I need assistance with a question regarding Terraforming...

[DetlefK]

19. Okay. Very, very outlandish. "Thermoelectric effect."

You need two wires made from different metals, tied together at one end. You connect the other two ends to the poles of your electricity-consuming device.
At the knot, the different densities-of-state of the metals will shift upon contact until a voltage has built up that balances the different amounts of available elctric charges. But apart from this tiny, tiny current, nothing will happen.
But, if your device and the point where the metals touch have different temperatures, the densities-of-state shift again. Again, a voltage builds up and a current flows to cancel this imbalance out. The temperature-difference leads to a voltage.


My idea:
1. You put the knot into something really, REALLY cold. Arctic temperatures and lower. (Liquid nitrogen is cheap...)
2. The other end, the device, is thermically conductive connected to the planet's ocean.
3. Now we have to get rid of the voltage. The electric energy is dispersed by shooting a powerful beam into space, at a frequency which is badly absorbed by the atmosphere.

Result: You suck the warmth out of the ocean and shoot it into space.
It sounds outlandish at first, but if you use two alloys that have been specifically designed to have radically different electric densities-of-state and if the temperature-difference is really big and if you use not just wires but cables at least a foot thick...
And if you set up hundreds of stations like this on the planet...



EDIT: After a hundred years, the oceans will have cooled by 1 K or so (more like 0.1 K), but this means a lot in terms of global climate and leads to a growth of the polar ice-caps and glaciers. While the difference in temperature is insignificant for the thermoelectric effect, the new ice-sheets would reflect sunlight, accelerating the process.