Windpower

Have you seen several posts by Lapinbleu about generating hot water directly from a Savonius VAWT:-

http://cr4.globalspec.com/comment/178703/Re-Savonius

If I'm not mistaken, the batteries in a system like this do not only store the energy but allow a constant clean supply of electricity for use.

Wind power is so unstable it requires some medium of "filtration" to make it usable.

Have you considered using capacitors to store electricity? Maybe have 2. One, to use while the other is charging. The capacitors would have converters to go to 110v 60 cycle AC. There is a company making super capacitors. However, they are so secretive that their claims can't be verified. If possible, build one from scratch that could store enough power for one day or whatever is feasible. Supercapacitors do exist. Coleman makes a supercapacitor powered screwdriver. Check it out at:

http://www.edn.com/blog/1470000147/post/820014682.html

"However, they are so secretive that their claims can't be verified."

There is no secret, they don't work very well, yet anyways. A link from your link:

http://www.edn.com/blog/1700000170/post/60013806.html

This is "excess energy". So is efficiency really an issue? As long as it is somewhat useful then it's good.

Let's go in another direction here with respect to energy storage. Is there a chemical method other than storage batteries? One that might be adaptable to the scale of doitinastang's project?

Quick disclaimer here. My experience with the formal study of chemistry goes back some 50 years. I may know just enough to be dangerous.

Strikes me here that if excess energy from the windmill can be efficiently used to produce a liquid or solid fuel that can return that energy then there may be a solution. I prefer solids or liquids here because they are generally easier to store than gasses like hydrogen and oxygen from the electrolysis breakdown of water. Carrying the same line of thinking forward can the energy be used to raise the value of some "stuff" above dollar value of the energy? That begins to sound like effective efficiency numbers above 100%. Maybe just pump water out to a distant meadow or garden.

There is one other thought. If one has an extensive workshop operation compressed air has lots of applications. Topping off the air tanks at night when surplus electricity may be more available from the windmill may be a workable idea. The key here may be a small air compressor designed for high pressure and continuous duty rather than the usual large compressors designed to fill air tanks on mostly short duty on and off cycles.

Another idea may be routinely running a well pump to fill a large storage tank or a well insulated food freezer only during low energy use times. Other appliances may also come to mind for application in this manner. Like the coffee maker.

Ed Weldon

This sounds like a plan.

What is required to create a battery to store and release energy:

We know lead acid batteries types work, expensive and need many for voltage and Ah and they don't last all that long.

Lithium Ion

Lithium Ion Sulfur

Lithium Titanate

Cadmium

We need anode/cathode electrodes, Ions, enzymes, excitable fluid(s), some type of material that can hold a charge and recharge w/o over heating or exploding, catching on fire, something to hold the materials, insulators.

How do we build a battery that can handle high amp loads and discharge at a certain rate? Even if it's run through a super capacitor(s) that can handle large amps and release at a slow rate but enough to power an inverter and still have 200A output?

Start small and build from that.

Sony supposedly built a battery that ran on sugar in 2007. I have not heard any more about this in quite a while so it may have been a flop.

This is probably way out there to even consider. I know it's over my head.

quote Jimh77: "This sounds like a plan.What is required to create a battery to store and release energy:"

Hey wait a minute!! My plan in reply #79 specifically did not include batteries. Were I to get involved with "new" batteries surely someone would get poisoned at least and more likely blasted into bits of peopleburger. Jimh, you're on your own on this one; I'm standing back and watching from a safe distance.

Well maybe there is something to innovative batteries.

Sugar? My only experience with sugar outside our kitchen goes back 50 years and involved hot rods and a local bootleg still operation. But that's a bit OT here.

Ed Weldon

HI Ed,

I was thinking maybe we need to build a new type of battery from scratch. hehehe

Probably a really bad idea though. A friend of mine blew up his garage trying to make hydrogen once. His parents never let him in the garage again.

I'd probably have the same outcome with this idea.

