Power in the Wind

Not nearly enough energy could be stored to make it worth doing.

Great idea. Once you figure out how to get the tornado/gale/hurricane to the windmill.

No, actually your idea is not technically sound. It's hard to get anything over three feet tall to survive a 250 MPH wind.

lyn I always love your comments. I guess I used the word windmill loosely we both know windmills do not operate in high winds very well unless u want to see it explode.

That was just stating how we currently produce energy from the wind. I am not talking about chasing hurricanes either strapping myself to tornado. We have plenty of man made devices that make 270 mile per hour winds and better. Maybe thinking in smaller terms maybe a pelton wheel or tesla turbine something more on that order you know there have been vast improvements in bearings since those inventions debut. have very little control over tornado /gale/ hurricane but a 270 mph wind is a 270 mile an hour wind man made or not man made gives a little more control over the situation.

On a good day in Kansas, I'm good for maybe 20,000 kwh or so.
My buddy Hurricane is about 10,000,000,000 kwh (but much more widely dispersed.)

I can say the same thing about the area I live in, the 270 mph wind is just denoting a comparison, the only comparison I have for that wind would be a tornado or hurricane sustained winds. 10,000,000,000 like I said originally 100 times more then we produce in the world my point is there seems to be some great potential energy there to capture.

so you want perpetual motion? the energy required to creat wind is huge.

give it up.

The OP seems to be mixing units of power, time, and energy in ways that don't compare properly.

Really doing less mixing of units of power more so my experiments don't rely on time measurement mph my work is measured in rotations per second so this 270 mph wind is 121 degrees Fahrenheit if that helps u equate the potential energy that can be drawn from a 270 mile an hour wind.

That is just more of the same problem of mixing up units. Sorry.

Cross section a 3 inch square moving 270 mph 121 degrees Fahrenheit to calculate density of the air how much potential energy could be captured?

As much as could be captured by a floating energy barge, or an energy recovery speed hump?

World electrical production in 2008 was about 20,261,000,000,000 KWH. This is more than 2,000 times that of a 10,000,000,000 KWH hurricane. Thus your factor of 100 in the other direction is off by a total factor of about 200,000. I suspect that somewhere you forgot about time.

this is equivalent to about 200 times the total electrical generating capacity on the planet. NASA says "during it's life cycle a hurricane can expend as much energy as 10,000 nuclear bombs" and were just talking about average hurricanes here not Katrina. Not trying to split hairs with ya.

Using round numbers, world generating capacity is about 2.3 terawatts.
If a 10,000,000,000 KWH hurricane lasts 10 hours, its capacity is 1 terawatt.

Please explain how 1Tw is 100 times as much capacity as 2.3Tw.

This is not about mere hair-splitting. It is about your numbers being way off.

That was your number 10,000,000,000 not mine I said 100 times the world capacity NASA has it as 200 times and clearly states that Katrina was stronger then that.I believe your comparing a ten hour event to the world capacity for the year. Just say u have no way to figure out the potential energy in a 270 mph wind 121 degrees Fahrenheit 3 inch square.

Well, for one thing, it would be kinetic energy. I haven't computed it yet, but I certainly will not say that I have no way to do so. Good grief, must you be so offensive? Hasta mañana.... In the meantime, you might want to talk with joe.fordham.

I make it something like 6 kW. = 0.5*area*ρ*V³.

Why 3 inch square, what's the significance?

Years ago (2004) while when we were faced with 4 hurricanes in 6 or so weeks (if my memory serves me correctly), I ran across this information.

It says that the energy in an average hurricane is 6 x 10¹⁴ watts computed by calculating cloud formation and rain (about 200 times the world-wide electrical generating capacity) or 1.5 x 1012 watts when computed using total kinetic energy (wind energy) (about half times the world-wide electrical generating capacity).

I don't know what year they are using to get the world-wide electrical generating capacity though.

I remember reading about this several years ago. Not exactly what you have in mind, but cool.

More. Here too. I'd like to see it work.

If I recall correctly, his scale model worked, but plans for for a full sized version were scrapped due to fears of the tornado(s) escaping or changing weather patterns, or something.

It looks like they're still in business. I can't find any recent developments though.

For those of you going on about how much power is in what here is a quick reference point of somewhat plausibly reasonable accuracy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_magnitude_(power)

Us humans, 16 Tera watts (16 * 10^9)

One hurricane, 50 - 200 Tera watts.

Nuf said?

