Chemical Reaction Furnace

The hand warmers release a little heat of crystalization once you start the supersaturated solution crystalizing. Faily modest and small compared to heat of combustion.

A strong acid and a strong base will make water + heat = de facto combustion. Then you have the waste to deal with and the energy to reverse this would be costly.

why not hydrogen and oxygen combined into water on a Pt catalyst?

Please observe that a wood [or coal or even dung] stove, an oil burner, and a gas furnace all represent chemical reactions being harnessed for heating purposes. Fuels are solids, liquids, or gases, and they all work - and we only need to transport HALF of the reacting chemicals.

IF you could find a substance that would release energy on demand, you'd still be putting more energy into it first, in order to prepare it, than you'd ever get out - and that energy would probably come from combustion, either directly, or through the electric company. On the other hand, you might store, say, solar energy - but there are a number of working systems already in use that require less effort.

I believe hand warmers use naptha (lighter fluid) as a fuel and some sort of catalytic converter. Once the catalytic converter is heated it converts the naptha vapors to heat without an open flame.

I don't think naptha is an economical fuel source.

there are fuel based warmers as well as phase change warmers

I am not one to bash anybodies ideas, but I think economies of scale apply here. The utility guys are pretty good at efficiency and they have a large amount of customers. So for natural gas, I think you would be hard pressed to supply a product cheaper than the gas you buy from the utility.

Also of serious concern would be the safety implications - with all of the hazards involved with natural gas, it is pretty safe for the average consumer to heat his house with it because of all of the engineering that has gone into the indistries that move gas, manufacture furnaces, etc. - the sad part is that a lot of the safe practices and regulation have come about because of tragic mishaps that have cost a lot of lives. So this new chemical reaction device would also have to be put through a rigorous regime of tests, and procedures would have to be developed to make the whole system safe. When all of that has been done, I think we will still find that the gas from the utility is cheaper.

Yes, Some of the older engineers will remember the problems with the early gunpowder furnaces, that led to their falling from favor with most homeowners; :)

I dont believe the gas companies are the source of high costs for fuel. Look at where the costs to the consumer really go. I sure you will find that the problem lies with the people brokering the fuels. It is the same with most commodity markets. Many people collect money for brokering the products even though they dont add anything to the mix; just cost to the consumer. Getting paid for doing nothing. Put that on top of the taxes paid to keep our precious politicians in money and there you have it.

shortages drive prices. we have a market in operation. Why do we have a market? Because people want an assured supply of fuel so they make contracts for future supply with producers who agree to sell them fuel for X$ in 200y in the future. Power companies all make these agreements. They pay a stable price into the future. If they have too much gas at any one time, the sell it off into the market. With a lot more selling than buying the market price falls. With more buying, the market price goes up. If we had nomarket there would be no way for people to buy/sell fuel to suit their operations. We would have a soviet style situation = zero market feedback = a disaster. Right now if prices rise, people cut back uses and save fuel

Try solar collectors they work quite well and if you can use solar voltaic for the electricity it would if the world was fair about these things be virtually free energy but in the real world all costs are linked so as to not favour you or I. If it is not the self interest of big corporations it is greedy governments that keep prices so high.TAX is often the defining cost factor. I looked into a solar installation and the best possible deal I could get would still take 20 years to pay back it costs.

Some can be done on the cheap if you can do a lot of the sourcing and installing. But the basic material costs are still very high. If fuel prices double every year it would take five years to make it a winner. The UK is well known for being rip off island golden land for foreign companies who like to suck us dry.

there are new solar cells that in the lab are over 45% efficient. After they get these into volume you will have cells good for about 35% times your insolation rate times sqare meters.

Old cells 15% or so = the real killer. with 35% cells it will take off.

I estimate 4-5 years.

Thank goodness no-one has mentioned the corn stove.

Hey! What about a corn stove? Just kidding