What if you could draw energy from the night sky without effort? That's the question that researchers at the University of California, Davis are trying to answer with a new engine that generates power simply by sitting under the clear starry heavens.

What if you could draw energy from the night sky without effort? That’s the question that researchers at the University of California, Davis are trying to answer with a new engine that generates power simply by sitting under the clear starry heavens.

  • slazer2au@lemmy.worldEnglish
    16·
    6 days ago

    The upshot is that this arrangement allowed the engine to produce 400 milliwatts of power per square meter

    Right… And solar is 150-300 watts. While a neat poc it likely won’t go anywhere.

    • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      13·
      6 days ago

      This is enough to keep something like an ESP32 running throughout the night, but it would be way easier to just add a little battery instead.