When I went to school, more than half a century ago, they had a basement full of "Edison Cells", which, if I recall correctly, had an alkaline electrolyte. Apparently the output (voltage) was very stable and they lasted "forever." I suppose the energy density would make them unsuitable for vehicles, but for load leveling for wind turbines... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel-iron_battery

Here's a link to the sales brochure for the outfit that imports the Chinese nickel iron batteries:

http://www.beutilityfree.com/content/pdf_files/NiFeFlyer.pdf

Lots of good information there. They look a bit pricey to me. $1010.00 for 12 volt 122 Amp-hours.

Any comments from anybody on how this compares with other types of batteries for small solar/wind/water power systems?

Another interesting question would be whether one could build his own NiFe batteries. To me some questions that arise are:

What iron chemistry (allowable impurities, carbon content, etc) is required? Would ordinary low carbon steel work?

Will electroless nickel plating on the one set of plates work or will phosphorus content prove troublesome?

Any good ideas for a source of air tight plastic containers robust enough to build batteries into? PVC pipe and fittings would allow "tube in tube" configurations and good packaging densities set up vertically.

How about sources of potassium hydroxide and lithium hydroxide for the electrolyte?

What kind of oil to use to float on top of the electrolyte?

And lastly has anyone found a detailed recipe for an NiFe cell perfected by someone who has been there and done that?

Ed Weldon

HI Ed,

I am like some of the contributors in that you and others, who are "has beings" (?) by application of our interests and skills. I still love the sciences and how they just are so very reliable, if we do our home work. I discovered Nicolaus Tesla's work while on a family vacation in Telluride, Colorado, where he helped install the first Commercial AC system in a gold mine there. He was there around 1885. I made this discovery about 1985.

I have enjoyed your careful analysis of the "possibilities" of appliying Science to the energy conversion and storage cases considered herein, and that is how we were trained as scientists... "crunch the numbers".

Wind machinery is available through Harbor Freight, one systems for just a 300 watts (that will light 3-100 watt light bulbs) turbine set-up with a 30 foot tower that would cost around $1500 just to get the package to the jobsite, but then at some sites, where the winds blow enough to justifty a clean wind-electric investment is justifiable,to whatever energy storage system that is considered to handle this "free-energy" system.

After having lived with my small PV system for a few years, I get enough photons to meet my personal needs. It is always fun to apply a "Free Energy" principle, and be able to visualize a larger system under consideration. We have to have the basic feel of "all the choices" in order to imagine the "many possibilities". Hey, my light bulbs are lit by "solar energy".

Take Care, All You Budding Young scientists, who now live in a situation where "oil sourced energy solutions" are out of the "mixture of possibilities", and CO2 accumulation is causing some drastic environmental effects. Science and "good judgement" is still available to make life "simple" and "better" as Tesla did for our generations, and I have discovered the, Marshall Principle, here is these discussions, and that looks enormously promising for the challenges to develop clean and reliable natural energy resources for future generations.

I rate your scientific methodology herein, at least a 4+. I perform my analysis' in the same classical manner.

DRS

Electric heating salt water stored in large tanks by the excess power can be an idea. It holds a lot of heat, which can be regenerated by transfering the heat to water to convert it to steam and use steam turbine generator. This idea is being implemented for solar power plants with similar problem of power storage but with slight variations. The details can be worked by proper engg principles

b v rao

Honoured coleague, it is not dalt water but melted salt at 580 degrees of Celsius...

You are right. It should be molten salt

Honored sir Weldon, all these options were discussed on this thread already......

It was exactly continuous pumping of water that I suggested, but You have noticed just type of pump I recommended :-))

Now, perhaps somebody can find this more easy than me, as this concerns IBM Laboratories in US, and it is extremely important for storing electricity, so would help not only in this case but in making small but high capacity batteries, extremely useful for electromobiles........

