Cold Fusion Computer ?

[Clanscorpia]

11 minutes ago, Lurick said:

Yah, that's the annoying part. They could do double duty but in the states people are ill-informed most of the time.

Yeah, I wished we used it here in Canada. its such a great technology. 99% burn rate is amazing

[Miguel Batista]

I built a perpetual motion machine once. But I made the mistake of putting it down during the night and I never saw it again...

 

Seriously though, those magnet driven machines are not perpetual movement. They are interesting but as others have said, they generate heat therefore there are energy losses. 

[dr_sepheroth]

1 hour ago, straight_stewie said:

 I hate to be "that guy" but at this point you should probably stop talking about *science* things. Some of us are actual scientists or engineers and have a pretty good understanding of the underlying reasons why these ideas only exist in science fiction. So I'll tackle these in order, even though they've mostly been tackled already.

 

Cold Fusion

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Cold Fusion is defined as the fusion of atoms occurring at or near room temperature. The term got thrust into popularity in 1989 when Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons announced the results of what has come to be known as the Fleischmann-Pons experiment. The response to their findings among the scientific community was terrible: The experiments could never be reproduced and the two men became laughing stock. They moved to France to continue their research.

Long story short: Even mentioning cold fusion in the scientific community will literally get you laughed out of town. We aren't even sure whether it's theoretically possible or not yet.

Bio Fusion

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I'll let these google results speak for themselves:  Biofusion I just don't see what any of that has to do with producing electricity, unless this stem cell cream makes you glow so bright you can power some solar panels.

Perpetual Motion

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Physics (specifically, the laws of thermodynamics) says NOPE. But to really shorten the answer, the problem in mechanical perpetual motion machines is friction. No matter what you do there will always be some amount of friction, which means that your mechanical movements will generate some heat, which means that energy from the machine is wasted and therefore, over time, the machine will slow down.

 

that requires external equipment, I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

 

 

I am suitably scientifically minded to understand basic concepts of physics. 

If friction causes to much drag then that's the end of it.

 

 

[straight_stewie]

4 hours ago, dr_sepheroth said:

I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

 

What you are trying to find is called a SNAP or "Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power". Their primary use was to power space craft and experiments, atleast until solar power became more efficient.

I believe that you probably want the SNAP-2 or SNAP-8 but the only one I can find good video of is the SNAP-10A. So here's some information about such things:
Introductory White Pages

 

[Dash Lambda]

49 minutes ago, straight_stewie said:

-snip-

I'll have to read into those later, they look interesting.

Curiosity uses an RTG that peaks around 125W, that could power a lot of high-end laptop hardware quite comfortably. It does use the waste heat to warm itself, though, which is not a solution applicable to desktop computers...

[Terran van Hendrix]

21 hours ago, dr_sepheroth said:

that requires external equipment, I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

How about getting a mechanical generator and a suitable battery. You can hook it up to an exercise bike or something and get a workout  you'll also be doing your health a favor by only gaming as long as the exercise powered PC can hold

Spoiler

 Beside that your other options are solar or thermal generators, that generate electricity from heat (and no you can't break even energy wise and build a perpetual machine with this).

 

[aajjeee]

On 11/19/2016 at 10:35 AM, dalekphalm said:

"Now how about I say completely random scientific words that make a cool sounding sentence!"

 

Err yeah. Infinite power loops are impossible by default. Why would you think watercooling a PC could possibly create one?

exept the power comes from the expelled heat from the cpu, you use a stirling engine that drives heat away from a radiator, and the power generated is used to push the water, it WILL bee too slow and inefficient but it would work

[dalekphalm]

44 minutes ago, aajjeee said:

exept the power comes from the expelled heat from the cpu, you use a stirling engine that drives heat away from a radiator, and the power generated is used to push the water, it WILL bee too slow and inefficient but it would work

That's not an infinite power loop, as in your example, the CPU itself is giving off heat, which is introducing energy into the system. It's not a true infinite loop because there's external energy being added. And the amount of heat given off by the CPU might be enough to slowly power a pump (and even there, I'm skeptical), but it wouldn't be enough to power the whole computer, as that would break quite a few rules of physics lol.

