Eliminating Power Lines

Distributed generation will eliminate EHV power lines & huge towers/poles which destroy the beauty of the landscape. Also road side underground ducts could be used instead of overhead lines for local area distribution. If any disaster occurs it will affect only a small area.

OK, I'll bight.

Is it not by definition electrons 'bumping' each other ? How is that going to happen without some material that enables them to do so. Storing the electricity and moving it means a ......battery.

You could check a concurrent thread on 'where' the electricity flows in a cable'. In short, the discussion was about current flowing on the outside of a cable due to skin effect. That would enable a reduction in cable bulk. However, my brief read suggested to me that that is neither the case or viable.

Your question might perhaps be better phrased as 'how to transmit power' (?). The losses in electrical transmission are huge, and that's a big factor stopping renewable energy (waves and wind are generally a long way from where power is needed).

If you are thinking along the lines (excuse the pun) of Tesla, laser etc, it'll never work.

Not being a 'Sparky' I cannot answer this, though it interest me to read. The question is good. 'passe' is an odd term to use.

If their were to be some means of conveying power, how would it be safely run ? I don't much fancy some high powered beam passing my house. Converting electricity to some other type, then back again, is going to involve loss.

The solution is perhaps for people to use less, and generate electricity 'on-site'. Not, I know, your question, but I am puzzled as to where you think this may go. No harm in your asking - if people didn't do such, we would still live in caves.

Not necessarily. Tesla was a proponent of the wireless distribution of electricity.

Personally, I do not want to be in an environment that rich with electromagnetic radiation.

Until Star Trek becomes reality, the cheapest, most efficient, and reliable means is by wires strung up on poles.

I prefer underground wires esthetically, but the cost and maintenance is very high.

Tesla was a well known proponent, but so what ? That sounds terse, but what I mean is that if there were anything to it would we not know by now ?

Personally, I do not want to be in an environment that rich with electromagnetic radiation.

That sort of sums up the question/answer. Apart from wire, I can't see how control is possible.

Yes, U/G is way better, but as you say the cost is huge. Even if taken as an option, it can cause damage that lasts for decades.

If NASA can't keep hold of a space tether, I'm not sure what chance there is for realistic engineering on planet Earth. Local electricity suppliers have a fraction of a percent of the budget.

Sounds like we are in agreement.

I'm building two Tesla coils right now to try to recreate his "Magnifying Transformer" setup, but on a small scale. It's two identical three winding air core transformers that are coupled to each other via the ground and their top-plate. It's a resonant coil/cap arrangement with the coil inside the capacitor. One transformer is driven and the other receives. Both are tuned to resonate at the same driven frequency. According to Tesla's notes and patents, the transmitter will be loaded by the receiver, but that the receiver will have a gain of 1000:1 over the applied signal at the transmitter. We'll see!

Look up Konstantin Meyl for more info on this.

Thanks for the name to check, I'll do so. There is a fair amount of stuff on Tesla within CR4.

My neighbours will be less than pleased if I play.

Distribution? No...

Making/collecting/storing energy on a household basis? Yes...

We are getting closer to economical means of doing this ourselves, but a good question here would be "what is economical?". 50 years ago Americans would not have found the continued use of the personal automobile as "economical".

I have two vehicles in my household. Luckily, they are both paid off. But, for the preceding five to six years they were on payments. If I used the price of gas today and assumed I drove the same number of miles to commute and what not...I would be paying nearly a third of my monthly take home pay just to own/drive my cars. Now, that's an exercise in economics if I ever saw one.

Economical and feasible means for electrical creation/transmission? Yes...definitely in my opinion.

The current design of the grid only makes it more vulnerable based on errors in human design...i.e., cyber-attack of a system that was designed for easy access, not security from a digital world. It would be much easier and more economical to just drive up to a remote switching yard or substation and throw a length of chain over the busses. Of course, you would then have to take into account the gas you would need to get to the switching yard...

There again, just because something is old doesn't make it automatically Passé.

If that were the case then one could consider electricity itself passé, the automobile passé, the single-family home passé, and rural living passé.

Distributed generation seems the most practical to me...

Super conductors are being looked into, but that is just increasing the line capacity and reducing the line size.

More focus is being placed on distributed power generation and it has its advantages and disadvantages over existing grid distributed power.

More and more wireless and energy harvesting power transmission and generation technologies are being used now days but these are more for short range energy transmission (recharging portable devices) or powering remote sensors or devices. All of these are low power applications (uW to low W levels) so are not suitable for (say) powering a home.

