This is one of those ideas that seem so obvious once you hear them. A town in England, Huddersfield, is using power generated from the trash it collects to power its electric garbage collection trucks. Brilliant! How can this not be the future of trash collection. Next we need sun tanning salons to run on their own sunning lamps.
Um, (re: suntan thing) four words: first law of thermodynamics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics
No, no. The key is introducing new energy to the system. In England garbage is additional energy. In the tanning booth it’s the person being cooked. Assume X percent of the system energy is captured by thermal panels on the tanning bed converting heat back to electricity. Additional energy can be derived by the sweat evaporating from the chicken, I mean person. Think inverted nano hydrodam. There’s also the possibility of piezoelectric converters in the tanning bed driven by the dance moves of the chicken, I mean person, dancing to the driving beats of 50 cent.
Same basic idea….
http://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/07/02/mcdonalds-will-make-biodiesel-from-its-own-waste-grease-for-tru/
Dude, first law!
I’ll never forget this. When I was working on the solar car team at Michigan I got a letter in the mail from some guy (complete with drawings) of an electric powered car with fans mounted all over the thing. The letter writer explained to me that the wind would spin the fans which would turn a generator that charged the electric car’s batteries. Voila! Perpetual motion!