Possible uses for Heat Generated by btc mining?

[wolverine.ks]

Possible uses for heat generated by btc mining....Someone on the forums said they heat their house with their mining rig. What else could be done with the heat? What are people already using it for?

Some ideas I was thinking about....

Hot water heater for a house or hotel
Instant Hot Water for faucets
Steam Generators
Sauna
Hot Tub
Cooking food

Anything else that might be kinda crazy?

[malevolent]

A few threads that I remember:

Bathroom floor heating: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3707.msg53879#msg53879
"Dehydrated strawberries": https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52331.msg624415#msg624415
Uses of waste mining heat: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=52340.0;all
Harrassing wasted heat? Post your pics and ideas!: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=155841.0;all

[os2sam]

The BFL Jalapeno was supposed to be a coffee warmer.  They even sent me a coffee cup.  But the top of the thing is the coolest part of it.  It's not a very well designed coffee warmer.

[Bitweasil]

The main problem is that the usable heat coming off the miners is low grade by the nature of silicon.  You can't run 120-200C temperatures and expect anything to either run or last long.

So you're stuck with "warm but not hot" temperatures, which are mostly useful for heating.  That's about all you can expect from it.

Further, you typically would want the miners running constantly, so you need something that can sink a steady source of lowgrade heat.  Room heating or water preheating are the obvious solutions.

The most economical is probably a preheater for the hot water heater, but you'd have to go through a good bit of hot water to make it worth it.

[vapourminer]

The most economical is probably a preheater for the hot water heater, but you'd have to go through a good bit of hot water to make it worth it.

I have a hybrid domestic hot water heater. it uses a heat pump to remove heat from the air and put it into the tank for our use.

similar to this one:
http://www.geappliances.com/heat-pump-hot-water-heater/

and my miners are in the basement...

[Kluge]

Why go crazy? It's starting to get cold, here. Just need a fan or two, and the heat's no longer wasted. Poof. ~100% efficiency.

[ktttn]

Dyson spheres?
Considering that Nuclear power plants are nothing but really complicated water heaters, scaling up mining rigs to planetary levels might be cool. Also redundancy is neat.

[cedivad]

Why its not possible to use the energy inside a 50°C flux of water to finally move a turbine (150°C)?
Isn't there any way to do it?
Its just a curiosity I had for a long time, non bitcoin related.

[Bitweasil]

Why its not possible to use the energy inside a 50°C flux of water to finally move a turbine (150°C)?
Isn't there any way to do it?
Its just a curiosity I had for a long time, non bitcoin related.

Short answer: The laws of thermodynamics prohibit it.

Your maximum efficiency of a heat engine is determined by the absolute temperatures of the hot side and cold side.

For the output of a miner, the hot side is barely warmer than the cold side.  The theoretical power output is present but tiny.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Why its not possible to use the energy inside a 50°C flux of water to finally move a turbine (150°C)?
Isn't there any way to do it?
Its just a curiosity I had for a long time, non bitcoin related.

It is not that you CAN'T it is that it won't be very efficient.  Remember there is no such thing as free electricity even if you have a free/waste heat source; there is always a capital cost and all equipment has a finite lifespan.  So if your $10,000 turbine produces so little electricity over its economical lifespan that it has an average cost of $1.00 per kWh it doesn't really make sense.   The hotter the input and the colder the output the more efficient the energy conversion is (thermal energy to electrical energy).


The waste heat from miners is simply too "cool" to be useful for power generation.   It can be useful for heat (either heating the air in a house, or heating water) but even then you have some material costs and you likely need to "water cool" your rigs.  Trying to capture waste heat from the air is an excercise in futility.

On edit: Bitweasel beat me.

[tom_o]

The heat can be useful, looking forward to it now that I'm moving into a house with single glazing and £26/month fixed electric bill.

[Zanatos666]

I have a unit with dual watercoold VGAs that sits under my desk.  The heat it gives off through the top vented radiator is nice when its cold out.  When its hot, I just keep a small fan under there.

[RChevalier]

I actually dry my laundry in a rack in the mining room.  Although some may say that might not be such a good idea with all the moisture in the room but it's not like I'm adding a whole lot of humidity either.

[mgio]

I think you could use it as a heat cource for a super efficient stirling engine which you could then attach to an electric generator.

[Bitweasil]

I think you could use it as a heat cource for a super efficient stirling engine which you could then attach to an electric generator.

Physics still wins.  The problem is that the hot side to cold side difference isn't that high, so you can't extract much energy from it...

[Eastwind]

I think you could use it as a heat cource for a super efficient stirling engine which you could then attach to an electric generator.

Physics still wins.  The problem is that the hot side to cold side difference isn't that high, so you can't extract much energy from it...

+1

[tarui]

my mother was worried about a pair of socks not drying in time and she joked that i should wash it then after squeezing out as much water as possible, hang it at the exhaust of my avalon batch 1

[mgio]

I think you could use it as a heat cource for a super efficient stirling engine which you could then attach to an electric generator.

Physics still wins.  The problem is that the hot side to cold side difference isn't that high, so you can't extract much energy from it...

I dunno, my Avalon gets pretty warm. And there are stirling engines that can run just from the heat of your hand.

[Bitweasil]

I didn't say you couldn't extract any energy.

I said you couldn't extract much. Go load up one of those sterling engines that runs on a low heat delta and calculate how much usable energy you get.

[fattypig]

Tried using it to boil an egg but after 2 hour it is half boiled