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/cgi-bin/YaBB.pl General Category >> Politics, Religion (Tall Table) >> Calling all smart guys... /cgi-bin/YaBB.pl?num=1343760400 Message started by Serowbot on 07/31/12 at 11:46:40 |
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Title: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 07/31/12 at 11:46:40 I was thinking about energy storage... (I hate batteries)... I was thinking about clocks... (there are coiled springs, and drop weights)... So,.. Say you got a crushed car (3,000lb), and have it suspended by pulleys or chains over say a 60ft well... Use solar or wind to elevate the weight, and let the weight store the energy... How much energy could it store?... How much weight vs depth would be required to store power for an average house?... Watch this end up being a million lbs, over 1,000ft well... ;D... Anybody out there good with a calculator?... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Boule’tard on 07/31/12 at 12:49:09 Not sure what is so political/religious about it but it is just an energy unit conversion. The energy is just the force times distance. 3000 x 60 = 180000 ft*lbs. 231 BTU 0.068KWh |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 07/31/12 at 13:05:06 Well,.. it's just not very motorcycle related... ... and, conservation/ alternative energy is now political... Anyway... sounds like you need a million lbs in 1,000 ft hole... :(... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Boule’tard on 07/31/12 at 13:30:14 377 KWh. A typical American house burns through about 3 times that every month. Maybe more if running a 4-ton AC unit in AZ. Switch to a swamp cooler and get a 3 million pound car and 1000ft hole.. :D |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 07/31/12 at 13:43:26 or just find a way to make this work: http://www.beaconpower.com/products/about-flywheels.asp |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Boule’tard on 07/31/12 at 19:13:57 I am sorry I splashed cold water on Serowbot's idea. The idea of hoisting a car up a hole (or onto a pulley/derrick system or whatever) is creative thought that should be encouraged. It is just that it takes a shocking amount of weight and/or height to get a decent amount of potential energy. Storage systems that use chemistry (conventional batteries) carry the day for now. That doesn't mean they will always. A good deal of energy is already converted to electricity, kinda-sorta the way Serowbot suggests, by harnessing the elevation drop of water by hydroelectric systems. The water (at 62.4 lbs/cubic foot) is lifted for free by natural means, either by the tides, or through precipitation and then collecting the energy as it comes through turbines at a dam. Canadians don't call their electric bill their 'hydro' bill for nothin' ;) |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 08/01/12 at 09:45:48 Cold water is refreshing... Clears my thoughts... ;)... Okay Boule',... how about hydraulic compression?... Solar electric motor compresses hydraulic chamber (maybe some kinda' part/chamber from some industrial piston type dealy... Energy is stored up all day,.. and is used through the night... Figure 900K Wh per month,.. 30 per day,.. less than 15KWh storage is needed to get through the night... 30 KWh storage would be better,.. (for a rainy day)... No dead batteries,.. I think industrial hydraulics are pretty durable and long lasting?... :-/... Whattcha' think?... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Drifter on 08/01/12 at 10:44:31 How about using solor to heat water to make steam to compress air into a tank, release air to drive a generator to power your system, completly sealed system once the air is used to power generator it is returned to storage tanks....perpetual energy....patent pending. :) Bot, the problem i see with your idea is which car...some have more drag than others which would slow your system down do to excess wind resistance causing the force times distance model to be scewed so the cable tension would have to be modified to a larger diameter once again causing more drag...then more weight would be required or a deeper hole...if you went to the deeper hole vacuum would then create additional problems meaning more weight bigger cables.....and a pumping system to eliminate the vacuum....meaning more weight would be needed causing more drag...... :o.....all of these in and out pumping sounds would cause your right wing neighbors to be angered or jealous..causing them to call the cops.....they in turn would shut your system down........because wingers dont like science!!.......is Boule happy now? :) Time for a cold 6 pack...... ;) |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Boule’tard on 08/01/12 at 11:19:50 I think 'hydraulic compression' is somewhat of an oxymoron.. that is, liquids don't compress to a smaller volume that could later be 'sprung back', even when the pressure is astronomical. If you are referring to energy storage by compressing a gas in a tank, see the air car thread. That method isn't too bad as storage methods go, but as Charon