Mr. Tom Kreher

I have been following the alternative energy hype for several years. No need to tell me what is going on.

On a clear day I could see Buffalo Mountain and the TVA (leased) wind mills from a friend's house. TVA through our local utility sells blocks of "Green Power" at a surcharge rate of $4.00 per block of 150 kilowatt-hours. Of course what isn't sold to the Greenies is lumped in with total cost of generation to be distributed to all customers. In addition to wind mills they also collect methane gas and utilize Solar (PV) panels. Install your own and sell it back to your local utility and/or TVA.
The wind doesn't blow steady and continuous. Windmills don't work without wind or with too much wind. TVA considered a dedicated pumped storage facility to work in conjunction with the Buffalo Mountain complex but rejected same. There was and is a large pumped storage lake on Racoon Mountain with approximately 1,532 megawatts generating capacity. One anywhere on the TVA system serves all of the system, as well as by interconnections, the national grid as well.

As "dkwarner" points out in post #89 flexible pads in the road waste energy not conserve same. Every conversion of energy from one form to another is a dead loser per 2nd LofT.

Alcohol from maize aka corn in particular is a bad idea as it diverts a foodstuff to an expensive way to produce ethanol. Biomass as a source of raw material for fermentation and distillation of ethanol is a far better way and should be economically viable. Wide distribution as automotive fuel and/or larger percentage component is still months away.

Hydrogen is limited as to a few special applications. Universal use as a general purpose fuel is a fools errand due to factors too numerous to mention here in addition to the cost and means of production.

Solar energy powered Stirling engines have been researched coming and going. The DOE funds R&D programs to build and erect large arrays of solar dishes to heat the engines to generate the power and a public utility is recruited to distribute the power when and if. The latest such project is at least two years behind schedule. As far as I know they have yet to produce a functioning prototype and they will have the R&D funds cut off for lack of progress.

Next step will be a "New" organization negotiating a contract to do the R&D, get new funds for a "New" contractor and the same old ladies of the night in new kimonas on board to enjoy continuing employment.

And the government says: "Look what we are doing to solve the energy shortage"
The answer being ding dong little other than smoke and mirrors.

Sure there is plenty of energy all around us just like "Water Water Everywhere And Not a Drop to Drink!" It is low grade energy. Difficult to harvest, difficult to store, and all too often not economically feasible if at all

Hare brained, ill considered, oversimplified solutions, proposed almost daily are a dime a dozen.

So what do you recommend as a means of harvesting and storing this low grade energy? IF either you or I knew the answer to that question we would not be wasting out time here but reaping the rewards of providing the effective economical, and profitable to us, solution to the benefit to the USA and the world.

As a sage once said, "If you are so ding dong smart why ain't you rich?"

Mr. Stirling

When you're hot you're hot.

I think everyone should have a Lake Raccoon Mountain or at least the gutters of their house connected to a cistern and then cross connected to municipal and then~~~. Even old Aunt Phoebe was smart enough to save some rain water for washing her hair.

If you have driven lately you know that you must stop as often as you may go. As I suggested to Mr. DKWarner we could put the generator pads in the approach to stop signs or slow down areas where they could help by slowing vehicles as well.

My friend from Knoxville got plenty of power from corn and called it White Lightening.

Hydrogen is good. You have heard the underground claims that some yet to be named sole is able to run an internal combustion engine on water. That would no doubt be the H in H₂0. compressed as a bi-product is nice also.

The DOE, (I'm from the government and here to help) is as much a problem with the people who expect the government to be their nanny. It is a matter of fact that the innovations and technical break-compressed come from motivated individuals named Gates or Jones or Stirling.

In another exchange someone suggested using wind and water to compress air and store the pressure in underground vaults. The compressed air could even be used to drive oil from underground deposits as we do with compressed air over oil systems. Then when the wind blows and the river flows we might retain energy for an energy snack later.

Industry and Education have done a very wise thing in advocating and being supportive (not supporting) of robotics development competition between high school students. I will probably broil in hell for objecting to my tax dollars being spent on sports where a very small group of kids play games for the ego gratification and the other 98% of the kids are subjected to seem happy about it in the name of school spirit. The robotics competition allows anyone who is interested enough to apply their energy and effort even if they can't jump.

You asked what I would do (and I thank you for that). I would sponsor an alternate energy competition with no holds barred. Enhanced robots will aide industry and I am all for that but enhanced energy can be done by individuals as well as teams. If the Government really wanted to help they would provide a reward for anyone and every one who achieves what amounts to a break-through.

