I checked the "Power Spout" you mentioned on Google. It's really good for those who live near running streams and rivers, but most people do not...
I do so that's where the thought came from really.
Why wouldn't you direct the exhaust heat from your mining operations towards warming up your house then? It would reduce your heating costs (if you are heating with electricity anyway) and thus make your mining operations more profitable. Since I had started mining bitcoin in my apartment, I put my electric space heater to storage. AND I keep my window open – amidst the Swedish winter, mind you.
Good luck!
I heat with natural gas. It's maybe $90-140/mo in the winter rather than the huge cost of electricity. If you live in a rural area your 'delivery charge' is huge. It's more than your usage costs in a lot of places (eg. You use $100 of electricity and it costs $130 to be 'delivered') I don't mine bitcoins because I would just be hemorrhaging cash.
Only way where you actually can get "free" power is connect your miners to your vehicle while driving. The alternator produces hundreds of AMPs of current and most of it is wasted. If you drive an hour to work, then thats 2 hours of free mining.
Not true.
The output of the alternator is not free. You are converting gasoline into electrical power. If you add an electrical load to the alternator by adding the mining equipment you will burn more gasoline than if you did not load the alternator.
Bottom line is that putting the mining equipment in your car will increase your gas consumption and decrease your gas mileage in three ways:
Increased weight for your gas engine to push around while you are driving
Increased gas consumption due to the load on the alternator for the electricity you are using to mine
Increased gas consumption due to the increased need for air conditioning in the car
My thoughts exactly. It would make the car less efficient. A better idea would be to have something very light that could somehow turn heat into energy. That's what the first link in my OP goes over.
That powerspout is very cool indeed.
You can also gather a bit more electric with this new innovation of Elon Musk: Solar Roof.
https://www.tesla.com/solarIt is just a solar panel but it doesn't look as ugly as the common models and Elon says it will be cheaper to design a roof with those panels instead of regular tiles.
That's pretty extreme for me! I don't have the capital to put forth for that and wouldn't even want to look into how much it would cost to finance!
I only meant having a small device within the hood of your car absorbing heat and storing it for energy. Either way there are a ton more efficient ways to go about getting cheap / free electricity in some better way. 