[aajjeee]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

That's not an infinite power loop, as in your example, the CPU itself is giving off heat, which is introducing energy into the system. It's not a true infinite loop because there's external energy being added. And the amount of heat given off by the CPU might be enough to slowly power a pump (and even there, I'm skeptical), but it wouldn't be enough to power the whole computer, as that would break quite a few rules of physics lol.

yea i hadnt read it all when i wrote this, i assumed it was jsut about the 'water loop' and not energy loop

[Wolther]

On 11/19/2016 at 1:39 PM, dr_sepheroth said:

that requires external equipment, I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

 

 

I am suitably scientifically minded to understand basic concepts of physics. 

If friction causes to much drag then that's the end of it.

 

 

Solar panels sounds like the most doable option for ya. Only thing is that your pc has to be outside for this to work and.. if you develop efficient enough panels.

Small little ideas: 

Absorbing energy from KB presses (wont generate a whole lot)

Absorbing energy from the movement of your mouse (wont generate a whole lot)

 

[SCHISCHKA]

On 11/20/2016 at 7:39 AM, dr_sepheroth said:

I am thinking, a computer that could generate it's own power and be no bigger then a desktop case.

solar powered raspberry pi or even more practical and possibly cost effective is a solar powered celeron laptop.

All the ideas you have are cool to think of but they don't scale down to single home use. Off grid power supplies are wind turbines, solar, and portable generators.

Heres an interesting video for you:

 

[Ares]

On 19/11/2016 at 10:37 AM, SCHISCHKA said:

just build a raspberry pi powered by solar power. Thats fusion powered in a way in that power ultimately comes from the sun

give this man a badge

 

[SCHISCHKA]

4 hours ago, Wolther said:

Solar panels sounds like the most doable option for ya. Only thing is that your pc has to be outside for this to work and.. if you develop efficient enough panels.

 

na it just needs to charge batteries. its been done:

http://pi.qcontinuum.com

This project most likely does not have a monitor or have its network equipment running off solar. If you look at the battery charts it wouldn't be unreasonable to run a modem off the system

[suchamoneypit]

On 11/19/2016 at 10:31 AM, SCHISCHKA said:

step 0: theoretically prove cold fusion is possible

step 1: invent cold fusion

step 2: turn on cold fusion generator

step 3: plug computer into cold fusion generator

holy shit you've already got this figured out

 

EDIT: to OP, thats like asking " If we invented this new energy source, can we power stuff with this new energy source". Uhh, of course? You just need to invent it first.

[AkiraDaarkst]

On 11/19/2016 at 3:35 PM, dalekphalm said:

"Now how about I say completely random scientific words that make a cool sounding sentence!"

I just had to LOL when I read this statement.

 

Saw this topic earlier today and thought "WTF is a cold fusion computer?"

[AkiraDaarkst]

On 11/19/2016 at 3:28 PM, dr_sepheroth said:

So I been thinking, could it be possible to design and invent a device that uses cold fusion to power a computer ?

 

This would decrease man kinds energy consumption cost by about half, as half the worlds energy is spent on running the computers that run the world. Why not have a computer that generates it's own power. 

 

Any ideas on how this might be possible ?

Whether a computer is powered with electricity generated by a cold fusion reactor, a normal fusion reactor, nuclear fission reactor, hydroelectric, geothermal, coal, wind, solar, etc. does not change the fact that the computer is consuming energy in order to operate.  The only difference is the method used to generate the electricity that powers the computer(s).

 

It's also very unlikely to ever be able to decrease humanity's total energy consumption, the human population is ever growing and with that growth comes greater need for resources and to produce those resources requires more energy.  Now we may be able to slow down the rate of energy consumption by making more efficient use of energy, but it won't reduce consumption.