The cost of any method of producing viable energy should not be a tie breaker. When I was younger some fools were promoting transistors for a couple hundred dollars each. I saw the early Xerox copier that used a glass faced rubber backed copy holder on an extended gear track, a camera with an 11x17 sensitized metal plate in the focal plane. The light burned of the static electrical areas that would be white and left the areas that would have lines or image. The plate was inserted as the top of shallow box with glass beads and carbon black. Invert the box and roll the carbon across the exposed photo plate. Remove the plate and insert it into (a toaster) a radiant heater to fuse the carbon to the metal. Attach the finished plate to the drum of an offset duplicator (AB Dick or Multilith print machine). Wipe the plate with a preparation liquid. Turn on the duplicator and Wallah. You could have one or as many copies as necessary. This Xerox machine about 10 feet long, 4 feet wide and 5 feet high would cost an estimated $250,000 to duplicate today with the engineering all ready worked out. After 40 years Xerox is going strong with cost effective copiers and technology that all started with an albatross and hand full of believers.

You might re-phrase your question on my behalf to; "Why ain't you richer?" Capitalism; It's a beautiful thing.

"You might re-phrase your question on my behalf to; "Why ain't you richer?" Capitalism; It's a beautiful thing."

FYI, & FYEO:

Please don't let this get around. It wouldn't be appropriate for all and sundry to be aware of it. I have been invited to join a large forum of specialists and $ wizards to unscrew the inscrutable. As the consulting fees come rolling in I will be too busy for CR4 and will miss the stimulating repartee. But each one must keep account of the accounting. Mustn't he.

Bycycle

The cost of any method of producing viable energy should not be a tie breaker.

Here you are at a difficult point: each time when alternative energy is in the picture the cost is found to be to high.

When traditional energy is evaluated the cost is never to high. And when it would be there are always some tricks to cover up these costs.

When designing energy systems for this century, we alway start from what we are used in our actual world. For the designers 100 years back it was easy, there was nothing so implementing something different was not a problem.

Try to explain a 60y old politician that we should not heat our houses with fossil based energy. The summer sun has enough power that can be stored to heat our house in winter. You just have to install collectors on the roof and a storage system in the center of the house, 20m³ of water is sufficient for most houses.

What does such a system cost: a one time investment and your safe for 25 years.

This politician will never go for changes in laws to implement these systems. His grandmother did warm her house with fossil fuels and so will it be done for the next centuries.

Ho, but cars have to run on Hydrogen, which is fancy hi-tech.

Yes, cars are the prolongation of mens dick's, nice to go out for some chick hunting in a H² car.

This is why we should have more women in charge, the feel for reality will bring mankind further.

OK, I know, I'm male, but sometimes we have to admit we made some errors and correct them. (and ask for the right way)

Gwen

...the wind and gravity are our friends...

Every way you take it, earth's motion, perpetual it's not. Not even in term of minute changes: the drag or friction between the layers of moving air, or the different speeds between the air and earth, causing any amount of drag or friction, dissipate as heat, thus somewhat taxing the whole system's momentum, or "slowing earth" if you will.

Even a "naked" solid body, rotating in space, has no "perpetual" motion as such, and will eventually slow down, due to conflicting tidal interaction with near or far masses, not to mention inner elasticity or layered structure, and other factors, even on the micro level, as ridiculous as "particle interaction" in space.

Only if you were to point a gun to my head, I would resort to apologetics, mumbling that, yes, since earth will probably be destroyed (as the sun will become a "red giant"), prior to the earth slowing down significantly, and this will happen long after we are not here, you may consider earth's current motion, "somewhat" perpetual. But again, "perpetual" only compared to the longevity of human presence of earth.

...human presence of earth...

On earth, of course. (Not a word, europium! , eventually I'll figure it out, even with a broom, if that's what it takes)

Sometimes spell check let's us down.

Being a foreigner to English, I don't have the text hunting reflexes you guys have, and being dyslectic, I need to positively and tediously confirm every bit of it, or I get restless.

Here's another one, in "absolute" terms: Was the universe created? If it was indeed created (into it's given form), it would then, by definition (with it's given form), end.

Maybe before created, it was something other than we can know or perceive. Maybe in it's aftermath, it would transform, into something other than we know or perceive. Whatever.

In these terms, not even the universe is perpetual (in it's given form, of course).