Some 20 or 25 years ago I have read that IBM Laboratories invented dry battery made from plastic with graphite strands in it, (perhaps carbon nanotubes?), that could store 1 KWh on 1 cm2 of such plate. Since it is dry, (that sound like capacitor to me more than battery or accumulator) I would say that has very long life also, which is perfect reason for accumulators industry to bury such invention fast and deep :-((

Since engineers visit this site, perhaps somebody else has heard about it and if we are extremely lucky then somebody >>in the know<< can be contacted so thing can be resurected..... Anyhow, If my memory is not deceiving me, it was written that IBM took patent on this also, so someone who can search patent database can possibly find that, and by now patent surely expired so it is >>public property<< and anybody could build this kind of bateries without paying any royalty........

There is one other way to use surplus energy from windpower station, and this is to synthesize Methane from electrolised water (for getting Hydrogen) and CO2 using Ruthenium (United States Patent 4609440). Then Methane could be used for fuel usuall way. This is not very efficient process, therefore it should not be done unless electricity would be lost otherwise, or only if electricity is extremely cheap....

Only problem is capturing CO2 from some other process that has CO2 as waste product.......

But Methane need not be just burned, from it many usefull products can be made, like fertilizers, plastic and so on.

Still, simplest way is to send surplus electricity to Grid and thus earn money in process, and this is also cheap to do..........

Regards, Marijan Pollak

Capacitors were mentioned before, but here goes my idea for a Very Large Capacitor: I first thought of this as a way to capture the energy from a lightning strike. Using mixtures and/or layers of different types of earth (as in dirt) as the semi-conductor, plastic film for the dielectric, and copper or alloy chicken wire for the grid. would make a capacitor 2 or 3 acres in area. Depth would be the variable determined by feasibility, system requirements, and would the damn thing work anywhoo.

I apologise, but I am a right-brained person, probably have no business here as my math skills are woefully inadequite. I'll leave the numbers to the math geeks, but I did get a 98 on the 1964 NYS Gen. Science Regents. I need a SuperGeek to put me in my place occasionally.

Have at it folks.

Carl

I like verticle wind mills myself much easier to work on and maintain.

I am leaning that direction myself. On the High Plains of Colorado we have plenty of wind, even at ground level. I would think that a VAWT is the way to go. What is your background with "Storage" and utilizing the generated Power, DC, AC, Combo? Have you experience with any direct drive, no gears, VAWT's?

You will need a braking system .

Over speed is a killer and the wind will tear it apart.

Hi doit inastang,

I vaguely recall a verticle stafted wind turbine set-up in southern Colorado at a AE book distributor (EARS) west of Trinidad (1980 timeframe). They had three 12volt (about 50 amp) car alternators (belt driven). The main office building approx. 30' x 60' had rammed earth walls. They had a sole source-electrical setup, and the tower was made from steel pipe. It is a basic copy of a car electrical system which would work, and parts were interchangeable and cheap. Battery banks and invertors would be requred to produce 110V AC and storage for refig/frzr, hot water, ect. .

Squirrel cage blower cage was the wind catcher (about 18 inch diameter squirrel cage out of an evapaorative cooler with about 1 inch shaft).

I would think that the torque would recede at high wind, but additional alternators could be used for RPM braking, connected to a resistors bank.

These ex-college students were low key minimal expense D-I-Y operation. They sold solar books world-wide, I ran a bookstore out of El Paso for EPSEA, and would pick up book orders whole on a ski trip.

There must be lots of VSWT around your area.

Good Luck,

DRS

On reflection: referring back to my post at #28, I guess that heating is not your biggest problem in the high desert.

How about using the turbine to directly drive a compressor. You can then simultaneously heat and cool two large insulated tanks of water. Use the cool tank via a heat exchanger for air conditioning; use the hot tank via a heat exchanger for any hot water (and space heating if needed); tap off in a controlled way two smaller tanks with a TEC (thermoelectric device/ Peltier device) between them; use the current from the TEC to top up much smaller batteries than you would require if you were going to try to store all the energy in them.

The heat exchangers and TECs should be virtually maintenance free; you'd need a flexible, robust and maintenance friendly compressor, and, batteries are batteries I'm afraid.

The TECs will be expensive for the amount of power you will want to draw from them. There may be better options for extracting energy from differential heat sources, but, none as simple.

