That is the end-all and be-all of efficiency.  It's called co-generation on an industrial scale, and you are harnessing the concept of entropy to its fullest.  Electricity is a very high quality form of energy, and heat is the lowest.  If you live in a place where electric heat is economical, there is no cost associated with mining in the winter, at least as far as the electric component  is concerned.  I like the food dehydration picture.  Bitcoin permaculture.  Let me be the first to put those words in the same sentence.

When I build my rig a month or two down the track, I'll run it during the night in my bedroom instead of using the reverse-cycle air conditioner to warm it, as it'll be near the end of autumn by then. I'm also planning to install thermal curtains with pelmets on both windows along with possibly external blinds and rechecking the insulation in the roof for maximum effect in keeping the heat in and making things cozy.

This would suggest that converting heat to any other form of useful energy may not be worth the effort.

So any method of harnessing heat would most likely still involve heating something.

Add a pinch of thermodynamic law and you're looking at a theoretical maximum temperature of whatever your Rig temp is (50-80'c).


So those are more or less your boundary conditions, do something creative with a 50'c air source.

I'll bet those strawberries taste like they were steamed by thermal paste. :/

Breathing the heat generated from computers/ electronics/ cars ect.. is NOT safe !

Breathing the air heated by cars is perfectly safe. Breathing the heated exhaust from a car is NOT safe. See the difference? One is simple air that has been heated, the other is chemically imbalanced to be toxic.

Heat generated by GPUs are perfectly safe, as there is no combustion or chemical reaction. The "exhaust" air that is being vented by a GPU has simply been heated, not altered in any way.

The air is being altered by the fumes that the thermal paste, pcb, capacitors, ect. emit when running at those high temps.

I'm surprised that you do not smell it.

@malevolent +1

Salt lamps eh ?.. I'll definitely look into that.

pEACe

Positive ions are unhealthy? Wtf? Please link a medical journal or something that can backup what you're saying, cuz I think it's horse shit.

Are we talking about positive ions, or toxic fumes? You guys seem like you're contradicting each other. And I'll ask you the same thing: please post a medical journal or some other legitimate source that proves that computer hardware or electronic equipment at high temps can release toxic fumes.

And no, I don't smell anything.


So according to you, salt lamps are a scam, and air ionizers (which are different than air purifiers with a filter) are what you really want, cuz they can "control ultrafine aerosol pollutants in cleanrooms... at a height of 60 cm (2 feet) from the floor."
Bold and parenthesis added by me.

I don't know about you, but I don't live in a clean room, and I usually breathe with my head more than 2ft above the ground, and this is the first I've heard of GPUs giving off "aerosol pollutants".

Have you ever been to a datacenter? They usually (at least in European ones I saw) have strict rules regarding air conditioning to ensure there is proper humidity and fresh air that doesn't affect hardware longevity.
As for the above I'll addess it soon.

Here you go:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7113513
http://www.ionovate.com/images/bioai.pdf


Yes, but the 'side-effect' of enforcing those rules is that AFAIK breathing in a datacenter has no (or less) potential for harm.

I've worked on the building automation system for several large AT&T facilities that house massive amounts of computers and networking switchgear. The building ventilation systems are not set any different for the server rooms versus those that contain offices for the employees. All facility air handlers were set to minimum outdoor air quantity. (outside air dampers set to 10% unless running in free cooling modes) Any greater would waste large amounts of power from dumping conditioned air outside to bring in fresh.

Fancier facilities usually install carbon dioxide sensors to determine how much outside air to use. In the case of a datacenter, (low ratio of people to computers) the dampers would likely only run 5% or less to keep CO2 levels at desired levels.