Now, consider the sub-structures within that universe (earth being one), these are, by definition, subject to the same.

Would it make sense to say they are to outlast their superstructure?

An unbound neutron would last intact for about twenty minutes, then turn back into a proton (Beta decay). An unbound proton would last billions of years, yet, it's not perpetual. nothing is.

You know, This Mortal Coil.

You can say (according to the first TD law) that the total amount of energy is eternal, but only within the context of e given, existing, universe.

Even if you say that God is eternal, you would have to exclude it's being from the limited existence of the universe.

So, perpetual in what sense, please?

Well lets see.

Stirling I hope the rewards of your cerebral offering will afford a pal a jug of shine. Is it true that Al Gore is a major stockholder and president of the Energy Credits Association with which a prominent few (politicians) hide excess consumption?

Gwen good luck zooming around in your hydrogen space coupe and becoming a dictator.

Yuval when you find out for sure if there is or is not perpetual motion, please give me a wake up call.

An undocumented source reported that of the worlds aprox' 6 Billion people only 1.5 Billion now have electrical power, lights etc. Further 4 Billion live below the poverty level. In the US that means no more than one car and two TV sets per household. Heart wrenching!

When the 75% who get along without a kilowatt discover what the other 25% enjoy there may be global waring (sic). Rather than the great unwashed watching Oprah and eating venison at what I now like to call my house I'm up for finding and fixing the energy shortage. Or shall we "Let Them Eat Cake"? Didn't work last time.

A simple and elegant thought for a simple question.

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, thus perpetual motion!"

Perpetual motion is all around us, we are living, breathing, seeing, hearing, using, transforming etc etc perpetual motion.

"Perpetual motion is inherent in energy."

We talk about energy at rest, energy is never at rest even at absolute 0. Its just moving very slowly.

We try to box in a description and tunnel vision our focus of perpetual motion like an object moving back and forth in the same spot forever, but do we see the air or noise vibrations, light oscillations, radiations, heat transfers, static electric transfers, oxidations, decaying, magnetic fields and the numerous energy transfers redirected into numerous motions.

"Energy is in a constant state of perpetual motion."

The question should be, " Can you hold energy in one spot forever?"

Paul

A simple and elegant thought for a simple question.

I'd substitute the word "misleading" for "elegant". The term "perpetual motion" has a specific meaning quite different than "constant motion." Perpetual motion machines are those that run forever without slowing down, and by extension, those that do slightly better: run on their own energy and create some energy to spare. The term "over unity" is used among fraudsters* (or the gullible) to promote investment in such schemes.

Are there any examples, anywhere, of perpetual motion? The solar system comes to mind. But the solar system is not in perpetual motion: the planets are slowing down. Perhaps the best and most easily understood examples of near perpetual motion machines we have are sophisticated flywheels, which can run for days and days -- so long that they are used for UPS power supplies. But not one of those will run forever, and not one can supply energy (to computers, for example) without slowing dramatically.

Of course, in a non-technical, broad sense, things (from big things to particles) are "perpetually" in motion. But that is entirely and fundamentally different than the perpetual motion that even very serious thinkers pursued centuries ago. And that sense of the word is fundamentally different than what has been discussed in this thread. There is a world of difference between a 99% efficient machine and a 101% one. It's not a night and day difference -- it's far more significant than that.

but do we see the air or noise vibrations, light oscillations, radiations, heat transfers, static electric transfers, oxidations, decaying, magnetic fields and the numerous energy transfers redirected into numerous motions

The very fact that you can ask this rhetorically means that yes, of course we can see all those things. Science has enabled us to do so: many of them in very direct easily-observable ways, and others with the use of some instrumentation.

I'm sure your post is well intentioned, but probably the last thing someone working on one of the thousands of variations on perpetual motion machines needs to hear is that perpetual motion is all around us.

* One of the slickest is Steorn. They claim they were unable to make their public demo work, because the lights in the display area were too warm. If they were not involved in fraud, then they would certainly let the demo run as well as it could under the conditions, so that scientists might contribute suggestions, or at least come to believe that they are something other than frauds. Instead they whisked the machine away back into secrecy.

Knowing that perpetual motion is all around us and energy is being transfered in many ways should inspire those engineers to make the machine that captures and uses as many of those ways as possible.

The fact that nothing but energy lasts forever should not dissuade some one from creating the machine that only lasts 100 - 1,000,000 years.