correctly pointed out, energy is lost when the gas heats up due to compression. That loss of energy is roughly the same as what is lost in charging/discharging batteries. If you mean some kind of phase-change system where the gas is compressed until it condenses into a liquid (like propane at about 250psi) yes there is energy stored in that compression. And with a phase change, you could get by with a smaller tank than with a gas that stays a gas at high pressure like CNG. But then you have the heat lost due to both the compression of the gas AND condensation into a liquid.. everything that condenses and evaporates has a heat of condensation/evaporation which would have to be harnessed somehow or it would be lost. In the case of propane, butane, or any flammable liquid-to-gas... might as well burn it. ;) |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 08/01/12 at 14:15:19 Darn.. I give... ;D... I still hate batteries... there's gotta' be a better way... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by splash07 on 08/01/12 at 14:21:07 7B6D7A677F6A677C080 wrote:
Biomass energy storage always interested me. You could store solar energy in the form of biomass (switchgrass, wood, anything really) then use the biomass to heat water and power a steam generator. It is done along the coast from time to time in coal fired power plants after large hurricanes when there are large deposits of biomass debris that need disposing of. could even be done with refuse and probably is in places. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by srinath on 08/01/12 at 14:58:30 Problem is converting from one form to another is very inefficient. Solar effectively is heat and light, turning it into electricity is bad enough, then turning that into chemical energy is also very bad. However I dont see how turning it into potential energy is any better. Cool. Srinath. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/01/12 at 19:38:15 Sew; Put our political differences aside for this topic… When I worked for the carbon fiber company, one of my customers was NGK, yes, the spark plug people. They make an energy storage system using molten sodium and sulfur. It uses a tube made from something called beta aluminum which looks more like porcelain than aluminum. Another company I sold stuff to used an electrolyte solution of a material called vanadium; the Vanadium Redux battery. Fluid flowed back and forth and electrons were exchanged across a medium. They were designed to be used in remote areas for telecommunication equipment. Solar panels kept the electrolyte charged. Other companies are now trying to generate electricity using floating cylinders in the ocean that use the tidal waves to generate electricity. There was a company making a generator that went into a small stream. Then there are the flywheel companies and dead weigh companies like the car suspended over a hole. However, as hard as they’ve worked, no one’s come up with anything yet that generates electricity the way you’re describing, efficiently enough. I have to believe one day, someone’s gonna stumble upon a way to make enough electricity to power maybe ½ an average household’s electricity demands and in a format someone with a little extra land can install. Personal windmills have not worked yet and with as much work as been put into them, not sure they will. Something else is out there. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/01/12 at 19:50:25 This is funny; I posted that reply and started doing some reading and ran into this article along the same lines of this topic. Yea, it brings politics into it, but I guess that's inevitable... Al Gore published a book, made a movie, and won a Nobel Peace prize for his thesis on global warming. The unfortunate thing is he then entered into the venture capital world and brought upon us expensive Betamax technology such as the Fisker Automobile and the Bloom Energy Fuel Cell. Had Al stopped at the movie or just winning the Nobel prize he may never had to face the most fundamental laws of thermodynamics that unfortunately for him, his investors, his political party, his Washington friends, and the US tax payers as a whole disproved his whole notion that cheap electric cars would proliferate and cheap electric power for these electric cars would be generated in his fuel cells. Making a movie does not require coming face to face with the realities that Lord Kelvin and Mr. Carnot contemplated 160 years ago when they first realized that thermodynamics is the real inconvenient truth and that not all heat becomes useful energy. Al never studied thermodynamics, and he thought that his clever VC friends, his Washington Department of Energy (DOE) friends, and his millions of fans would simply allow the Fisker automobile to come down in price by riding a massive learning curve in reducing the cost of modern batteries. Al also thought the solid oxide fuel cell that his Bloom Energy company was to produce would also experience a massive learning rate. Well neither the batteries nor the fuel cell had a hope of having any massive learning rate. I learned thermodynamics