By the way: water has the highest specific heat capacity of any known substance. But, you could reduce the size of the "storage" tanks by utilising state change materials. (In fact if you used salt water in the cool tank the state change material could be water/ice in sealed flexible containers.)

Look at these ---

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/223636553/30KW_Vertical_Wind_Turbine.html

pair it with this

http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/212935157/Solar_System_Solar_Power_System_Solar_Generator.html

and your good with Natures Power .

I live in a windy/sunny area, and IMHO the only efficient and fesible way to store excess energy is Hydrogen. Once the energy is in this form it can be stored, used in your car, used to cook with, in your heater, or in a generator as a back up electrical source.

Yes, provided You can keep hydrogen in its storage, because it leaks trough mostly everything.......

Since You live in desert area, perhaps it would be better to pump water into big storage tank and use water for watering crops and producing electricity on demand.

That would also remove necessity of regulating speed of Wind turbine, because stronger wind would just pump water faster...

I assume You have water, as without it You would not be able to produce Hydrogen?

On the other hand, Your idea is specially good for such desert area (if feasible) since water is waste product in using hydrogen as fuel. But this process generate lot of heat that would be problem to get rid of in such hot place, no?

even though its hot here, adaptive building is the key, just engineer it. H storage is easier if itsnot in a liquid. Ive sincerely looked into water storage to run a generator and Ive found it not feasible. to generate enough electricity to run a home I needed either a head of water 1000' high with a 10k gal tank or a 100k gal tank with 20' of head, these are aprox numbers, but the result was the same, imposible for me, and difficult for anyone else who doesnt own a mountain near by to place the tank on. I can do the Hydrogen on a couple of acres.

If You are sure, then do it, I wish You all luck possible and great success!

I would however consider fact that to make hydrogen You need to spend electricity, and saving electricity in accumulators would take much less space than one acre, specially because new type of accumulators are being made that are much more durable and have greater capacity for same volume of space.

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If sucessfull, that would help greatly in fuel cells implementation too, even with problem of waste heat generated.........

Only problem are energy conversion loses, from wind itself to wehicle powering by electricity produced by fuel cells....

One way to usefully use waste heat would be to have steam engine powered by it, but it has its own problems, unless this would be ground cogeneration system that would be used to fill acumulators of electromobiles on demand, where You have option to use electricity from windpower directly in time when demand and production coincide, thus lowering conversion loses. Then also there are Stirling engines to tap that waste heat and produce electricity, but they have limited capacity of production, up to 25 KW, if I am not wrong.......

Henrik14, thx for the offer, but thats a project for next year, current project is a wind turbine patent.

Same with me, so in principle we could cooperate on that, no?

But, did You not intend to store energy from windpower stations by producing Hydrogen?

So, now You patent turbine, and energy storage would be next year project?

Henrik14, I was hoping to just dump it on the grid and not have to store it, but Im working toward industrial scale, if I were a home owner living off the grid then H production and strorage would make sence.

Whats your speciality, Im looking for HVAC-mechanical engineers and blimp engineers.

Im not an engineer, Im an idea man.

Please explain how you get from wind power to hydrogen. And how does the hydrogen produced make electricity? For every kwh produced by the wind generator, how much kwh will be produced by the hydrogen?

Thanks,

PAPADOC

I'd have more fun if I had more money—PAPADOC

Papadoc, I dont have the hard numers on wind kilowatts to electrolosis (H production) then back to electricity, (by putting the H thru a fuel cell or runing a generator w/ it.

Thanks. Burning it to make electricity seems dangerous whether its to make steam or use in an ICE. The fuel cell seems to be the best bet if one can get enough power at a cost effective rate. If the hydrogen cost isn't figured in since it's coming from the generator powered by the wind, how much do the fuel cells cost per kwh?