Over unity exists in the splitting of the atom compared to what we put into the process! I would dare say over unity could exist where ever alternate energies are combined and used in the process compared with the one drop we put in.

This does not mean more energy was created than existed in the process, it means more energy was creatively used that existed in the process.

A gas/electric hybred uses a gasoline engine and an electrical Motor/Generator.

Now we have all heard of a turbo charger, how about adding one to drive a small alternator/generator on our hybred. Lets not stop there, lets recapture the heat in those hot exhaust gases through our heat exchanger (Radiator) and boil water to send through a small steam turbine generator. Lets recapture the water from the steam process and with our electrical energy split it into hydrogen and oxygen, both extreamley flammable gases that could be used to produce more steam and more electrical energy. Of course we could split the hydrogen atom for an energy boost. Lets add an alternate evaporator unit to the A/C to capture water from the air adding to our water tank and cooling the exhaust lines further capturing condensation. Lets recapture the heat from the A/C to help boil our water. Lets add a small solar hot water collector to the roof of the car. Lets add light weight air tanks and an air compressor to each wheel to utilized when breaking and re capture the heat produced in compression. Lets turn our air compressor into air engines to help power our machine and reduce gasoline useage. We can use the cooling effect from the compressed air usage through our air engine to capture more moisture. Lets capture the heat in the car when parked in the sunshine to pre-heat our water.

There are lots of energy transfers out there for our engineers to come up with creative ways to use them.

Paul

The ICE that runs the generator is equipped with a turbo: it takes already a nice amount of the energy out of the exhoust gasses.

What you could do is add a stirling generator to have the system gaining more energy, but in the ened you add that much wheight that the extra costs more energy than it gains.

After all, cars will stay the energy wasters they are. We can win way more in looking to stationary energy systems. I stay in the vage: energy is energy: household heat is one of the biggest energy consumers. Here we could save the world when we would use the free energy that is all around us.

I appreciate the positive and upbeat tone of your post. There are almost endless opportunities for more efficiently utilizing energy, and engineers should be encouraged to pursue these. But in order to spend their limited time productively, they should pursue those opportunities that have the best chance for success.

All energy transfers are "lossy" to one degree or another. Among the most egregiously lossy processes is the chemical energy > heat > mechanical energy process in an ICE. 70% of the energy available in the fuel goes off to the atmosphere as waste heat, and 30% drives the car and its accessories. (Then, there are additional losses in the transmission and tires!) But the picture is really even more bleak: When a car is idling, virtually all the energy goes off as waste heat. When the engine is lightly loaded (as in a large-engined car cruising at 65 mph) that 30% figure drops to 15%. You can see that if we could keep the engine more highly loaded all the time (and turn it off entirely when possible) the efficiency would improve. Thus, the hybrid.

But in a hybrid, you add several more energy conversions, each with losses. In my own prototype (which I am building mainly for commercialization, and secondarily for the Automotive X Prize) the engine itself runs at full load virtually all the time, when it runs. Otherwise it is shut off entirely. But to do that means that I store energy in chemical form (batteries). I can do the generating at about 90% efficiency, losing 10% to heat in the generator. I can do the electrical - chemical - electrical conversion in the battery with about 85% efficiency. (If these roughly 25% losses were all I had to worry about, it sounds great so far. I've doubled the efficiency of the gas engine by running it only at full load, and to do so, I've only lost 25% in the required energy transfers.) The electrical energy has to be modulated or controlled (so the car doesn't go full throttle all the time) and that is also remarkably efficient, at 98% or better. Then there is the electric motor, which is 90% efficient (and could more efficient, if money grew on trees). The transmission is about 95% efficient. So... 30% x 90% x 85% x 98% x 90% x 95% = 19.2% Compare this to 15% (engine) x 95% (transmission) = 14.25% for the conventional arrangement. So, even at cruise, my hybrid offers about a 30% improvement over the conventional. Around town, where I can take advantage of regenerative braking, (and where the conventional arrangement becomes even less efficient, I can get about double the mileage. My hybrid efficiency is pretty dismal, although not as poor as a conventional car. Where my hybrid gains its MPG figure over a Prius is in lightness, aerodynamics and frontal area. Day in and day out it will get over 100 MPG -- more than double that of a Prius.

