By Guest-Blogger Dragmit: A FINAL PLANET WIDE SOLUTION TO RENEWABLE ENERGY
Mankind is literally at an energy crossroads. He has just about half depleted his fossil fuel reserves, and while half does not sound bad, his present rate of consumption is higher than ever. What that means is while his supply is halved, his useable time is much less than half. And it took over ten million years to make all of this stuff! Can we wait in the dark for ten million years for another batch to cook up? Hardly. There is a real sense of urgency in regard to our energy needs today, and the laws of supply and demand prove this every time we fuel up our automobiles, heat our houses, or buy food at the store. And without a real solution, we are going to begin suffering some serious setbacks for humanity very very soon.
While we focus on wind, solar, and other renewables, we seem to dismiss the most important element of our fossil fuels, and that is their storability. In one of the most important advancements of the human race, we figured out that the ability to store food over the winter was one of the most important elements of survival for Mankind. Why do
we not get this with energy, is it because we never had to worry about it with fossil fuels before? Probably. Are we not intelligent enough to figure that out today? I look at today’s renewable energy industry with the same anxiety of watching a child cling to a floating log in a torrential river realizing that I will most likely drown when I dive in to help her. I feel fear, anxiety, trepidation, anger all at once. Luckily the issue of energy problems moves at a pace slow enough that I can contemplate the facts and come up with a real solution that will save the child’s life without risking my own.
The problem is storability. Batteries are way too expensive, however when I start freezing in the dark I bet we will all do without other comfort items in order to find the money to build batteries.
But cutting off your nose to spite your face is not a desirable
reaction.
Geothermal has renewable possibilities, but again cost is a huge factor as well as enormous possible environmental impacts. Would it be wise to remove energy in huge amounts for centuries from the Earth’s core when the liquid mantle keeps the planet on its orbital track?
That is a theory I do not suggest we experiment with, especially when it
is unnecessary.
If you want a real solution to a previously unsolved problem you are going to have to start all over in your thought patterns. It is not an easy task I know, but if you want to solve the problem … you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.
There is however a new science out there. Well, new to us it seems. The science has actually been with us since the beginning of time, we simply have never had any reason to embrace it in the past, but the future will change that. One of these energy sources is the simple cycle of nature we refer to as rain. In spite of the fear mongers warning of loss of water on this planet, we have just as much water now as we had yesterday, last week, last year, or even a thousand years ago. It may not be where it used to be, but it is still on the planet. And it falls from the sky by the ton every second of the day.
The other huge energy source is gravitational. The tidal changes on this planet are enormous, and if we could find a way to tap into that source alone we would never have to worry about cheap energy on this planet ever again. Fundy Bay Canada alone could power the entire world, and the animals that depend on that resource would never need to suffer any consequences if we are careful.
The other huge ‘minor’ source is the wind. We just need to concentrate on how to store that energy instead of generating it in a form that is not easily stored.
Even solar panels could be reworked into a storable energy output that does not include chemical batteries. And Lord knows there is a huge amount of solar energy around this planet to draw from. Enough to replace fossil fuels on its own if we could just figure out a way to store it for when we need it instead of wasting it because we did not need it when it was available. Its like sitting in the dark on a cold winters day starving while remembering grain rotting in the Sun during the summers end.
Store your grain damn it!
OK, enough of the melodramatics. I am going to explain to you exactly how we can bring all of these elements together so we might forever solve Mans next greatest challenge, the replacement of fossil fuels. Remember, I told you that you would have to start anew in your thought processes, and that time is now.
In all of the above cases, we can use each source to do one common thing easily and cheaply, and that’s the act of compressing air. And start adding up all these sources and you will see that we could easily and inexpensively compress billions of tons of air around this planet every
day no matter what time of year! But the best part is that compressed air can easily be stored for many years well beyond our typical environmental cycle, and we can easily transport compressed air in underground or above ground pipes, sending it where ever, whenever we
need it. It’s like canned food, consumable well beyond a single growing season.