Papadoc, dont know the price of fuel cells but it can be found on the net, Ive seen some at gov. surplus auctions that went cheaply. I have also seen whole systems, small home units, using solar w/ a H generator and a small generator, its on the web somewhere. I saw a farmer on the web using a large bladder, low pressure, to store methane, could be done w/ H if the bladder is made of polyethelyne, (or was it polypro that had the low leak rate for H?). you can burn hydrogen in combustion engine (like propane), but it helps if the engine is stationary like for a generator.

Hi, Spacecannon,

There is whole world of difference between Methane which has large molecules (CH4) compared to Hydrogen, as it has one atom of Carbon and four atoms of Hydrogen, and Hydrogen has only one atom, which is smallest of them all.....

Because of small size this atom can pass trough >>holes<< in atomic or crystal structure formed by other atoms or molecules, therefore it >>leaks<< from any container, and this is biggest known problem that is not yet solved satisfactorily....

I have some ideas but that would require funding and testing by specialists, but even if production of such materials is extremely expensive at the moment, if they would be mass produced then they would become cheaper.

Since You mentioned Methane, I have seen at once that it could be good source for Hydrogen, having 4 (four) atoms of Hydrogen compared to water with its two Hydrogen atoms. But to break one or another molecule is equally hard, beside their atomic connections are all filled up, or perhaps Methane would be harder to break because it has 4 atomic connections on Carbon compared to 2 on Oxigen.... In both cases one must spend energy to break those connections, and more that could be produced by recombining same atoms back.......

That is reason coleagues warn You about enery loses in conversion of electricity to hydrogen and back. Of course, something is better than nothing, so if there is no other solution available, it is one means to save some of electricity produced by wind.

If Hydrogen could be saved indefinitely without loses from its storage then perhaps other loses can be tolerated, but as I wrote it has tendency to >>leak<<, that is, to run out from any type of known container...........

There are other threads on CR4 that have discussed this problem with Hydrogen, even to point to call use of Hydrogen >>a hoax<<..........

I would therefore reccomend You to study those threads before You seriously consider use of Hydrogen and Fuel Cells.....

Main problems of fuel cells are price, low effectiveness, hydrogen leakage and short lifecycle. Those fuel cells that were sold cheap must have been nearly exhausted so their effectiveness dropped below point of being ecconomical to use, and whoever bought them has got bad deal for money spent, I am sure.......

Therefore, what may perfunctionary look as good idea might not be so good after all if all factors are carefully weighted.....

I have extended such ideas for use of surplus electricity storage to go from hydrogen and CO2 to Methane synthesis, and Methane, beside usuall use as fuel and replacement for gasoline, can be used to synthesize fertilizers, plastic and other usefull things. At least there is no problem with Methane storage, and Hydrogen produced for its synthesis is spent as soon as it is produced so it has no time to leak from its container......

Therefore, any use of surplus electricity produced by wind has to be weighted and solution that is feasible in particular place chosen that guarantee minimall loss of energy in its conversions, and system has to be as simple as possible to be cheap and so electricity produced would be cheap also, IMHO........

I would say that pumping of water in high positioned reservoir has many advantages, because there is no need to regulate speed of pumping, if centifugal (Tesla's) pumps would be used powered directly by torque produced by wind turbine, and electricity can be generated by using Tesla's turbine, because it is much simpler to produce that for example Pelton turbine, and is also more effective. Same water can be used to have system for house water supply, and on farms for providing fresh water for animals and remainder could be used to water crops... There could also be two reservoirs of same capacity on different heights over ground, so water could be recycled by pumping it from lower reservoir to higher when there is wind, but it could be pumped from well also, or from creek.........

But then, we have problems with electromobile power storage in acumulators and so on.

There again production of Methane would be more usefull as it can be used as fuel for ordinary cars, only question is wether it cost too much or not.

If we consider that this way CO2 would be recycled instead of produced by burning some other fuel, then we would at least keep CO2 level in equilibrium, and other harmfull products of burning fossile fuels would not be present. Therefore, if we made whole process cheap and minimize energy loses, long term beneficiall effects would prevail. As they say in America: >>There are many ways to skin the cat...<<, but we should choose one that bring most of benefits and be most economicall.......

Regards,

Marijan Pollak