Hank Fletcher
New Member
Just thought I'd throw this out there, because now that I've recently bought my own house, I also have to mow the lawn again!
Where I live, compost material is collected every two weeks, so we put everything from banana peels to lawn clippings in a big (roughly 1m cube) plastic container and wheel it out to the curb for pickup. When I mow the front lawn, I empty the grass into the container (about three bags full - hey, isn't there a song about that?).
What blows me away is how much heat the cut grass in the container generates. After a day, it's well over 50 degrees Celsius inside the container, and the grass is almost too hot to keep your hand buried in it. That's pretty incredible considering the nights in June around here still get to below 10 Celsius. I guess there's a lot of insulation from the grass outside for the stuff closer to the middle?
Seems to me that this would make a cool science project if you could somehow turn the heat energy into electricity. Admittedly in might not be a lot (although like I said, it's a whole lot more than I expected!), but it certainly would be enough to power, for instance, a bright LED light on top of the container. That way, when the container is put out by the road the previous evening to pick up, it's easily visible to motorists. Just an idea, and anyone who's willing to explore it is welcome to take it as their own.
Where I live, compost material is collected every two weeks, so we put everything from banana peels to lawn clippings in a big (roughly 1m cube) plastic container and wheel it out to the curb for pickup. When I mow the front lawn, I empty the grass into the container (about three bags full - hey, isn't there a song about that?).
What blows me away is how much heat the cut grass in the container generates. After a day, it's well over 50 degrees Celsius inside the container, and the grass is almost too hot to keep your hand buried in it. That's pretty incredible considering the nights in June around here still get to below 10 Celsius. I guess there's a lot of insulation from the grass outside for the stuff closer to the middle?
Seems to me that this would make a cool science project if you could somehow turn the heat energy into electricity. Admittedly in might not be a lot (although like I said, it's a whole lot more than I expected!), but it certainly would be enough to power, for instance, a bright LED light on top of the container. That way, when the container is put out by the road the previous evening to pick up, it's easily visible to motorists. Just an idea, and anyone who's willing to explore it is welcome to take it as their own.
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