Specialised power distribution (such as satellite-based power generation using a microwave or laser link to transmit the power to a central ground-based receiving station) is also being looked into but for very specialised applications only.

Wire transmission seems to be passe and vulnerable to cyber attacks and natural disasters.

In many situations wireless is even MORE vulnerable to cyber attack and natural disasters. For example, lose a few cell phone towers and you lose your ability to connect to the phone and your wireless internet. Also, how many people actually bother to change their factory default wireless router password?

American cities and towns are blighted by "telephone" poles and cables. Same in Australia, where they use unfinished gum trees sticking out of the sidewalk (believe me - I've seen them) right there in cities. If you go to Western Europe, it may gradually dawn on you that the alternative of burying them in the ground is far better aesthetically, even if it means digging up the road on occasions.

True. However, it is prohibitively expensive to bury them and nearly impossible in areas where there is a lot of rain (i.e., hurricanes).

Then there is the whole issue of power line losses, which are much higher for buried cables.

In the states or areas where underground utilities are feasible, the cost burden to the consumer is something people just do not want to bear. Europe is in the economic state that they are because those governments have repeatedly said "Damn the costs!" at every social turn. Now people are startled to find that money doesn't just grow on trees or you can simply borrow far more than you can ever hope to pay off without consequence. Europe is likely to collapse in 20 to 30 years, but that's another story.

I think it is important to always ask questions and think outside the box, but even more important is to understand why things are the way they are first before running off and claiming superior solutions.

According to all the financial pundits, the USA is rapidly approaching the point of collapse also. The burying of power cables, or otherwise, has absolutely nothing to do with it!

True.

So, your position would be what?

Because we are nearing financial collapse we should start burying our power cables now?

That is what is called "jumping to conclusions!"

The latter statement was actually a rhetorical statement, if it was not clear.

So, again, exactly what is your position?

Well obviously it's far too late to bury them underground in towns - fait accomplis. Stringing power lines down every main street in the USA was done regardless of altitute or water table - and they are hideous. 5,000 feet up in towns in Colorado, they are still there. Most don't notice them - all part of the "street furniture."

Okay. So why did they not bury them in the first place?

Do you feel that aesthetics should trump cost?

How much more would you have been wiling to pay on your monthly electric bill to support this?

I guess they take a different view of this in Florida. In both Virginia (hurricanes, tidelands), and in Washington State (we get a bit of rain) there are buried utilities in a lot of neighborhoods...nearly all of the new ones (esp. in VA).

Maybe they are just better at keeping them dry?

What is your water table level?

Here we can dig down a foot or two and run into water. I think the average Florida elevation is about 25 feet above sea level. The highest ground we have are landfills.

It is not so much social philosophy as it is simple physics.

In my Virginia neigborhood it was about 2 feet depending on the time of year (in the Tidewater area). In Washington State it is about the same near the coast, but a lot of the western half of the state is above sea level...very hilly.

I never analyzed which neighborhoods in Washington used which type of lines based on elevation. In Virginia it didn't seem to matter. Not sure why.

"Unfinished Gumtrees.." Really?

I live in Oz and I've never seen it done. Perhaps in some remote outback town or a tourist park.

Quite a few years ago, it's true, but definitely right there in Sydney.

Have big tanker trucks full of electrons deliver them to our houses?

Recent advances in direct conversion of (pure) methane to electricity make decentralized power generation look better, presuming cleaner natural gas lines.

Electrons? Gyrosconium would be better....

Wireless power distribution, Hmmm. I think during the late 80's a movie was made in NZ about that. I can't remember the name of it, but it was very believable.

Anyhow, I always wondered why this hasn't been played with on a smaller scale, lower voltage like in the home so we could do away with extension cords and piggyback plugs etc. As for major power distribution, just conduit the lines underground. So much easier to maintain than overhead. Do away with all those ugly telegraph poles and gantries.

I never knew that HV transmission line are vulnerable to cyber attacks!! Learn something new every day!

In answer to your question.. not really!

Underground HV cables are, as mentioned expensive and high on the maintenance list, in the desert we have just had UG 33.4Kv cable installed..... ok in winter, but as the temp rises in summer.... so do the problems.

So until someone comes up with a new idea I think we are stuck with high voltage high lines!

Power substations,powerplants even smart meters are vulnerable to cyber attacks.

