Renewable work

Everyone always talks about renewable energy, but it is important to remember that energy is just we use to do work. At every step from making the solar panels or fiberglass for a wind turbine, to transmitting the energy to using the energy to do work there is a loss of efficiency. This loss of efficiency translates to heat, and the bigger the city the more energy and therefore heat is released. Instead of investing solely in renewable energy we should invest in renewable sources of work.  One of the biggest uses of energy is air conditioners. More interestingly air conditioners dump huge amounts of heat outdoors, and in some cases the use of air conditioners actually raises the outdoor temperature.

(Seriously Google it.)

My thought for renewable work is designing absorption air conditioning to work on either the low level heat from solar collectors that would heat water for homes or on a larger scale using reflectors or Fresnel lenses. With lots of these systems picking up the load from electrical ACs a real impact could be made. Using solar absorption AC during the heat of the day the system would work the hardest, and any additional capacity could be used to make ice or chilled brine to carry the building through the night. Yes, this system is still moving heat from inside to outside but much of the actual work being done, is done with heat that was already there. Additionally since there is no conversion of solar energy to direct current, alternating current to work the possible efficiency is higher than other renewable sources of work.