If you’re in a dry, hot environment and evaporate water in a swamp cooler, you lose about 2.3MJ/l (0.6kWh/l), from which you can skim maybe ~10% (0.06kWh/l) with a thermocouple. If you’re charging a Dacia Spring consuming 156Wh/km, you’d have to evaporate ~300 liters of water to drive 100km. (Edit: some errors.)
If you’re in a dry, hot environment and evaporate water in a swamp cooler, you lose about 2.3MJ/l (0.6kWh/l), from which you can skim maybe ~10% (0.06kWh/l) with a thermocouple. If you’re charging a Dacia Spring consuming 156Wh/km, you’d have to evaporate ~300 liters of water to drive 100km. (Edit: some errors.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_vaporization#Other_common_substances
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoelectric_generator#Efficiency
https://ev-database.org/cheatsheet/energy-consumption-electric-car
But then, what if you bought solar panels and a wind turbine instead of thermocouples and water?