Sand battery - video

**Jon** · Dec 14, 2022, 04:13 PM

Sand battery. By desertsun02. 4:29 video:

**BuffaloJohn** · Dec 15, 2022, 11:41 AM

complete and utter BS.

This is not a battery, this is a heat engine (looks like a Stirling engine), nothing more, sitting on a higher temperature source (the sand heated on the stove) and it converts heat into motion.

Worst is the BS in the comments on yt where folks are amazed at this invention and how great it is for the future of mankind.

One step below a perpetual motion machine. Utter and complete nonsense.

**mklotz** · Dec 15, 2022, 12:05 PM

Originally Posted by BuffaloJohn

complete and utter BS.

This is not a battery, this is a heat engine (looks like a Stirling engine), nothing more, sitting on a higher temperature source (the sand heated on the stove) and it converts heat into motion.

Worst is the BS in the comments on yt where folks are amazed at this invention and how great it is for the future of mankind.

One step below a perpetual motion machine. Utter and complete nonsense.

While I concur with the BS remark, it's not a Stirling engine. Although Stirling engines have been used in that capacity (the Brits in India used a version powered by their kerosene lamps to create a bit of air movement), this one is powered by an electronic device that employs the Seebeck effect...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator

to generate a current that powers a small electric motor that rotates the fan.

You can buy the fans on Amazon...

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=thermoele...s_ts-doa-p_1_9

or just the thermoelectric device and a motor...

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=thermoele..._ts-doa-p_1_19

to make your own.

I've built a number of Stirling engines; this one runs just as well on ice as on coffee cup heat...

LTD Stirling running on ice

**BuffaloJohn** · Dec 15, 2022, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by mklotz

While I concur with the BS remark, it's not a Stirling engine.

I guessed... my mistake, there were comments in the yt that said it was a Stirling...

**Scotsman Hosie** · Dec 18, 2022, 04:17 AM

That 'wafer' is a Pelter Junction. Used in a lot of tiny travel coolers that plug into the lighter socket. They can operate in reverse, where extreme heat — or as Marv pointed out, extreme cold — produces DC voltage. And current flow — under a relatively small load. (Though they'd probably keep up with some smaller solar panels.)

**hemmjo** · Dec 18, 2022, 05:55 PM

My great great grandma, born 1876, and my great great grandpa, born 1870, and had a couple of rocks they used to put on the potbelly stove they heated their house with. When the rocks got hot them went at the foot of the bed. Later they ungraded to a "drip" type oil burner. Then the rocks went on top of that. Was that a "rock battery" LOL

**joeljensen** · Dec 19, 2022, 09:28 AM

Although I agree that this is nothing really new, based on what the Department of Energy considers a Water battery, this would qualify as a sand battery.

Storage of energy to be used at a later time.

Regenerative Braking on a car in motion.
Pumping water to a higher location during cheaper power times.
Larger flywheels.
Space elevators.

Even a capacitor could be considered a short term battery.

Notice that each item has to be charged before it stores energy. Kinetic to Electric.

https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles...ater-batteries

The hard part would capturing enough energy to make the sand cost effective.