Year-round monitoring of Erebus volcano (Ross Island) has proved challenging due to the difficulties of maintaining continuous power for scientific instruments, especially through the Antarctic winter. We sought a potential solution involving the harvesting of thermal energy dissipated close to the summit crater of the volcano in a zone of diffuse hot gas emissions. We designed, constructed and tested a power generator based on the Seebeck effect, converting thermal energy to electrical power, which could, in principle, be used to run monitoring devices year round. We report here on the design of the generator and the results of an 11 day trial deployment on Erebus volcano in December 2014. The generator produced a mean output power of 270 mW, although we identified some technical issues that had impaired its efficiency. Nevertheless, this is already sufficient power for some monitoring equipment and, with design improvements, such a generator could provide a viable solution to powering a larger suite of instrumentation.

中文翻译：

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利用 Erebus 火山的热能为全年监测提供动力

由于难以维持科学仪器的持续供电，尤其是在南极冬季期间，对埃里布斯火山（罗斯岛）的全年监测已证明具有挑战性。我们寻求一种潜在的解决方案，包括收集散布热气排放区火山顶火山口附近消散的热能。我们设计、建造和测试了一台基于塞贝克效应的发电机，将热能转化为电能，原则上可用于全年运行监测设备。我们在此报告发电机的设计以及 2014 年 12 月在 Erebus 火山上进行为期 11 天的试验部署的结果。发电机产生的平均输出功率为 270 mW，尽管我们发现了一些影响其效率的技术问题。尽管如此，