Every time you try to get something cool, you are generating heat elsewhere. All you need to do is to go to the exhaust of the AC or refrigerator and you will feel the heat. Why can’t we use this heat, say, for heating water inside our kitchens?
That's the interesting question posed by an article by the World Economic Forum.
While utilization of waste heat could be an idea that may or may not make economical sense at a residential level (owing to the relatively low total amount of heat generated per home), it could make a lot more sense when you look at how much heat the air conditioning / cooling systems of commercials space such as supermarkets release. Is it possible that with some reasonable investments, heat from many such supermarkets in a city could be used for district heating?
Technology exists today for such a process. This could convert many supermarkets and retail chains from consumers of energy into simultaneous producers of energy.
