Wind Power

I remember a while back going to some sort of convention and listening to a speech similar. Anyway, i think it would be best to start converting to wind & water power. Rather than sucking up oil, that is expensive. Perhaps it might have a positive affect on reversing global warming.((ha there it is)) In a way it will be like turning back time. Then again it's beneficial

It was all speech i suppose. We are working on a r & d project involving energy. So far so good, but it is surprising how a look like stupid idea can in fact be a beneficial idea.

The guy that invented the traction aid was probably wondering why it was not invented.

one can picture a hockey stick sander in a shop inventing the plastic break bag tie ... we use those everyday.

often enough, inventions come from individual needs, bombardier invented the skidoo for his wife ...

i have mixed opinions on global warming, at least on the who's fault it is. considering that wild fires are among the most guilty. sometimes people stand for comparing pennies difference in toothpaste, and not considering reducing by 70% will probably do the job ...

right now, we should be snowkiting on a frozen lake, but it is not even close to be frozen. it is a nice experience to kite on ice at few times the speed of wind. makes one realize that energy exists, tame it, don't waste it.

numbers are fun, at 2 gallons per hour per person average (being conservative) on a daily basis, a city of 3000000 people will generate a global 6 mg/h, not counting other water consumers ... this water that needs to be found, stored, pumped, stored, treated, pumped, used, sometimes pumped, treated again and pumped again. This is alot of exercise, wind mills like exercise and water turbines like producing power. heu, did i mention that most water consumption occur at the same time as most power is needed ... city and home consumption match. i'll bet if you add rain & snow melting, there is more power available in sewage than needed ... if not, wind will be appy to contribute.

True. But one of the bigest reasons that stops us from this i believe is oil companies want to rip people off. I mean they are the bigest business in the industry. They will do everything in their complete power to make sure we dont switch to any other power source no matter how good it is.

Always the oil company conspiracy stories.

As a student taking physics, you should know better. Study the issue first.

Fact:

Most electricity in the U.S. is produced from coal, next is natural gas, then nuclear at a little under 20%, only then oil, and last renewables including hydro, geothermal, wind, solar etc.

As wind and other renewables become more economic, we will see much more of them, but it isn't oil companies that held them back but technical, and economic issues along with the reluctance of utilities and investors to place their bets on what was untested (on a large scale) technology.

Like the many fables about how a pill that turned water into fuel, and the super carburetor that got 100 mpg but were bought up and kept off the market by the oil companies these conspiracy theories live on. The oil companies are guilty of enough shenanigans without conjuring up yet another one. They couldn't keep alternate energy sources off the market no matter how hard they tried, there is too much money to be made from a cheaper source of energy ... when it exists.

Good luck in your physics studies! Physics underlies all the other sciences which is why I majored in it. I believe you will also find philosophy courses of much benefit. They have in common that they both attempt to explain the workings of what we perceive as "reality".

Well add to your story........here in Utah, south of Salt Lake City, a private company set up a wind millfor power development. There windmill was on a windward side of the south range heading to SLC. Well to cut to the chase, the power copany, oil companies in the area, and state had a legistlation raley to have this windmill removed. Reasons for this mess, this one single wind mill generated enough power to feed a 5 mile radius. And the power company ended up buying power from this private company for more then 8 months during the year.

Now here was a perfact example of free energy being used properly, and for the hitching post, it was ruled in favor of the main power company and utilities organization. This one lone source of energy was dismantelled two years ago and to this date, no private organization, company, or individuals are allowed to errect a wind power generator in the state. Plus the state has no future plans in creating such an entity for the betterment of the environment. Big business at its' worst.

So here is a true and factual instance of how the big business works against common sence and the reality of how greed takes over. The absolute control of a commodity.

Utah ! i always dreamed about skiing there. Nice snow conditions. Vancouver should have its H fuel cell turnpike to LA soon, the terminator said so ... Vancouver is not far from whistler/blackhomb ...

I dont know the facts behind the dismantling of the wind mill in Utah. I am also urprised at the law against private projects. Really ? !

It is still up and running.

LordmMaximo,

Tell me more about the windmill. Are there not two mills there running now?

As I understand it, Utah is required to buy a certain amount of electricity from private sources. www.utahpower.com I have checked all the western states and most have laws allowing it. Idaho actually hurts the big utilities. There are massive farms out by Evanston.

This issue of power generation is critical to fuel efficiency. One way to do it is to Island a subdivision or industrial park and just pull the plug on the grid. This requires a constant power source and an engine system that can run efficiently across the power band, and wind obviously cannot do that.