while at Iowa State University and I wrote academic papers on the subject. I wrote a book that is university text at almost the same time Al was winning acclaim for his book and his matters green. A few thousand university students and a few hundred laypeople have read my book and learned the fundamental yet inconvenient truth that the second law of thermodynamics allows nothing to come for free. I reached out to the US Senate to plead with them based on thermodynamics that much money would be wasted on lithium ion batteries and on fuel cells. My testimony had to be provided as outside witness testimony as I did not have the political connection and my Congresswoman simply ignored me. But at least I provided that testimony 30 months ago and foretold how thermodynamics would prevail and much money and time would be wasted. Fast forward. Bloom Energy may yet see 884 as its fatal number. Fisker is on its last legs and their Delaware project is Dead On Arrival. Fisker’s battery supplier A 123 is almost out of electrons and has taken on toxic financing. This is after A 123 had already received $129 million in US DOE grants. Fisker and Bloom lead A 123 by a few months in the toxic financing arena with their association with Advanced Equities, a firm that is now under SEC investigation. Valence Technology and Ener1 two other US advanced lithium ion battery manufacturers are already bankrupt. Finally Wall Street has caught onto Tesla being a mirage, and within a year we will all be talking about the $500 million wasted by the DOE on Tesla. As for me, I can sadly say I told you so, but these numerous examples of rapid and massive waste of taxpayers’ money makes me even sadder as we still import oil from horrible countries. Had Steven Chu really learned his thermodynamics he would have told his boss about the real inconvenient truth. Instead he either intended that the US should fail, or that hope could overcome the second law of thermodynamics. As he won a real Nobel Prize in low temperature physics, he had to know that hope could not prevail, which then leaves me to think he had no interest in the USA formulating and executing a viable energy policy and that he wanted failure as he had no interest in us succeeding. Al Gore did not understand the basics of thermodynamics and he is simply a greedy politician who wants admiration from crowds of followers. He and his VC friends are now out of money and time for the junk and expensive technology they promoted. They are all out of friends and free money from the taxpayers. Their IPOs are postponed or cancelled as Wall Street has learned of the inconvenient truth of thermodynamics. Their only remaining hope is to use pay day loan sharks to keep their green-tech hopes alive. Ivan Boesky and Mike Milken brought us junk bonds. Al Gore, Kleiner Perkins, and the US DOE brought us junk science. Ivan and Mike had to sit it out for a while. I wonder if Al and Steve will ever be held accountable or they will just manage to blame it all on bad luck or the previous administration. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 08/01/12 at 20:00:46 See,.. I told ya' this was a political post... ;D... Here,.. you can install solar to the grid,.. and any excess generated they have to compensate you for... ... but, I was just wondering about an off grid,... Apocalypto, survivalist kinda' thing... Of course,.. that's probably not too smart because the full-auto guys will just kill you for your cool solar house... I imagine being too prepared just makes you the prime target... Just ponderin'... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by ZAR on 08/01/12 at 21:38:17 4157405D45505D46320 wrote:
Now you're catching on Sero! The whole basis of "flying under the radar" is not to "drop out" but to blend in. If you appear average and the bad guys don't see anything different they'll pass on by. Back on topic......I have the same problem....trying to keep batteries online for my ham radio equipment. I try to keep enough battery power in storage to operate my radio shack for a week, but at least 72 hours minimum during a natural disaster. Thats a lot of batteries and charging racks! |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/02/12 at 05:19:42 yea, I apolgize for posting that last night. Bad form on my part given the topic of this post.... Here ZAR; buy one of these: http://www.pdenergy.com/products_kwunits.html |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by ZAR on 08/02/12 at 06:09:01 586A6D7C7B6A7D426E7D640F0 wrote:
