to another, in a way that actually allows a reverse transfer of heat from the other computer to the first one.

:)

Our concept essentially turns the cpu / gpu components into resistance heaters.

What you are conceptualizing is something like this kind of a heater:

When you folks in the cold country heat your house, you run some kind of fuel through a furnace, to burn it and produce heat. Think about a fuel oil fired furnace. Now, think about this. The fuel oil doesn't care at all how it is burned. As long as it is burned fairly cleanly, it will produce the desired heat.

Get yourself a little, 3 cylinder, Kabota diesel engine. Run the engine off the fuel oil. The fuel oil doesn't care. When the exhaust comes out of the engine exhaust pipe, run it through a heat exchanger, and heat your house.

At the same time, run a generator with the engine, and use the electricity to produce electric heat. Literally cut your heating bill in half.

If you are going to run a computer so hot that you have enough heat to heat your house, why waste the heat? Do what these guys are suggesting, mine bitcoins through a mining pool, and heat your house at the same time.

:)

Yea you are getting it -

Honestly, think of it this way: your auto engine works on the same principles (minus the distributed networking). It burns fuel in order to provide propulsion, but the heat and the kinetic energy of the motor is captured to heat the occupants in the summer, cool them in the winter, and run all of the electronics housed in the vehicle. That's why we call the concept Exergy.

"In thermodynamics, the exergy of a system is the maximum useful work possible during a process that brings the system into equilibrium with a heat reservoir. When the surroundings are the reservoir, exergy is the potential of a system to cause a change as it achieves equilibrium with its environment. Exergy is the energy that is available to be used."

Can you draw me something to explain me how this should work? So far i have no idea how this should work...

------>Electricity----->Computer components-------->Computation
                                                              {--------->Waste heat--->heat exchanger attached to computer components--->usable waste heat

That honestly might be the worst graphical on Earth but I still haven't figured out how to upload images. Is that at all helpful?

We're actually not heating the building with waste heat, the second prototype unit is being designed to be the primary heat and eventually cooling for the building, the computation is just a beneficial byproduct of creating heat for those existing loads.

When you think about processors and where all the energy goes in running one, it's all heat.  An infinitesimally small amount of energy is consumed in the actual processing, likely couldn't measure it is you wanted to, and the main output of computing is heat.  If 99.99999% of the energy that is consumed by a processor is converted to heat then it is pretty efficient at making heat out of electricity, at least as good as the existing resistance heating technology today.

The big difference is the beneficial byproduct - computation.  We are using computation to offset energy consumption that already exists (people already pay to heat their house and water) with a heating system that makes hot water and air with computation.  That means you are getting one or the other for free, computation or heat.  If you are actually making money off of the computation (by mining coins?) then you could, in theory, be making money while heating your house or hot water.  I dont think you can do that with a heat pump... yet.

We are already hitting temperatures with the 1st prototype that allow us to create cold with heat as well so we will soon be making heat, cold (for AC or refrigeration) and computation all from the very same energy we are just using for computation today.

Its pretty cool, or hot depending on how you look at it.

 8)

Check out the 1st prototype at the link to the website below ->

0/10 bad idea

Thanks for the feedback Biz!

No worries, good luck adesanctis!

Thanks yo!

Back when I used to tinker, I thought about making a car engine that would run really hot. The cooling jacket of the engine would actually be a boiler, that would take the heat from the engine, and run a second, STEAM, engine. All the heat would be captured, even from the exhaust, and converted into boiling water to run a second engine. The heat would be used twice. The steam engine might put out almost as much mechanical force as the main, gasoline engine.

I never did this, as I was only a tinkerer. But think of using a small gasoline or diesel engine as the main engine. If you had good insulation, and if the engines could be built to withstand the heat, you actually might be able to run 10 engines (or any number) off the same heat until too much of the heat dissipated through the insulation.

Exergy is the start of something like this in the computing industry.

:)

The principle applies theory to a ton of applications and it's extraordinary that we don't employ it more often.

You guys like beer? Me too. These guys are doing it with their operations.

Check it:

http://blog.rmi.org/blog_2014_07_23_combined_heat_and_brewing_power


And for review...

www.3xergy.com

Keep em coming guys!