The engine I am doing can take wind and also use gas or liquid fuel. The engine is common and the wind tower is much less expensive and is more like an accessory.

this engine is interesting, is it sort of a wankle with electric, gasoline, H, gas ?

can you elaborate on this engine ?

thanks

LordMaximo:

I don't know any of the details about the case you mention. An oil copmpany's opposition would be surprising to me because I doubt any of your electric is generated using oil, but if they are also a narural gas supplier then its opposition would not be surprising, and might be expected. Likewise, I would typically expect the power company to be opposed. This is not any evil conspiracy against wind power is all I am saying, just simple economics at work.

If you owned a utility company, and had a lot of money tied up in your power plants that were being paid off, you likely wouldn't look kindly on some other company coming along and building power generating facilities of any type where the government mandated that you buy their power at a price which is higher than what you can generate it for and guarantees them a profit to boot. The same if you invested to build pipelines and facilities to supply gas to power plants that now suddenly would need less gas than before and make it much harder to get a return on your investment.

Where I live, we have these economic factors plus the local politics that are probably worse than in most places and NIMBYism (Not In My BackYard syndrome). A lot of "greenminded" people here, and a lot of "why are we paying so much for power" people who are for all kinds of solutions as long as its not "in their backyard". We have been unable to build a new large powerplant of any kind so far here yet our local demand for electricity rises every year. As a result, besides paying off the Shoreham nuclear facility which was completely finished, but then torn down before ever providing any power, we are relying on expensive "small" peaking generators to get us through the summers. We are currently paying about $.20/KWh as a result of our follies. Plans for a windfarm off our coast are being opposed both by people like me who love the idea of them but just can't tolerate the even higher rates that would in our case result, and by people who feel their view of the ocean would be spoiled. I have no problem with the view part, since they would be miles offshore, and in any case would not object on aesthetic reasons because I am willing to do my part .... it is the higher rates only that sours me on them in this particular proposal. We already are on the short end of the stick in terms windborne pollution from power plants in the midwest, without any benefit of their low electricity rates.

We are (as a society) moving towards more and more renewable energy sources, as we must to protect the environment but it is an ongoing process and the economics can't be overlooked. As fossil fuels get more expensive, the economics improve. I am in favor of the government phasing in stricter and higher penalties on emissions to take more into account their environmental cost, (far too little of which presently shows up economically) and shift the balance towards renewables.

To simply rail against perceived "greedy conspiracies" just obscures the specific current underlying economics, and thereby makes it harder to change them.

not in my backyard. this is the conflict between human desires and individual liberties.

in the work i do, it is allways the debate.

in energy, the main key will be save and be smart. for instance, imagine a huge solar mirror in space to reflect some sunlight for precise city lighting. not at daylight level lumens, but it would reduce crime, accidents, power needs , etc. we are not far from another revo on energy. the combos are certainly the path. hydro,solar,and wind.

Ah yes, a huge orbiting solar mirror...are those ants, burn-baby-burn.

A flat mirror can be used for freeze prevention to add extra heat in a marginal area. but it would ned to be huge to deal with any area. It may happen one day

Space mirror? I seem to recall the Russians towing a huge mirror behind one of their Spuniks or later model orbiting devices- I think in the end, it turned out to be a great rear-view mirror and nothing else- The dissipated reflected light just didn't reach Earth. Oh hum. Then again, in a concentrated reflection....absolutely, good bye little ant people..

change your legislator or feed them with salt.

that all i have to say.

Arm

ME

boats are very energy intensive, far more so than cars. Cars have low rolling resistance, boats have large wetted surface drag and the bow wave. water is thousands?? of times as draggy as air.

Simply put no battery now made will run an outboard at 30 MPH as long as a 10 gallon can of gas. Now if you can out up with 4 miles per hour and a canoe shape you can get more, but not much more. Boats are energy hogs. The best and largest sails on yachts are not very fast, 20 knots or so, multihulls and saiboards are faster

How are the leafs?

water is 800 times denser that air. (+-) yes aerodynamics is crucial in water, that is why two theories apply. wave piercing (catamarans) at low speeds and foils at high speeds (hydroptere) . mediatis aquaplaner is very fast (hydroplane floats principle) but it bangs at high speeds, it is for flat waters. Huge kiting is the wave of the future maybe. If you look at the wings of the new planes, air is very dense at 500 mph, you will notice a angled vertical small wing, this can be applied in water. seaweeds is a problem though.

sails + electrical motor/gen. + H fuel cell = speed and comfort. no smell either.

air is .059 pounds per cubic foot, water is 62.4 ~= 1057.

