I recently had a discussion about ACs and how they heat up cities.
Then I found an article about theoretical increase of efficiency of acs by using the heat pulled from a room to run a thermoelectric device and getting some of the energy back that was used in the ac.
I‘ve had this downstream thought many times already: since hot air is basically just energy stored. Could we theoretically pull (all?) the energy from the air (depending on desired temp) to cool it and casually fuel our society’s energy needs?
they already sell appliances that do that. Daikin Altherma line, for example, can combine A/C, sanitary hot water and home heating.
In summer it takes heat from the inside of your house an puts it in the water tank. In winter, it takes heat from the air in the atmosphere and puts it both inside your home and water tank.