And Russ, your post was exactly what i was looking for, but if that is the case, are geothermal powerplants a myth? If they arn't, what is to say that with enough research and engineering skill, you couldn't theoretically extract the huge amounts of energy that exists in the ambient air around...
And Cesiumfrog, heat pumps use colder than inside air to make the warmer inside house air even warmer. The temperature could be serveral hundred degrees different before the heat energy you got out was simply the energy put in by the electricity. Right? How else do you explain COP's?
I don't think it is impossible to extract electrical energy from heat energy, I do not believe there are any thermodynamic laws that go against that. None of the ones stated up there have discredited this idea, if you think they are I've probably not described it well enough. The real question...
Ok I remember watching a video when I was twelve of this guy who used basically a refrigerator in reverse to create electrical energy from heat energy in outside air to power a house. Freon was run through black heat collecting panels, then through a compressor to make it hot. The heat energy...