Now your windmill can create and store every bit of energy it gathers
from the wind day and night and save it until we need it. Our hydro generation plants can save every ounce of energy available instead of letting it run out the bottom at night when it is not needed. And solar panels can hammer compressed air into storage containers for use on cloudy, calm, or dark days.
Now we have all the stored energy in the form of compressed air that we need, so now what. Wind turbines? Possibly, but the losses in any accelerated mass are enormous. What about the forces generated in displaced water mass? Is that not how we keep tons of steel from sinking when we build a ships hull? How would that work? Well, if you
take that compressed air and allow its pressure to force it into the base of a column of water, then insert that air into an inverted conveyor belt, the air bubbles will push up on the belt with a force of 62 pounds per cubic foot. Now if that container is 25 feet tall, and there is a column of total water displaced of 1500 cubic feet, that’s 93,000 pounds of torque output. Could you turn a generator with 93,000 pounds of torque?
This is torque generated with an easily gathered and easily stored
entity called compressed air. And if the demand for electricity drops off you can easily reduce the amount of air entering the container very quickly saving it for a later demand.
Now, the hard part will be putting the concept together in your mind. You will see that this is the only thing you have ever seen in the energy sector that is easily attained, and forever short term renewable … unless you are more entertained seeking a solution instead of actually finding one. There are still many who seek a better mouse
trap after all! But look this over. If you see a problem, I need to hear from you. A problem must be seen before it can be solved … just because it’s a problem does not mean it can’t be solved!
We are in process of building a demonstration project for this device in Western New York this coming year hopefully, and I invite all of you to watch our progress on this. Our company web site is www.heavyhydraulicoscillation.com. We will be posting any news about this installation as it proceeds, and it will give you access for any questions you might have. And if all goes as planned, the future of Mankind will not be challenged by the loss of cheap energy!
As far as I can see, I think this article should be under the ‘storage’ section rather than ‘efficiency’ as this scheme is fundamentally for energy storage rather than efficiency.
However, having had a good look at Heavy Hydraulic Oscillation’s website, this idea is basically a method of implementing a compressed air energy storage strategy with a novel, albeit I believe somewhat complicated, method of energy recovery from the compressed air. I would also be surprised if the proposed energy recovery mechanism described would any more efficient than the more conventional and well known methods already in use. In this respect there are statements about claimed efficiency advantages but I could not find any analysis or calculations to back these up on their web site.
For example, one statement says “To a hydraulic engineer, their [hydro electricity] efficiency is over 95%. In the light of ‘unaltered fact’ however, that efficiency almost never exceeds 15%.”. I’m not quite sure what ‘unaltered fact’ means exactly but, the fact is that large hydro power schemes do achieve 80% plus efficiency, at least in respect of mechanical (hydrostatic) energy input to electrical energy output. However, in truth it is not actually fair to compare this scheme with conventional hydro, this is an energy storage scheme so should really be compared with pumped hydro storage. One such installation is at Dinorwig in Wales in the UK, this is a 1.7GW plant with an overall round trip REAL efficiency of 74-75%, that is, 75% of the energy used to pump the water up to the header reservoir is recovered when the water is released to generate electricity, which breaks down to roughly 86% pumping efficiency and 86% generating efficiency. It would be interesting to know, i.e. see calculations, if this ‘new’system can achieve a round-trip efficiency any better than this, particularly when the energy storage half of the cycle is included.
Compressed air energy storage (CAES) is a valid an existing form of energy storage but there are numerous other statements on their site which make me think that this idea is probably not as good as the inventors believe. Some examples are:
“AIR IS A SAFE FUEL, PROTECT THE ENVIRONMENT”
Air (compressed or not) is NOT a fuel, as any scientist or engineer should know, any more than a battery, a capacitor or spring is. Air is just a medium that can store energy when compressed, much like a spring, in fact it is effectively a ‘gas spring’.
