Will This Gas Turbine Power the Future?

It's encouraging to see a new energy technology that actually works for a change.

Lately the geologists, "sparkies" and the biochemists have lead the charge into our energy future and the "dull ME's", as we were called in college, seem to be playing strictly a support roll. Nuclear engineering at the same time has a black hole opening up under its feet.

But out on the horizon a "tour de force" in mechanical engineering is revving up its engines and readying air cover for the solutions to looming world energy shortages.

This old ME is giddy over the prospects. But the road ahead can be rough. At the hardware level disruptive mechanical technologies are few and far between. We are going to have to make the CO2 based Brayton cycle or something similar work with the tools we currently have at hand. We can't place our hopes on the major technological leaps that seem to favor other scientific and engineering disciplines with enviable frequency.

Any ambitious engineer with power plant, turbo machinery or vapor cycle credentials ought to jump on board this one and stay close as possible to what happens.

Start with this link to Sandia's detailed paper on their recent work:

http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2010/100171.pdf

Ed Weldon

Thanks Ed. I think too few people realize what an uphill battle it is going against entropy. They think some magic trick will transform reality. I don't see that happening.

Thanks for the link Ed. I will study it in detail when I get time.

Ol' CS Energy has been rabbitting on about this topic for some time and copping a pasting on CR4 for his efforts.

I'm almost surprised he isn't here reminding us all.

Well, Emjay, sounds like the fellow, whatever his handle, who probably bit off more than he could chew and then got himself too wrapped up in a potential that required far more efforts than he could muster. I can sympathize with someone in such a position. This fellow who tried to develop an S_CO2 cycle and couldn't get it to work for lack of some resources is probably feeling quite hurt in the face of a bigger richer player showing success with "his" idea.

In the USA there is this myth that a person can accomplish anything if he sets his mind to it and works hard enough. A lot of people will tell you that such an attitude is what made the United States the great nation it is. What gets conveniently forgotten are stories of the 99 people out of every 100 such dreamers who failed.

It may be easy to heap scorn on those folks especially when they are obviously fighting against the basic laws of physics, and rather than admit that they keep screaming their sales pitches to us. (CR-4). I think if we really want to help such folks the thing to do is get them out of the defensive emotional mode and into objective discussion.

If we can help them with immediate issues that's good. Usually that is their motive for coming here in the first place. The problem arises when they don't understand what we are telling them because the technology we present is over their head. Sometimes we give the wrong answers because we don't know enough about their problem and they choose to be secretive for one reason or another.

Sometimes the best we can do is help them into the next logical steps in their project and tell them what areas to watch, areas we know they will have to get into because they are the locations of their biggest barriers to success. Often the step in question is one of the early hardware implementations and the testing that will take place.

In this case the team of Sandia and Barber-Nichols is a tough one to go up against. These guys are really good at this. Sandia has huge technical resources. And they have an impressive heritage for difficult mechanical engineering projects.

Barber-Nichols has been in the thermodynamics business for at least 25 years. They sponsored the Barber-Nichols Steam car that set a Bonneville speed record in 1985. A fellow named Barber drove the record runs. It takes a certain set of talents to do that, talents well adapted to making machinery run at the bleeding edge. Barber Nichols has a useful heritage there.

Anyhow, I guess we should cut the unnamed guy from Australia some slack, regardless of whether he might have been somewhat of a pest.

Ed Weldon

Emjay-- Looks like we have an OT sprinkler here trying to get an edge for his "physics challenged" project. I have little interest in protecting his investors, present or future. Nor is it worth my time to assault his dream world.

Your logical comments are much respected by me and I suspect others who have been able to tolerate the volume of nonsense that has invaded this discussion.

Ed Weldon

Total BS. (Or maybe very inaccurately described.)

I thought of warning him to enter CR4 with such bravado. Then I wanted to find out more which didn't happen, yet.

I wonder

Were are the clips?

"more testing needs to be done" = it doesn't work yet

So is it putting out 75,000 watts or using 75,000 watts?

What method of plasma generation and containment are you using as well to get to 3000 C without vaporizing everything?

A CO2 powered turbine? No way that will work! It does not have a 10,000 PSI rated DAS valve made with a tennis ball, a garden hose, and a plastic garbage can in the design.

Hello tcmtech,

Please note that the model of Das Energy you speak of is for low pressure Co2 not supercritical .

Low pressure model (as per picture) released in open technology, engages both water and Co2 for its operation.

Supercritcal Co2 turbine and associated parts construction requires use of line pipe to withstand the the pressures of 10,000 bar at 100* Celsius.

Easiest construction of the turbine is the Australian Mitchell 60% efficient as opposed to the +80% efficient Francis turbine used in low pressure model.

Hi TCMTEC

75kW heat energy output, 5-6kW electrical input, core temperatures could go from 5,000 to 10,000deg, at that time of testing it was only running at between 30 to 40% efficient.

Most of the heat is forced out in a type of plume external to the unit.

It is not CO2, please water is not made of CO2 it must be a typo.

Keeping the core from not melting every thing is part of the technology; the external is made of high density plastic that should keep you thinking. The second prototype would have mainly ceramic internals, yes and I know the melting point of ceramics.

On a lighter note it is awesome to watch, I was asked to measure the downward force.

A CSIRO scientist calculated, if it got to full power that the force out put would be in the order of 3tons per sq inch.

At Present the forecast put out by Siemens with very nice documentation, is that in the near future the Nat gas will power the gas turbines for most of our base power.

This is probably a ploy for there own good fortune. Looking at Japan at the moment I do not think that Australia will go nuclear.

So how are you generating this high temp plasma field in the first place?

aussepom2 -- If you want to carry on a discussion about this power source or conversion method you are interested in please go start your own separate topic.

What you are talking about has absolutely nothing to do with the use of CO2 or other unconventional working fluids in their supercritical property ranges in thermodynamic (Brayton or Rankine) cycles usually associated with energy conversions. And note we are talking in this topic about working fluids used in energy conversions, not the energy sources we refer to as "fuels".

If you don't understand what I'm talking about that's OK. Please take my word for it and take your off topic conversation somewhere else so those of us who have relevant comments can get on with a useful discussion here.

Those of you that are still with me go back and read the Sandia news release

http://www.sandia.gov/LabNews/110211.html

all the way through and if you don't understand what they are talking about I'll try my best to explain what I can.

This is a very, very big deal. If hardware issues they mention like turbine bearings and system sealing can be worked out by the mechanical engineers (I'm quite optimistic) we are looking at a major development for reducing the amount of fossil fuel used and the resultant CO2 emissions in generating electricity.

Ed Weldon

hi

ok got the point

gone

Whilst the energy output of supercritical Co2 has long been charted, its use in technology that does not recycle the Co2 but instead releases to attmosphere in a world seeking carbon reduction may have some marketing problems.

Also it remains unkown how the new technology copes with how it handles the formation of Dry-Ice that occur at supercritical temperatures.