I am not sure of the viscosity ratio

water .01 air is .00018 which gives 55:1 so it is not thousands at all.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/tables/viscosity.html

Makes sence, i got that from aerodynamics forums. I have that printed somewhere.

If you stick your hand in the air at 55 mph, it would feel like in water at 1 mph in water. ?

"If you look at the wings of the new planes, air is very dense at 500 mph, you will notice a angled vertical small wing, this can be applied in water."

Are you talking about the wing tip extensions that combat wing tip vorticies or the small anti separation tabs on the upper surface of the wing.?

Hi Yellowcat, as you are new to CR4 you may not be aware of my series of threads Engineering An Answer to the Energy Question. Last week we developed a list of technologies that are worth investigating. Each Sunday I will be starting a new thread that discusses one of the technologies and electricity generation from wind is on the list and scheduled for discussion in a few weeks time. So keep thinking and get ready, the more people thinking about it the better the chance we have of licking the problem.

Please count me in- I am on the verge of retirement and having continuous, affordable lights and heat is important- We were lucky in our last outages to have a generator keep the fridges going- since then, I've installed a transfer swith so that when the next outgage occurs, I can plug in from my motor-home's Onan 7.5 KW and keep more things going- Water pump, more lights, heat, even DVD & TV - We would likely invite the neighbours to plug in their refrigerators, if they have long enough extensions. (serve a glass of wine??? all possible)

But, it all hinges on having gas available- Hence, I am deeply interested in wind/water technology that would allow charging battery bank(s) into a huge inverter, and allow freedom off the grid. It's not the price of power generation that peeves me, it's the attached cost of all the waste and GOLDEN parachutes for those without a sense of integrity- I'll leave that philosophy for another time.

I look forward to the next step.

Hi the RV fan, gas generators are a scare for boaters, at least for cruising boaters. Lukily we have RV people. It is the wal-mart world for the better or worst. i like to look at the better, being intrinsically a happy person. Having you guys only bring safer ginypigs. ie if your trials fail, you are not in very (most of the time) hostile environments that will endanger your crew. Also, you are many more than us the boaters, hence trying to find the best for the least money is often a great consumer data bank. Most of your issues are the same , weight, cost, space, reliability, ease of use (i am an iMac fan ... ), etc.

We are are RVOW people, now don't be mistaken, OW doesn't stand for On Water, if you are married you know what i mean ... most of us refer to our boat as a she not a it ... lady this lady that , exes, . We are boat-crazy. we should have our weekly tv show...

Nonetheless, humor being good for your health, it is better to stay on the positive side of things but we know the negative side is not far so beware... Solomon industries have had interesting results with their electric marine motors, they recharge going down a wave and push going up a wave, helped of course by the wind, again. This is a higher voltage motor, caution is of upmost priority. this is a debate i am having, better efficiency but there is a price to pay.

if you are a sail and kiting fan, you will admire the speed achieved by the on wheel sailors. along the ocean beaches, that would be a good way for propulsion.

Don't sell you gas generator yet, H fuel cell are coming, there is an "explosion" of prototypes, an agreement between the terminator and canada on the H turnpike ... should boost things up. Safety and effectiveness is still an issue. We the RVOW would love it, imagine yourself plugged for life in your mother ocean uterus all you can eat power for free ! well nothing is for free .

My sister just bought a safari-condo, its like a westfalia. These mini RVs will popup like internet popups. Solar panels are their thing. They have a gas motor so they will buy a 2000w portable honda most likely.

i got to eat for my fuel cells... www.otherpower.com is interesting for retired do it yourselfers.

When you investigate the battery / inverter scenario, you run smack into the reality of how inefficient the average home utilizes energy overall. Some appliances have improved dramatically, but overall the picture is still wasteful. Of particular concern is the "background" drain of so many electronic appliances and devices. Each one only consuming a few watts or so but doing it 24/7, even though the devices are "off" or not being used. A few consume more than 10 watts in their standby state. "Invisible", or just a minor annoyance on the grid, but can be a major energy drain for running off batteries when you do all the calculations.

The unwilling has done it, and will keep on doing it. on the positive side, the terminator is pushing the H cell turnpike from LA to Vancouver canada. that should boost things up.

can you imagine the boaters using sea water for power. it is like being pluged to a all you can eat power supply uterus, food for thought.