“NO ELECTRICAL TRANSMISSION LOSSES OR LARGE TRANSFORMER SITES”
There may not be any electrical transmission losses but this is a mixed energy system and what is relevant is ‘LOSSES’ of any sort, this statement on its own is no more meaningful than stating ‘there are no petrol tanker transport losses’. The energy has to be transmitted from its source to the end user and this will incur losses from various causes and my guess is that the losses involved in piping compressed air any significant distance (pumping losses) will be significantly higher than those incurred by using electricity transmission. However I have not done the calculations so at this stage I can only state that this is an educated guess. It would be interesting to see a worked example, with actual figures, on the website giving a comparison between using compressed air and electricity for transmitting the energy from Niagara Falls to New York.
EXTRACT FROM INVENTORS LETTER:- “Take a look at today’s hydro turbine device with a scientists eyes. One of the turbine races at Niagara Falls for example. At the outlet you will see water leaving the turbine at great speeds. Now, calculate how many gallons of water you see leaving that turbine in a sixty second period, and considering that one US gallon of water weighs about 8.35 pounds, ask yourself this question. Does mass in motion contain energy? Put it in this question form, If I step in front of an 18 ton semi tractor trailer moving at 40 MPH, will I get hurt? That much mass in motion will pop you like a balloon, obviously. Does this mean there is energy leaving a hydro turbine untouched? Duh. This is where the hydro engineers forget about the little detail their bosses never spoke of, but quietly put behind them on the “What I can not see is not important!” shelf. To a hydraulic engineer, their efficiency is over 95%. In the light of ‘unaltered fact’ however, that efficiency almost never exceeds 15%. And it never will see 90% as long as the water continues to stumble out of its tail race. But, a turbine will not work without fast moving water. No wonder them cowboys do not want the water to slow down! (Sorry cowboys, no insult intended. I love steak.) Now, redesign this system so that when the water leaves it goes slowly with very little energy on board. And where did all that energy go? To manufacture electricity 5 times better than a turbine!”
Looking at this through my, and I suspect most other, scientists eyes and also through an engineer’s eyes my first action would be to take some measurements of the water flowing through and out of Niagara Falls’ turbines and various other parameters and do some calculations, this data seems to be absent from the site.
For an example lets take the Robert Moses Niagara Generating Station at the falls. The dam is 118m high so allowing some space top and bottom and taking a working hydraulic height of 100m and assume the water coming out the raceway is travelling at 17.88m/s (40mph). The energy/sec in 1 cubic metre (1,000Kg) of this water is ½ mv2 = 159.8KJ. Now this cubic metre was originally 100m higher so its potential energy was mgh = 981.0KJ so 821.2KJ has been lost between the top and the bottom, i.e. been converted into electricity, which represents 83.7% efficiency. This is only an approximate calculation and not very rigorous or a particularly scientific one as I do not have access to the relevant data and there are other factors to account for but I suspect I’m not a million miles out and if the outflow was actually 30mph the efficiency would be over 90%. By making the observation that water is heavy and there seems to be a lot of it in motion does not create more energy, there may be a lot of energy but you have to take the measurements and do the calculations to define what ‘a lot’ is in real terms. Sot to answer the question “Does this mean there is energy leaving a hydro turbine untouched? Duh. ”, the answer is yes, about 10% of what went in a the top but not the 85% sugested!. Also it doesn’t take a lot of energy to ‘pop’ someone, if someone drove “an 18 ton semi tractor trailer” into you at one mile per week it would still pop you.
What this system requires is a proper scientific/mathematical analysis to show exactly how good (efficient) this system is and just how, and how much, energy can be stored using this scheme, just stating that there are thousands of untapped sources of elevated water in the US does not in it self mean that these can be utilised to store meaningful amounts of energy or for that matter that they can’t.