How viable is it to take energy from excess heat?

[Nano-Passion]

My laptop releases an excess amount of heat. Is it practical to be able to attach a some sort of device that can take a good amount of that heat being exhausted by fans in computers and reuse it as energy. There can be something akin to fan blades in the centi to micro scale, and they would extract energy as they are rotated by the accelerated air.

Thoughts? What are the engineering/manufacturing problems involved? Or is it just a monetary issue?

 

[russ_watters]

Any turbine would reduce the effectiveness of the cooling fans, so no benefit there. You could use a peltier or sterling engine, but that would be a lot of money for little benefit.

 

[Nano-Passion]

Any turbine would reduce the effectiveness of the cooling fans, so no benefit there. You could use a peltier or sterling engine, but that would be a lot of money for little benefit.

Hmm, this topic was over with pretty quickly. Now I see why this hasn't been incorporated.

 

[Nano-Passion]

By the way, I'm definitely a fan of your gallery collection. It must be exhilarating to observe these things yourself. Looks like a lot of fun to do. I wonder how long it takes you to single in on a galaxy or a planet?