Time, as you know, is money. We need money to pay (more) people for their time (and what they are worth) and for wet lab space, which even at incubators isn't cheap (+/- 22k a year). We've done a lot with a little, but self financing is not an option. Research isn't cheap, and when it is cheap, it often turns out to be bad research.

No one was saying that anything here was impossible to do or that no one couldn't do it. We did it. We want to do more.

While it may seem silly to not have a business model hammered out, 10s of billions of dollars are raised each year for concepts that don't plug into pre-determined business models. I mean.....most medical research dollars are essentially sunk costs funded most often with grants from non profit or government entities. Interestingly, the problems they are often trying to solve end up having commercial applications unrelated to the original target application. We are acutely aware that this could happen to us.

Here's just a few examples:

http://www.businesspundit.com/10-accidental-discoveries-that-generated-great-wealth/

I think part of the disconnect in this discussion is that in this theoretical stage, we are at the limit if answering a lot of the harder questions (and really great ones I might add) because we have hit the limit of the R&D we can do at the level we want. That's the point of the crowdfunding campaign - so we can address and discover more appropriate ways / places where this concept would be a best fit. We've proven a few key (and major) concepts but we need to prove more and as my colleague mentioned, we have a national lab here in the US who is onboard to help us do that.

Once we start knocking out the things we can and can't do, the business model that we commit to will become more clear.

Our presence on the board is to illicit the types of comments  questions you are all bringing. (Awesome). It's also to test our ability to talk about it in a way that it's understood to various audiences. You guys are an educated and pretty tough crowd. We want that.

If you want a deeper level of involvement / access as we move this thing forward, please submit your contact info on the website and we'll keep you posted on things as they progress.

www.3xergy.com

 

I think you are missing a major point, which is probably my fault - The concept is that this (or a future version of something like it that doesn't use water cooling technology) replaces the furnace (separate gas / oil input), water heater tank (separate gas / electrical input), or AC unit (electrical input). All of those things bring in energy for the sole purpose of doing one thing - heating, cooling, whatever. We are talking about having energy coming in to do multiple tasks at once....Combining heating needs and computation. When you couple something like this with say, solar and battery storage technology, it can get real interesting.  The idea is to reduce the number of energy inputs and increase (or at the very least maintain) the productive outputs.

re: data centers:

They pull a TON of juice dude just to keep them going. You know what else they pull juice for (on a separate input?). Cooling. It's constant and it's REALLY expensive. Do I have to get into the principles of thermodynamics for the cooling part on this? As long as we can produce the heat onsite within a certain range (and also depending on the system type), we can cool the stacks without drawing a separate load to do the same thing. Also, the remaining waste heat can be used to heat the building, water tanks, etc.

Stand by on the pics - sorry you have to hold my hand here - do I have to have an image hosting serve?

Woooooow. I can feel your affection. ... The love is swelling in you now.

For one: Scams usually ask for stuff ($ mainly). We don't. We're just looking to talk with people. If an investor comes along, we'll talk to them too (we are). So let's settle down on that. If you are someone who doesn't want to give your money, rest assured, we don't want it.

For two: thanks for the feedback. It's why I'm here.

It's a proof of concept: not a product ready for sale, distribution, etc. The question really isn't where do you get more cold water - it's how do make sure the material components heating the water through heat exchange can handle that type of long term stress AND make the thing work over a larger distributed network so when the demand for heat is there, there is data to fire up the components to provide heat.

The concept also has really strong applications with datacenters, but I think that's a different discussion.

I actually have some good build pics and screen grabs of testing....but I'm at a loss as to how to post pics on here. Lil help? Anyone?

This....is nothing like what we are doing.

Did you visit our site? Or are you knee jerking it?

We are in a very early R&D phase. Submit a contact form and I'll get you on the list to be notified when the Kickstarter sets off.

In it's simplest form, yes. Pretty much. The difference being the thermal energy is stored and available for use on demand. Goodbye furnace, AC unit, etc.

There could be some cool applications for gamers as well.

Hello Bitcoin/Crypto Currency world!
 
First time listener, first time caller...first....timer.  

I'll be as brief as possible. I am a part of a team that 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. 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.
 
Although we have some members of our team that are mining and active in the crypto currency space, we thought it was time to start engaging the Bitcoin community and the crypto currency community at large 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 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 (pronounced Exergy)
 
Would love your comments, comments and feed back in this thread, but please feel free to reach out directly via the website's contact form.

 
Thank you for your time.

I think as long as the bath is set up in a modular way (components can be dropped in and out in the same slot spaces ((standardization! aw yissss!)) when upgrades are needed), we could get it done.

www.3xergy.com -------> for review!

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!

Thanks yo!

Thanks for the feedback Biz!

------>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?

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."

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

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

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

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.

Yea you're gettin it!

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.