We are close to having low cost LENR heating generators. The Leonardo Corp has shipped a one megawatt unit to the US Military (our Navy, I hope). The same company plans to ship 10 Kwatt units to home owners in early 2013.

The next step will be to adapt steam generators to them for electricity. One company in Fllorida has already stated that they have a unit that can do that at any time. Even if this LENR start up does not deliver, several other companies are developing LENR systems right now. Once a successful system is available, there will be a gradual switch from central power plants to distributed electrical generation. We may find a way to use those old transmission lines to move emergency power from one city to another in cases of disasters such as Katrina.

I still can not find any scholarly articles on LENR (A.K.A. Cold Fusion) except Rossi & Focardi own websites, which obviously has their own bias on the subject. This is mainly because no other reputable sources will accept their work.

Everything I have read and researched on Cold Fusion has shown it to be a lot of wishful thinking. Even Rossi & Focardi will not share their "discoveries" with peers for review (despite making attempts to protect their IP). Without peer review in a scholarly magazine all of the chatter amounts to junk or pathological science.

The US Patent Office no longer accepts applications for Cold Fusion, nor will scholarly publications such as Nature.

If Rossi & Focardi really can pull a nuclear rabbit out of its hat the world will surely take notice. Right now Rossi's & Focardi's approach appears to be more focused on investors than demonstrating science via the scientific method.

Cold Fusion has also followed the same tact that Global Warming has in that it has rebranded itself as LENR (just like Global Warming has been changed to Climate Change) in an effort to distance itself from the negative image sewn by Pons' and Fleischmann's fiasco.

Here is a link to a very technical discussion of LENR, written by a scientist who has applied for a patent on a cold fusion heat generator. Godes prefers to call it Quantum FUsion. He is working closely with Stanford Research Labs on this subject.

http://www.brillouinenergy.com/Docs/BrillouinEnergyHypothesis.pdf

There are numerous other labs that have already concluded that LENR is real, and will become the next generation energy source; e.g. CERN, NASA, US Navy, LLNL, Los Alamos, U of Missouri, Univ. of Illinois, and many others. Several of these organizations are delivering periodic lectures on the progress of LENR.

"He is working closely with Stanford Research Labs on this subject."

"There are numerous other labs that have already concluded that LENR is real, and will become the next generation energy source; e.g. CERN, NASA, US Navy, LLNL, Los Alamos, U of Missouri, Univ. of Illinois, and many others. Several of these organizations are delivering periodic lectures on the progress of LENR."

You should be able to provide links from these organizations if they are working in concert with Godes, but you haven't and I can find no such announcement from the several of them that I checked.

Time to put up....

It is VERY easy to find information about this. Here is one link that was found just by googling "Godes SRI cold fusion":

http://pesn.com/2012/04/19/9602078_Brillouin--Understanding_How_LENR_Works_Will_Enable_Us_to_Be_First/

That is just a start. There are dozens of URLs that discuss experiments with LENR, or Cold Fusion, or Quantum Fusion.

I was looking for these: "e.g. CERN, NASA, US Navy, LLNL, Los Alamos, U of Missouri, Univ. of Illinois, and many others." not one with a vested interest.

How are you using (defining) the word "vested"? All from that list are either experimenting with or studying the field of LENR.

So, where is the scholarly data?

What's next, witchcraft?

I am not a scholar. I only have a EE degree from the University of Illinois. But here is the scholarly data:

http://www.infinite-energy.com/iemagazine/issue101/mit.html

This is the MIT course on cold fusion. During the first course, the students built a Paladium/hydrogen version of "cold fusion" (best called LENR today). It has been running at MIT ever since with a COP exceeding 2, and is still running. The excess heat is not being used, but is helping keep the room warm.

The hot fusion experiments at LLNL and in Europe have spent $ 20 B over twenty years, and have yet to reach a COP of 1. They are requesting another ten years and $ 20 B more to get it to be useful as an energy generator.

Okay, but the original point is that there is no credible scientific peer-review of the "science". None.

In order for any discovery to have any credibility it needs that peer reviewed publication in an accredited scholarly magazine like Nature.

The total lack of this accepted publication reduces the whole subject to cult junk-science level.

That does not mean that there may be something that is discovered out of this someday, but the total lack of any scientific credibility by any of the current players is a giant red flag. We will have to wait and see, but I suspect that Andrea Rossi will end up dancing around claiming problems and delays as he merrily takes his cash and disappears before his supporters can get hold of any torches and pitchforks.

However, in the end, that will still not kill off LENR because, like UFOs and Elvis lives, there will always be a sub-culture of believers to keep the pot stirring.

