Solar Thermoelectric Technology: Part 1
The Relative Merits of Thermoelectric Generation and Storage
by Dennis L. Feucht
Innovatia Laboratories
Several decades ago, Jay Forrester, the MIT inventor of magnetic core memory,
did a global dynamics simulation involving a system of nonlinear differential
equations. It predicted the demise of civilization as we know it due to
energy depletion, overpopulation, and overpollution. A similar study funded
by the global-elite group, the Club of Rome, corroborated his simulation
and reported doom in a widely-read book in the 1970s, Limits to Growth by
Dennis Meadows. While the conclusion that we would be out of energy by now
and the end would be near has not been realized, the general direction of
these simulations cannot be brushed aside too hastily. Few places on earth
are left that petroleum engineers and geophysicists have not explored to
satisfy the increasing demand for oil. Global oil production is predicted
to equal demand this decade, and more precisely, the crossover is occurring
about now.
With a diminishing supply of oil, and at a time when the most populous part of the developing world is expanding economically, it is not hard to conclude that the search for new energy sources beyond oil should be a high engineering priority. There is, in fact, plenty of available energy but it is underused due to lack of efficient technology. The sun provides an energy density of about 1 kW/m² when overhead on a clear day. How might it be converted to electricity?
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