Re:Dutch brewery burns iron as a clean, recyclable fuel
by cma on Thursday November 05, 2020 @01:05PM
(#25000438)
Shouldn't the needed energy increase the more the height difference? Seems it must be made up for in some other place too, or less waste heat at some stage.
Re:Dutch brewery burns iron as a clean, recyclable fuel
by bluGill on Thursday November 05, 2020 @02:52PM
(#25001328)
The energy out increases by the height level as well.
If the process was 100% reversible, and friction free (probably a couple other loss factors I forgot about) it would be energy positive as the oxygen is making its way back up in the air is an external energy input. Of course in the real world both assumptions are wrong by more than enough that you can never get this to work.
But second law of thermo dynamics applies. If this works at all it is because you are capturing a little more of the energy that was put in at the top and would otherwise be lost. You stil need to put in external energy to keep this system running.