Let's see how my predictions play out...

Link us to the press releases from these institutions:

CERN

NASA

US Navy

LLNL

Los Alamos

U of Missouri

Univ. of Illinois

and many others

A quick search turns up nothing scholarly from these organizations.

The NASA reference seems to stem from some individual at NASA making a comment about LENR being a game changer (if it works), but there is absolutely nothing formally published on NASA web sites. So, it is a bit of a stretch of the truth to claim NASA is involved.

CERN allowed Celani to make a presentation to CERN on the subject of LENR. However, allowing someone to present their opinions is nothing close to an endorsement nor constitutes a formal research program by CERN.

My take on it is that this is simply an attempt to leverage credibility from organizations in a deceptive way. You throw out big names in an argument in an attempt to gain credibility. A simple search finds any such associations to be highly superficial.

Until someone brings something concrete to the scientific table in the form of formal peer reviewed science, LENR will continue to live in the realm of pathological science.

Your search matches mine, I just want him to produce something started by these substantial organizations.

CERN has had a few conferences on LENR. Here is a link to a video of just one such presentation by Celani which he gave at CERN:

http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1433866

The others you asked for are very easy to find. Just use Google and the words such as "University of Illinois LENR" to learn more.

I don't think the "grid" is going away any time soon. Tesla had ideas, but I don't know that he shared all of what was in his head. His notes and patent applications may have only been the tip of his mental iceberg.

I still think adopting a passive, high efficiency design for buildings, with assisted solar and wind energy, would go a long way to not need to "broadcast" electricity. Or at least not at the levels currently required. The grid would still exist, but now most electrical needs would be generated locally and would, hopefully, make for a, truly, more distributed system (source), instead of a relatively, few power plants outputting to a huge number of dependent consumers.

To the "distributed generation" people, I say, "NIMBY".

You're mostly thinking in terms of wind generators, I assume. I understand and empathize with that feeling. A city without billboards is more attractive than one with them. Some may really like them. I don't see much success in beautifying city skylines, in that regard, though. Same for power lines. I suppose that is one driving motive behind the OP... power lines in one's back or front yard view. If wind is part of a more localized solution, perhaps it could be placed not in yards, but near the community refuse landfill, for adding some energy to the "local" grid.

Most of us prefer "distributed" resources in other areas of life. Most of us want our computer(s) and data storage on site and not in a cloud. We want our media devices in the privacy of our home. People generally prefer owning a car vs. using mass transit. Having a home as a separate living environment, itself, is distributed thinking. I don't see a "distributed" energy system as inherently bad. The implementation would actually add to the "privacy" of life. It is, I think, a case where "selfish" can serve the common good. It's hard for me to imagine someone choosing paying for utilities if they could truly become independent from it. That is, of course, an ideal; not reality. To me, status quo is unacceptable, but appears to be the norm. Critical thinking is part of improving designs. Aesthetics do count. I would suggest that improvements can be made without affecting that too much. Something needs to be done. To act as if no improvements can or should be made, especially in something so basic as building energy efficiency, is ostrich-like, considering limited resources.

Passive design coupled with solar, would be a measurable step forward. Instead, we just keep going down the same old inefficient path. Are passive buildings somehow taboo? I'm asking. These designs and the mentality that has driven them entered the debate after the first oil "crisis" back in 1974. In almost 40 years, how many communities can be found where energy independence has been largely achieved? (I don't know if we can expect 100%.) Passive solar building design is practical stuff. It's not waiting on new "materials" or technology. So many factors can be included -- like air quality and water treatment.

Distributed thinking and design doesn't have to impinge on neighbors' lives.

My brother bought 5 acres in farmland where he built up a nice homestead. It was quiet, remote, and beautiful land that he has had for almost 30 years.

About 5 years ago they put up a wind farm near his property.

The sound of the turbines and their blades can be heard virtually 24 hours a day, 7 days per week. When conditions are right (or wrong) they can hear the farm inside their house with the windows up.

So much for moving to the country. Now his property value is worthless, there is no peace, and his electric bill never went down.

I do not want those in my backyard, either.

The company I used to work for was (or may still be) the largest renewable energy owner in the US. The power plant I worked at was gas fired, but I had the opportunity to get up close and personal with one of their wind farms.

At the time of the visit they were running around 30% capacity if I remember correctly. Having heard numerous stories similar to yours, I was shocked at the complete dead silence. Only when standing directly under the blade path could an almost inaudible whoosh be heard.