Here in the UK wind turbines are a controversial issue as the most relaible winds tend to be in areas of natural beauty. wind reliability is also an issue. Recently we had a large area of high pressure - virtually no wind - sitting over us for several days. Studies of power generation from existing turbines has established that on average they generate only 17% of their rated power. Hence wind turbines have to be backed up by permanantly on conventional power stations so they can make up the shortfall when the wind drops as often happens in the evening.

The idea of using surplus power to pump water up into a reservoir for use at times of peak demand has been used - there is a system in North Wales. Such a system requires two quite large resevoirs fairly close together and at significantly different levels. In North Wales two naturally occuring lakes fulfilled this reqirement. Building connecting tunnels for the water plus turbine halls for the generators was still a major - and hence expensive - undertaking.

AL

yes, in quebec too, the virgin wilderness in the dams and windmills areas is being an issue also. these tall windmills are difficult to hide, but wind deflectors are easy to bring up or down, can even be built into mountains or valleys. The eng. should be able to find ways. At my scale, i am working on micro power generation , and especially on recuperation of what is already out there. One thing that is not outthere this morning is ice on the lake, are we in jan. ? so it will be icing on the cake whatching the eagles kick the giants. its a long story.

I have used windpower in a trivial but ecologically friendly way to operate my fish pond pump. No motors. It comprises a thin steel cable from the top of a 40 foot tree in the garden, the pump's reciprocating mechanism is operated by the movement cable when the tree sways back and forth in the wind. The pump moves water into a higher pond which provides a flow in between gusts and smooths the flow. I believe a guy in California used a similar system but with a dynometer (essentially a large brake drum) imersed in his swimming pool. he used a rope to the top of a large oak tree, friction heating from the dynometer drum heated his pool - neat!

PS Safety tip, the cable needs a spring and break loop in it to save heving it all pulled out of pond or pool in a storm.

Thank you Jules, I think the light bulb flashed.

The recipricating pump sound like something down my alley- I have swaying trees gallore- Can you tell me more about the type of movement on the pump shaft or whatever attachment it requires? Is there such an animal as a ratcheting pulley or gear?

I picture the trees swaying at different degrees and the effect on the pump lever.

But I do have trees and it seems to be mostly windy- look forward to more comments.

I don't know if you are familiar with the sort of thing in the picture but in Australia they are an extremely common device. It's a self aligning windmill pump that no self respecting farm would be seen without. They build thousands of them over the years and it's still not uncommon to see them pumping away. To give you an idea of the reliability some of them are still pumping after more than a century. They are still manufactured so I did a quick search and found this company that still builds them.

http://www.windmillpumps.com.au/

I might be worth dropping them a line.

Hi,

I have just unsubscribed to this thread as most of the discussion was outside my area of interest, however send me an email and I will put together some ideas and possible some pics. I'm only using one tree, its a small pond!

reply to callhistory4u@blueyonder.co.uk

Hi,

Regarding pumping water up hill as a form of energy storage, Australia has already commisioned the Snowy Hydro scheme which uses this exact principle. http://www.snowyhydro.com.au/ The only problem I can see with this technology is that transfering power to the site is very inefficient, especially through weak grids as are typically seen around wind power sites. However it is a way of ensuring that a historically non-scheduable energy source (ie, wind) can be used to supply base load thus reducing the required capacity of carbon based generation. 'Spose we shouldn't care about low efficiency when the energy is essentially free.

ht.

probably, the most efficiency is when the energy transfer is the most direct possible. it is in heat transfers, although the most differential temperature delta should be more efficient. ie not considering losses, if you take a gallon of water at 100 c, mix it with a gallon at 50 c it would give 2 gallons at 75 c. a gain of 25 c. if you take 1 g at 200 and 1 g at 0, it will average at 100 c , gain 100 c. this is why in my view, a parabolic water heater has more potential than a flat black panel. technical aspects need to be assessed, and tragedy potential is the parabolic heater s disadvantage. i am working on it.

last time i was on the beach in florida with my garden hand pressured pesticide container, people laughted. but when we were showering ourselves with warm fresh unsalted water and cleaned our googoones besides the car, had some water fights, people headed out to walmart ... if you pump it enough you can have alot of fun.

in Australia, at the beach, you should have nice thermal winds. You should sail on wheels along the beach blvds.