 

The only way to actually reduce consumption would require one of the following:

• We reduce the human population so that fewer people equals less energy consumption.
• We become better at determining or allocating how we use energy.  Such as turn off all city lights after a certain hour of night, as an example.  But even this will just slow down consumption but not reduce it permanently.
• We stop using technology altogether, in which case energy is no longer consumed in certain areas.  There are still other types of energy being consumed.

[AkiraDaarkst]

On 11/19/2016 at 4:13 PM, dalekphalm said:

Well the heat only needs to be high enough to boil water into steam to spin a turbine (Since that's how almost all heat based energy reactors work). So "cold fusion" simply means we don't need to heat the reactor to millions of degrees Celsius. But I don't know how the specific mechanisms are supposed to work, not being a physicist

Nuclear fusion requires a lot of energy to start, the atomic molecules that are supposed to fuse together need to be exposed to high temperatures and pressure in order to overcome the repelling forces of those atomic molecules.  Cold fusion is where the temperature and pressure require for fusion to occur is lower than normal, basically near average room temperature and pressure.

[pyrojoe34]

30 minutes ago, AkiraDaarkst said:

Nuclear fusion requires a lot of energy to start, the atomic molecules that are supposed to fuse together need to be exposed to high temperatures and pressure in order to overcome the repelling forces of those atomic molecules.  Cold fusion is where the temperature and pressure require for fusion to occur is lower than normal, basically near average room temperature and pressure.

Fusion doesn't use "molecules". Just elements like deuterium or tritium (heavy hydrogen). Molecular bonds would never be stable in any conditions that could support fusion anyway.

[MrDynamicMan]

On 11/19/2016 at 5:37 PM, dr_sepheroth said:

Ok I will skip designing that for another 10 years.

 

What about a Bio Fusion powered computer ?

 

recycle waste and run your computer at the same time ?

Bio fusion... is not even a thing. Bio 'power' is just burnig renewable shit to turn turbines or an axel. Humans invented bio-heating hundreds of thousands of years ago, i believe the model name was fire.

[corrado33]

On 11/19/2016 at 11:36 AM, Clanscorpia said:

Yeah, I wished we used it here in Canada. its such a great technology. 99% burn rate is amazing

Sorry but NO. Absolutely not. Those "power plants" are not at all efficient (significantly less than traditional power plants, which are only at ~%30 themselves), they produce a crap ton of CO2 (as does any power plant that "burns" things) and there are MUCH better ways to use biomass than by burning it. 

 

Sure, they may "burn" everything, but that does not make them a good power source. I can get my campfire to burn 90% of the wood I throw into it. It's not a hard thing to do. 

[JCBiggs]

\ou have to have an energy state to generate power and an energy state = heat... so therefore, cold fusion is useless.

 

 

now if you wanted to make a beer cooler....

[Clanscorpia]

5 hours ago, corrado33 said:

Sorry but NO. Absolutely not. Those "power plants" are not at all efficient (significantly less than traditional power plants, which are only at ~%30 themselves), they produce a crap ton of CO2 (as does any power plant that "burns" things) and there are MUCH better ways to use biomass than by burning it. 

 

Sure, they may "burn" everything, but that does not make them a good power source. I can get my campfire to burn 90% of the wood I throw into it. It's not a hard thing to do. 

They are extremely efficient. Its a great way to reduce excess trash. And they are 99% efficent

[corrado33]

1 minute ago, Clanscorpia said:

They are extremely efficient. Its a great way to reduce excess trash. And they are 99% efficent

Not sure if serious or trolling. If the former, then you are very uninformed. 

[Clanscorpia]

Just now, corrado33 said:

Not sure if serious or trolling. If the former, then you are very uninformed. 

Thats what I was told, that they burned 99% of what goes in and msot of it turns into harmless gases

[dalekphalm]

2 minutes ago, Clanscorpia said:

They are extremely efficient. Its a great way to reduce excess trash. And they are 99% efficent

Can you provide a source to back up your claims? Also, 99% efficient compared to what? Fuel to energy conversion? Or when compared to a non-refuse fueled combustion power plant?