Invalidity of prohibition of the perpetual motion engine of the second kind and the scenario of using these engines for prevention of the "thermal death" on the Earth

TL;DR

The paper challenges the traditional prohibition of second-kind perpetual motion engines by analyzing thermodynamics laws, proposing they could be feasible and useful for preventing Earth's thermal death through heat recycling.

Contribution

It argues that the prohibition of second-kind perpetual motion engines is unjustified, based on reinterpretation of thermodynamics laws and their application to energy recycling.

Findings

Proposes that second-kind perpetual motion engines are theoretically possible.

Suggests heat dissipation can be converted into useful energy without a cooler.

Challenges the traditional understanding of the Second Law of thermodynamics.

Abstract

The paper is grounded on the author's book '"Thermal Death" on the Earth and the scenario how to prevent it' (Moscow, URSS, 2009, bibl.571). While consuming energy, we finally practically all the produced energy is dissipated as heat. As the way of preventing the "thermal death" the author suggests that we should transit to the thermocyclic power engineering based on using heat circulation and build "cold storage plants" which must collect the dissipated heat and transform it into forms of energy necessary to mankind. As a rule the dissipated heat has low temperature gradients. For this reason the efficiency of "cold storage plants" of the classic type (with coolers) is too small and therefore they cannot be used as the basis of thermocyclic power engineering. This fact makes us consider the perpetual motion engines of the second kind. Having analyzed (excessively) numerous formulations of the Second Law of thermodynamics, the author has concluded that the prohibition of these engines is groundless. From the author's point of view this prohibition is a consequence of the following mistakes made by the founders of Thermodynamics. 1. Having in mind the concept of non-exterminable phlogiston, S. Carnot made a conclusion that the heat does not disappear but is only transferred from a warm body to a cold one and therefore a cooler is necessary for any thermal engine. However, today we know that while heat is consumed, it does disappear as heat and converts into other forms of energy. Hence, Carnot's argumentation is wrong. 2.The Entropy Increase Law is wrongly reduced to the Thermal Entropy Increase "Law" while in Nature the Total Entropy Increase Law works. Due to groundlessness of the Thermal Entropy Increase "Law", the thermal entropy can decrease and a compensation of converting thermal energy into mechanical work can be non-thermal. Therefore a cooler is not necessary for a thermal engine.