I may be being pedantic but thought I best clarify what seems a point of confusion. A number of comments have been made which seem to equate energy to power, where they are related but not equally comparable. Power is Energy/unit time, the OP stated "100 times the amount of energy " so we should compare energy.

So to take an example, if human power consumption was in the range of 2.5 TW we can say that the human energy consumption per year is approximately 2.5x365=912.5 TW.days/year, where as a hurricane may be in the order of 100 TW it may only last 10 days at this rate so its energy output would be 100x10=1000 TW.days/year for one hurricane.

These figures are just an example, no research has been done into these at all, but the methodology needs to be continued if we are to compare apples to apples and Joules (unit of energy) to Joules.

It's nice of you to try.

Do you mean to say that I can't take energy, use it to make a high speed wind, use the wind to make energy, and then come out with excess energy?!?!?! (tongue firmly embedded in cheek!)

Good answer! Using energy to make work so you can re-capture that energy will always result in lost energy.

sorry very busy wont be able to get back on the computer till tonight. The over unity monster has shown its face stop the discussion!!!!! Well u would need some kind off device to harvest the energy of a hurricane, and yes we do have man made devices that can make a 270 mph which would be a good tool to use to test the devices. The floating barge idea is good but I'm thinking more like a battery of barges that can work somewhere in that 700 mile range safely enough to harvest some of that energy notice I didn't say free energy unless you got a cousin who will give you a few barges for free. Once again a perfectly good discussion scared away because of the scary over unity monster what are u afraid of jeez. sorry no time to spell ck gotta run this is the op sorry couldn't sign in being that its scalable in a 3 inch square 6KW sounds like theres plenty to be harvested. might b easier than harvesting energy form let say a bolt of lightning just saying. johnnyb5

So how do you propose to keep these barges floating in any rational way in sea swells exceeding 100+ feet high?

As far as harvesting energy from wind there is more than enough wind energy available on land as is. Its the storing and balancing it out over a practical time frame, a few days to a week plus between charge and discharge cycles at the power levels that the national grid systems work at, thats the big problem that so few care to ever deal with or ponder on in any rational way shape or form.

Hurricane Irene had a diameter of about 700 miles.

If you want to capture the energy from a large hurricane like that, "simply" build a geodesic dome that big, with a bunch of windmills inside that can withstand winds of around 150 mph. Then find a cable that can carry say a million amps to some shoreside facility that can receive a million amps.

Oh, first you have to construct a shoreside facility that can do this. Good luck. And good luck with the cable. And good luck with an army of helocopters to place the dome over the hurricane.

Do you think this concept is ready for prime time yet?

I currently live in Illinois and have seen the devastation causes by these forces of nature, and the first thought that comes to mind is, what would you use the power for, are we trying to supply the grid or emergency generators? The first thought that comes to my mind in one of these storms is safety. Turing off the power in an area 1/2 a day before a storm would get more people out of the area of danger and would protect electrical systems. Push people to be self reliant and not expect that our inadequate infrastructure was meant to provide for them in the case of what could be termed a natural disaster force of nature. I would ask for calm among you engineers and approach this like a thermo equation - Establish some boundries and goals before arguing watts and storage. Since I believe a Tesla Turbine is not a bad Idea combined with energy generation and storage in flywheel systems. But our infrastruture being so weak the power collected would be useless since the power lines would be down and short circuits rampant in the system.

Just using tornado as an example like i said not gonna strap myself on one. I'm thinking more in the the outer bands of the hurricane were its a little safer 150 t0 200 ft barge with a deck full Tesla turbines staying far enough from the eye but close enough to harvest some kinetic energy. A barge full of batteries harvesting energy hurricanes last a few days and a large percent never make it to land ride all the way north charging batteries unloading batts and going back out. Just a thought maybe something positive out of a bad situation.

Tesla turbines? Do you even know what one is and how and why they work?

A barge full of batteries too? Do some math on what a rather large 100 ft by 300 ft by 50 ft barge could conceivably carry in the highest power density lithium based battery packs you can get.

Then figure out what one of these barges would cost to manufacture in realistic terms.

Lastly put that amount of energy storage against what is needed by even a small city over a 24 hour period and see how long that battery barge would power it.

Not to be rude but I am getting a strong impression you don't know anything about Tesla's turbines, even less about wind power, and nothing at all about power storage and transfer just for starters.

Nor basic arithmetic or physical units, either.

But he's green, green, green....

yes yes full of Hobbity goodness

the powers that b will not let me show the math but it starts with putting to good use of 6kw of potential energy :)

who are these powers that be?

showing your work is always encouraged