Convert heat to energy?

Question

Is it possible to convert heat into energy if there is not a heat differential? If not, why? If you quote laws of thermodynamics, please explain exactly how they apply. Also explain how it applies to a geothermal power plant.

If that’s not possible, then is it possible to create a heat differential using energy, and then convert the heat to energy and end up with a total lose in heat and a gain in energy.

Example: Two rooms are 80 degrees. Use energy to cool one room to 75 while raising the other side to 90. Now convert the heat in the 90 degree room to energy while raising the temperature in the 75 degree room. Resulting temperature in both rooms at 79. The net heat decreased, therefore the net energy produced must have increased. Please explain the flaw and why? Thanks.

First, It's not my homework. I'm not in school.

Second, I should have send "electricity" not energy. Sorry.

Vatsal S,
Geothermal plants don't need temperatures of million of degrees C to convert heat to electricity. Just boil something, turn a turbine, let it condense, and start the process over again.

Answer 1

Its possible to convert (please i would talk physics) energy from one form to another but it can never be destroyed this is the law of conservation of energy. Actually this law and another law called the law of thermodyanamics plays an important role in your question about energy first lets take alook at the laws of theromdynamics:- 0) If two thermodynamic systems are in thermal equilibrium with a third, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other.
(its actually called zeroth law)
When two systems are put in contact with each other, there will be a net exchange of energy between them unless they are in thermal equilibrium. While this is a fundamental concept of thermodynamics, the need to state it explicitly as a law was not perceived until the first third of the 20th century, long after the first three laws were already widely in use, hence the zero numbering. The Zeroth Law asserts that thermal equilibrium, viewed as a binary relation, is an equivalence relation.
(your examples answer - didnt understand how please contact me)

1) In any process, the total energy of the universe remains constant.

More simply, the First Law states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, rather, the amount of energy lost in a process cannot be greater than the amount of energy gained.

This is the statement of conservation of energy for a thermodynamic system. It refers to the two ways that a closed system transfers energy to and from its surroundings - by the process of heating (or cooling) and the process of mechanical work. The rate of gain or loss in the stored energy of a system is determined by the rates of these two processes. In open systems, the flow of matter is another energy transfer mechanism, and extra terms must be included in the expression of the first law.

The First Law clarifies the nature of energy. It is a stored quantity which is independent of any particular process path, i.e., it is independent of the system history. If a system undergoes a thermodynamic cycle, whether it becomes warmer, cooler, larger, or smaller, then it will have the same amount of energy each time it returns to a particular state. Mathematically speaking, energy is a state function and infinitesimal changes in the energy are exact differentials.

All laws of thermodynamics but the First are statistical and simply describe the tendencies of macroscopic systems. For microscopic systems with few particles, the variations in the parameters become larger than the parameters themselves, and the assumptions of thermodynamics become meaningless. The First Law, i.e. the law of conservation, has become the most secure of all basic laws of science. At present, it is unquestioned.

2) There is no process that, operating in cycle, produces no other effect than the subtraction of a positive amount of heat from a reservoir and the production of an equal amount of work.

This version is what is the so-called Kelvin-Planck Statement. In a simple manner, the Second Law states that energy systems have a tendency to increase their entropy (heat transformation content) rather than decrease it.

The entropy of a thermally isolated macroscopic system never decreases (see Maxwell's demon), however a microscopic system may exhibit fluctuations of entropy opposite to that dictated by the Second Law (see Fluctuation Theorem). In fact the mathematical proof of the Fluctuation Theorem from time-reversible dynamics and the Axiom of Causality, constitutes a proof of the Second Law. In a logical sense the Second Law thus ceases to be a "Law" of Physics and instead becomes a theorem which is valid for large systems or long times.

Stephen Hawking described this using time as an entropy base. For example, when time moves in a foward direction and one, say, breaks a cup of coffee on the floor, no matter what happens, in our universe, one will never see the cup reform. Cups are breaking all the time, but never reforming. Since the Big Bang, the entropy of the universe has been on the rise, and so the Second Law states that this process will continue to increase.

3) As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant.

The Third Law deals with the fact that there is an absolute constant in the universe known as absolute zero. Derived from the Gibb's free energy equation, where ΔG = ΔH - TΔS (where ΔG is the change in free energy, ΔH is the change in enthalpy (or total heat), T is Temperature and ΔS is the change in entropy (or unusable heat), as the temperature reaches 0 or a very low value, ΔS naturally will also approach 0 or a very small value.

Put another way, if one imagines atoms flying around in a box, hitting each other randomly, all the time, one can imagine a lot of chaos. Then, imagine what would happen if the temperature begins to decrease. The atoms slow down, hit each other less frequently, begin to settle as gravity has more effect on them; the chaos decreases.

combined thermodynamic law:-The combined law of thermodynamics is essentially the 1st and 2nd law subsumed into a single concise mathematical statement

dE-TdS+PdV <~0 Where E energy T temperature S entropy V volume
So i think you've actually understood that heat converts from one form to another.(its nver destroyed) our honda enegines also uses these principles.
SO about the geothermal powerstation it works as follows:


Hot rocks underground heat water to produce steam.
We drill holes down to the hot region, steam comes up, is purified and used to drive turbines, which drive electric generators.

There may be natural "groundwater" in the hot rocks anyway, or we may need to drill more holes and pump water down to them.

The first geothermal power station was built at Landrello, in Italy, and the second was at Wairekei in New Zealand. Others are in Iceland, Japan, the Philippines and the United States.

In Iceland, geothermal heat is used to heat houses as well as for generating electricity.

If the rocks aren't hot enough to produce steam we can sometimes still use the energy - the Town Hall in Southampton, England, is partly heated this way.

Answer 2

I suppose u are perhaps not sure with what u have asked
And the example u gave is totally a bluff
as heat can be converted to energy only at 2000000 'C or more andenergy can be converted into heat at the same temperature

Answer 3

Do your own homework; and by the way, heat doesn't have to be converted into energy- it IS energy!!!