One can make the case that it doesn't make sense to further improve mileage -- the amount of fuel used in such a vehicle is already little enough that the cost of additional efficiency makes the vehicle sell in smaller numbers, and therefore the affect on fleet average fuel efficiency (now about 22 mph in the US) starts to dwindle. But to win the X Prize, I may need to increase efficiency, nevertheless (and despite their own argument that 100 MPG is the magic figure.) So I've considered all sorts of waste heat recovery schemes.

Turbocharging, for instance, seems to hold promise. But turbocharging has no beneficial effect on pounds of fuel consumed per horsepower. It simply has the effect of making a smaller engine produce more HP. The smaller engine, plus the turbo hardware may weigh slightly less than a larger engine of equal HP, but the difference is small. So, in my case, I can't even come remotely close to justifying the cost. A diesel would seem to be as obvious as can be. But for even my very small engine, the diesel adds $1000 to the cost of the vehicle, even if I ignore the considerable cost and weight of the additional emission equipment. The payback for the efficiency gain is 18 years -- untenable.

Turbine drive for a generator would seem to make sense for my vehicle, but the net gain would be extremely small (it costs HP to drive the turbine, because of additional back pressure.) In a very large car with excess HP this can make some sense, and BMW and others have prototyped such systems, with some success. Auxiliary steam turbines produce mechanical energy have been prototyped, as well, with limited success.

Hydraulic (or air) hybridization has been tried many times, but the weight and complexity of the equipment makes is non-competitive with electric hybridization. The recent UPS truck hydraulic hybrids store, in their 1000 pounds of accumulators, a small fraction of the energy of the 88 pound battery pack in a Prius. See this post for details.

As I said, I like the positive tone of your post, but at the same time I find that the loose use of terminology and concepts makes it misleading. None of this has anything to do with "perpetual motion" -- that is a completely different concept than energy recovery from waste heat. You roll together energy recovery from waste heat with multi step energy transfer processes (which degrade, rather than improve, efficiency). For example, generating H2 and O2 consumes more energy than can be produced by burning the mixture. So if you did this on board a car, you would reduce you MPG figure substantially. (You also claim that O2 is a flammable gas. It is not. Flammable gases are those gases which combine with O2 in the process we call burning. O2 combines with O2 without generating any heat whatsoever.)

Sorry for the long rambling post, but my points are that nothing you've mentioned is "perpetual energy" as defined by physicist and engineers; that energy transfers are inherently lossy, and generally to be avoided, not sought, if we are to maintain or increase system efficiency; and to be careful in your thinking about what processes recover energy, and which processes instead consume additional energy.

Getting more energy in splitting the atom than investing in splitting it, is not a reversal of the second TD law, but instead, a proof of it.

Splitting the atom, is releasing the channeled energy invested in forming the atom in the first place. If anything, this is an example of uplifting the level of entropy rather than lowering it.

Lowering the entropy of a system requires the investment of energy. Even maintaining the same level of lowered entropy requires additional energy to be invested, just for maintenance.

Toppling that higher order of form and structure, may release the energy invested there in the first place, each system with it's typical characteristics, in this case of maintaining the atomic structure of matter, it's E equals MC square, but in general it is valid for any system.

probably has nothing to do with your vision but looking at the way cells move in the body, positive and negative activity required, checking creatures and how they produce the oxygen for energy, perhaps the action of gills like a fish or whale.

When they take hydrogen from water, H₂0, for fuel do they get oxgen as well?Automotive fuel rendered thus might take us on a gills trip.

When they take hydrogen from water, H₂0, for fuel do they get oxgen as well?

Certainly! The process simply adds enough energy (which has to come from somewhere, and of course there are losses...) to break the bonds holding the H and O together. Since most applications can get O2 from the air, and it is expensive to store the O2, I believe the O2 is usually just dumped to the atmosphere.

The only perpetual motion I know for real, is the fact that Don Martin's gestures keep blasting me some fifty years after their creation.

Zboink ?

No, no, no...

Shtoink !

Cold water has about 10 PPM O2.

Air has about 210,000 PPM = few warm blooded water breathers.

That said, gills are more efficient than lungs, they have to be.

On the ther hand, death of old age is usually due to oxidation damages in the cells (as free radicals disrupt metabolic chemical exchange).

It's the counterpart of live: no one survives it.

Absolutely right: one can never be sure they'll survive, but one can be positively sure they'll die

perpetual motion, hmmmmmmmm........., i remember my dad once saying that the closest thing you'll ever get to perpetual motion is a billy goat s****** itself o**. i think he may have been right, no free lunch