Storing Heat Energy into Batteries

I’m not a physicist or an engineer, so when it comes to electricity and batteries, I don’t know what I’m talking about. That’s precisely why I’m putting this idea here.

From my limited understanding of electricity, you can generate it by spinning a metal coil over a magnet. You can spin the coil using a turbine. You can spin the turbine in a number of ways, like putting it next to a waterfall, putting it in a chimney with steam coming out, hand-cranking it, with a waterwheel… If you can get something to spin, you can probably generate electricity with it.

You can get a turbine to spin if you have enough heat to boil water and create steam. But is there a way to generate electricity with heat that’s not hot enough to boil water? Can we somehow use such not-quite-boiling heat to charge batteries? If so, then perhaps we can use global warming to our benefit.

I know solar panels do not use spinning turbines to create electricity. But they also do not use heat. They use sunlight to create electricity.

If you can use sunlight to create electricity without turbines, it makes sense to me that there might be a way to use heat to create electricity without turbines.

I don’t have the time to do a lot of research on this topic, but if you’re interested in the challenge, I’ve compiled some resources to get you started:

1. Wikipedia: Thermal battery – Thermal batteries are not what I’m thinking, because they store heat and do not generate electricity.
2. Stanford, MIT scientists find new way to harness waste heat – They’ve found a way to charge batteries more efficiently using excess heat
3. Scientists Develop Thermal Battery to Capture the Sun’s Heat – Another article about thermal batteries for capturing heat, not electricity, but this one has some neat applications for a good thermal battery
4. Wikipedia: Thermoelectric generator – This is exactly what I have in mind.
5. New material breaks world record for turning heat into electricity
6. These Batteries Recharge With Waste Heat

If we can develop a reasonably efficient thermoelectric generator, what kinds of amazing applications can we use it for? What are sources of wasted heat energy? I can think of a few:

1. The hot air in the oven after you’re done baking
2. The heat inside your car after you’ve parked it in the sun in the summertime
3. The heat on the pavement after it has been in the sun all day
4. The warm water going down the drain in the shower (maybe you can also put turbines in the drain?)
5. The heat inside your attic on a hot summer day
6. Geothermal heat in places like Iceland

Can you combine a thermoelectric generator with any appliance near a source of wasted heat to make the appliance more efficient?