"in Australia, at the beach, you should have nice thermal winds. You should sail on wheels along the beach blvds. "

We also have huge dry salt lakes and people use these for just that purpose. The only trouble is that they are a long way from any population center. Most non-Australians don't realize how vast Australia is. To give you a couple of examples, Texas covers about 600,000 square kilometers, compare this to New South Wales, the second smallest mainland state that covers around 800,000 square kilometers. The population centers are also separated by vast distances. A previous job I had based me in Adelaide but required me to spend a large portion of my time working from Darwin. That's like being based in Washington DC, not the state the capital, and working in Las Angeles. By the way the 3,000 Km trip from Adelaide to Darwin is over completely desolate unpopulated desert with the only sizable center being Alice Springs, population 26,000, at the half way mark.

Getting back to wind power though I have the feeling that the answer to clean electricity generation is a totally distributed multi technology system connected by a grid not too dissimilar to the current grid system. The idea is that a surplus in one area, using a technology suitable for that location, could cover the deficit in another. For example an area that is suited to generating power from wind turbines could cover an area that was suited to solar power at night and the reverse could happen when there is insufficient wind. The question then becomes how diverse do we need to make the generating technologies and locations and how much extra generating capacity do we need to guarantee the supply. Its sort of like not putting all your eggs in one basket and has the twin advantages of being achievable with current technology and it can be implemented in small politically and financially acceptable steps.

I haven't looked at the numbers behind this yet but my gut feeling is that it will be the answer we are looking for. I plan to discuss this concept in depth in a few weeks in a thread, under my Engineering an Answer to the Energy Question series, after we have covered all the electricity generating technologies.

I spent 6 weeks touring Australia in 1988. Partly by air and partly by bus. Adelaide was start. Bus to cooperpedie, 2 days there, then on the Alice and the Olgas three days there. Flew to Brisbane for 5 days. North to Daintree and to the barrier reerf. 10 days there. On to Kakadu. Stayed at a hotel that resembled a crocodile for a week and then onto Darwin for 5 days and off to Singapore

I used to look after a computer system in Jabaru in the Kakadu national Park where the crock hotel you mentioned is. I don't know what time of year it was when you were there but I would always recommend people visit the Kakadu national park twice, once during the dry season and then in the wet season. The best time is just at the end of the wet season towards the end of March. The difference will astound you, it transforms from a dry dusty place to a tropical wetland that is teaming with all sorts of wildlife. The number and diversity of birdlife during the wet season leaves moth people gob smacked. The daily afternoon thunderstorms are also something to behold.

Since you have been to the top end you will have a good idea how much time I spent commuting every other week not to mention the short drives that are involved in getting from A to B. I have always liked the tropics and while I don't miss the hours of travel I do miss the top end of Australia. One of the great things about Australia is there is always somewhere you havn't been.

I was there in the dry season, but not at max dryness.

the hawks (kites) at one location would grab meat from your hand via high speed flyby, and they never touched us.

The kite hawks come and go. One year there will be literally millions of them and the next only the stray one or two. When I spent weekends up there I would drive down to Batchelor, about 100 Km south of Darwin, and to fly gliders. Its not difficult to hitch a ride to 10,000 feet on a thermal, you just look for one of those puffy cumulus clouds, locate its source and it's like being in an express elevator. A good thermal will give you a height gain of over 1,000 feet per minute. One year there were so many kite hawks that they became a real problem. For several minutes prior to taking off or landing you needed to get a couple of pickups, with shotgun toting mates in it, to run up and down the runway firing bird fright, we never shot any, in order to clear the runway. There were several bird strikes during the period that the kite hawks were there and it was just luck that nobody was seriously injured. A month later there wasn't one to be seen anywhere and I never saw that many again.

Have you heard of the unbeaten world champion Darwin Ice hockey team in that I was a member of. We would send invites to every team in the world but nobody eve showed up se we always won on by default. The fact that none of us could skate and there is no ice skating rink within 3,000 Km would have mad a game somewhat difficult so the whole thing was just another excuse, as if we needed one, to hold a drinking contest.

Wind power for a boat? Is "sails" the correct answer?

Wind generators for boat power supply are a stock item at boat equipment chandlers.

Yes, we had one of those in our ears for an entire week. Combos are popular in food it will be for energy too. Hydro, solar and wind. Pretty much covers it all.

If you live in Texas, and I guess other parts of the US, you have the option of buying your electricity from Green Mountain Energy. 100% wind and water produced. A little more expensive than what you spend for gas / oil, but if it's that important to you, you won't mind spending an extra 10-20% on your power.

I would like to see Green Mountain post a client list so I can compare it with the names of some prominent greens to see if they practice what they preach?

I am sure privacy issues would prevent this unless they made it part of their deal, we get to tell the world who buys from us. It might cause people to go there.