Webster that's a trick system.........but I'm thinking the cost must be way more than the measley $25k/year I make :(! |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Paraquat on 08/02/12 at 06:39:21 "Biomass energy storage" makes me instantly think of slave labor. One of my friends (you guys would like him in the political threads), has a get rich quick scheme every week. One was to use an impeller that was spun by... waste... on the downpipe. As we chatted I had a few ideas to refine the system. I suggested an alternator to an array of yacht batteries. I also suggested moving it to the water line in so that the system isn't limited to BM's. It could also be charged by showers, or the dishwasher, or anything that required running water. I know it would have to be serviced at some point (I'll wrench but I don't like getting my hands THAT dirty) He immediately jumped to all the down sides. Water pressure from the city is unregulated, pressure wise, and varies from 70-50 psi local to me. There could be ways around this by tee'ing off a regulated supply. He wanted to make a product to sell - anyone with well water would be hard off. And it turns out it's basically a water wheel which was already patented and someone else on the internet had the idea before us. Might work for a trickle charge though. --Steve |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/02/12 at 07:29:59 Webster that's a trick system.........but I'm thinking the cost must be way more than the measley $25k/year I make no, i've seen them and they are in service around the world in selected applicaitons. However, yea, they cost some serious money!.... Very expensive to build. The problem with these systems and all these energy producing systems we're talking about is the margin of error is razor thin. That nasty little 2nd law of thermodynamics gets in the way of everything. One little piece of equipment that's not maximized to perfom whatever function it's suppose to perform, robs the total system of energy. When that happens, you've spent a hell of a lot of money to make a something that can light a 100 watt light bulb and that's about all. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by ZAR on 08/02/12 at 09:05:12 506265747362754A66756C070 wrote:
Sorry Webster...when I said "trick" system I meant a really neat/good/I'd like to have that system. Not something that was a gimmick. Zar |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by srinath on 08/02/12 at 10:19:35 We should at the high level research level be thinking about this. Sunlight is one of those things that if we harness even 1% of it we will kick all forms of energy to the ground. Something like in 1 hr you get enough to power your house for a year. BTW There is a rare earth called cerium - and it has been the new darling of those that want to generate hydrocarbons (like gasoline) using the sun and the air. Google and look it up, I am bound to screw it up somehow if I try to explain it. Cool. Srinath. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/02/12 at 11:12:10 We should at the high level research level be thinking about this. Sunlight is one of those things that if we harness even 1% of it we will kick all forms of energy to the ground. Something like in 1 hr you get enough to power your house for a year. If that were true, it would have been done already. sunlight, over a given area, has a relatively low amount of energy. When you add in (actually subtract) efficiency loss, you see why it takes a hell of a lot of solar panels to heat one hot water heater of water. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by justin_o_guy2 on 08/03/12 at 17:40:42 Amazing th info available if the right ? is asked.. I dont have to just pull an opinion outtamyass,, How Much Solar Energy Hits Earth? Posted on 14 June 2006. If solar power is the purest form of renewable energy known, then how much solar power have we got? The answer to this question, when considered alongside how efficiently we can convert raw sunshine into usable power, helps determine whether or not it is realistic to consider solar energy as a viable alternative to conventional energy sources. In full sun, you can safely assume about 100 watts of solar energy per square foot. If you assume 12 hours of sun per day, this equates to 438,000 watt-hours per square foot per year. Based on 27,878,400 square feet per square mile, sunlight bestows a whopping 12.2 trillion watt-hours per square mile per year. grab this widget | start a petition | by Care2 The Sun With these assumptions, figuring out how much solar energy hits the entire planet is relatively simple. 12.2 trillion watt-hours converts to 12,211 gigawatt-hours, and based on 8,760 hours per year, and 197 million square miles of earth’s surface (including the oceans), the earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year. In case you haven’t heard, a “quad Btu” refers to one quadrillion British Thermal Units of energy, a common term used by energy economists. The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times. Clearly there is enough solar energy available to fulfill all the human race’s energy requirements now, and for all practical purposes, forever. The key is developing technologies that efficiently convert solar power into usable energy in a cost-effective manner. For energy conversion constants a good website is Energy Conversion, to help elucidate this data. http://www.ecoworld.com/energy-fuels/how-much-solar-energy-hits-earth.html |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Serowbot on 08/03/12 at 18:46:32 Dat's a lot's a watt's... :-?... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by rfw2003 on 08/03/12 at 18:57:36 I've often thought of Solar energy use, but with current tech it's just way to expensive plus you still have to rely on either batteries or public power for use when sun light is less then optimal. R.F. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by justin_o_guy2 on 08/03/12 at 21:38:44 2432253820353823570 wrote:
Watts & watts O watts,, I dang near got a sunburn just readin about it. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/04/12 at 05:19:14 I hate to be Johnny Raincloud here, but …. 100 watts of energy per square ft is miniscule compared to a simple internal combustion engine. In Germany I saw a huge solar panel field powering a single building the field. In Denver outside of their airport, there is a huge field of solar panels. Because of the size required to generate enough usable energy you have to have us use large tracts of land. Add to that is low energy output, poor efficiencies to overcome, ½ the day of potential generation minus cloudy days. Finally you need an energy storage system to store unused energy up for later use at night or cloudy days. Solar has an important role to play, but it’s very small; remote areas requiring low energy usage or a few panels on a single house to cut electrical usage, but if solar power was the answer to widespread energy generation, it would have happened by now. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Paraquat on 08/04/12 at 06:26:08 You can't charge for solar by the watt so the technology and development isn't there. You know why air is free? The government hasn't found a way to tax it yet. --Steve |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Bubba on 08/10/12 at 08:12:49 currently, solar is so inefficient it doesn't make economic sense...doesn't mean that a breakthrough couldn't happen...I like the idea of a solar tower arrangement...concentrate the energy to a tower filled with a high thermal load material (I think they are using salt) it becomes molten, turns water to steam and drives the turbines cloudy rainy days or nightfall there is still enough energy in the molten salt to drive the turbines... |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by justin_o_guy2 on 08/10/12 at 08:18:26 If someone wants to make a lot of power for cheap, the answer is geothermal,,Ive been on a rig where the temp downhole was well above boiling. IIRC, it was around 300*F. It was a very cold winter & when we had to pull the pipe, it stood in the derrick steaming till it dried & was able to warm us up for an hour or so, standing in freezing West Texas weather. Granted, it wasnt in a place close to a population of any size, but other places are. Researchers have uncovered the largest geothermal hot spot in the eastern United States. According to a unique collaboration between Google and academic geologists, West Virginia sits atop several hot patches of Earth, some as warm as 200[ch730]C and as shallow as 5 kilometers. If engineers are able to tap the heat, the state could become a producer of green energy for the region. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by WebsterMark on 08/10/12 at 10:24:44 if you generate electricity in one spot, you either have to use it on site, store it in some type of battery or energy storage device for later use or transmit it. Storing it and transmitting it have high expenses associated with them. Geothermo is like nuclear without the energy level. There are a few companies focusing on the transmission part of the equation. Using carbon fiber power lines due to carbon fiber's low resistance for example, but the cost is extremly high right now. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Retread on 08/11/12 at 07:28:44 I've put some time into researching a off grid system for my Mountain property.. All total for a small home and shop the system, both solar and wind would cost me over 18K.. Until alternative energy is on a level playing field with fossil fuels, prices will be high.. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by arteacher on 08/11/12 at 18:30:42 7D7E626F7D663E390E0 wrote:
Biomass energy storage always interested me. You could store solar energy in the form of biomass (switchgrass, wood, anything really) then use the biomass to heat water and power a steam generator. It is done along the coast from time to time in coal fired power plants after large hurricanes when there are large deposits of biomass debris that need disposing of. could even be done with refuse and probably is in places. [/quote] We have a biomass (garbage) burning electric plant here in London. It was too expensive to filter out the smoke to make economical power, and they mothballed it until energy is expensive enough to make it viable again. |
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Title: Re: Calling all smart guys... Post by Retread on 08/11/12 at 21:45:33 Thats the whole deal there, if an energy is too expensive, instead of researching why, we drop it and go back to the fossil fuels... Then we blame the failure on the energy and of course politicians for trying to make it viable.. |
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