While your brother's situation is sad and unfortunate, it sheds light on a poor design (one that I don't want in my backyard either) and has a negative impact on the future of the ones who don't share that problem.

Thus my empathy. I don't know that wind energy has to be part of the solution. I wasn't advocating it. Dismissing a "distributed" perspective completely -- where each home would use passive design coupled with solar energy -- is what I was responding to. We may never have 100% independence but doing nothing solves nothing.

ChaoticIntellect's experience indicates the noise issue might be bad design (100% capacity noise levle would have to be checked. Also, over time these may become noisier, too.) Visual detraction is certainly a consideration, too. Which is why I would say, IF wind is being considered, try to pick a place where neither of these disadvantages will happen. The area around a land refuse seems more reasonable to me. The ones I have been around have noisy trucks and machinery running fairly constantly. So noise already accompanies them. Odor can be a problem, too. I'm not convinced wind power is necessary.

Speaking of wind, one of my ideas about using it, is to use rooftop blades to transfer air motion directly to blades inside the house at the other end of a common (clutch engaged or not) shaft. It does seem cumbersome, and wouldn't work where wind is rare, but it would eliminate electric ceiling fans in some locales. Just a crazy thought.

Part of a passive design would included geothermal cooling and heating. That may be geographically limited, too. But I did some poking around for another post in another thread, and I think it can make a contribution. I think a lot of little things added together can make a measurable impact on energy needs.

(I really don't like billboards, either. )

Solar panels on roofs will not produce any noise,why worry about wind mills.

They also will not produce much in the way of electricity for the dollar.

Consider other aspects like noise,EMI from windmills and pollution from fuel-fired power too.

Sure. I have considered it.

It costs me $300 per month for electricity to run my home using the current grid, which is pretty quiet and does have a few outages. That is $3,600 per year.

I could buy a solar system to do that, but it would probably cost me about $25,000 or more to buy it and have it installed and then there is maintenance (battery replacement) and solar cells degrade over time, so you need to factor in a cost for that, too.

Let's just use round numbers and say that it would take me 10 years to pay off my investment.

That means that in 10 years I get my money back that I spent. Oh, let's imagine that the next ten years is free electricity.

So, if the first ten years of my solar investment is an even trade of out of pocket expenses versus savings from my electric company, then the next 10 years is free electricity and money. That comes out to $36,000 savings! Wow! That's a lot!

Now, let's do a little experiment. Lets say I take that same $25,000 and put it into an IRA or another investment that makes 10% and roll that investment over for 10 years. Don't invest in solar stock because you will see why in a minute...

A simple compound interest calculation yields a return of investment of $64,843.56 after the first 10 years.

Now, if I did the same thing for 20 years I get 168,187.50!

Do you see why it is stupid to invest in solar?

How power is generated in your grid,by nuclear or coal or fuel?. All these are dangerous, damaging our planet. If scientists do more research solar will become cheaper.

That is somewhat true, but all of the things you want to do cost money and right now the world has more debt than they can afford to pay. Heck, the US is barely able to pay just the interest on our loans, let alone the paying anything on the principle.

Many other nations are worse off than that.

So, making solar cheaper is not going to be enough in of itself. This is just the problem with theory and practice. It is easy to make claims in theory, but the real world is far more complex than what you imagine, despite your well-meaning and noble desires.

US has financial problems due its criminal activities like killing or assisting to kill innocent civilians, communities,races etc in Vietnam,Bangaladesh, Srilanka,Afghan,Iraq,Libya,Egypt etc etc. If they spend that money in scientific research and cut down their armed forces,confine armed forces to US soil,mankind will get more benefits.

I have resisted saying this, but you are just ignorant.

Every post you start ends in the same rhetoric fed to you by dictatorial regimes. This is where you are stuck.

As an engineer, and I am assuming you are, you should intuitively be asking questions about the world and universe around you in order to understand the truth.

However, you are happy to take whatever has been spoon fed to and run off in rage without looking deeper.

There is a term for people like that and it is called useful idiots. Don't be one.

Contain your outrage and stick to engineering and or science. This isn't Inspire magazine.

Human rights supersedes politics.

We only go around killing innocent civilians if they appear to be not guilty or at least have the appearance of being innocent before being considered not guilty before and/or after a trial of their peers, also having the appearance of innocence and/or status of not being guilty. Even then, the killing is normally done in the humane sense of a 16th century man of the cloth where innocence is highly regarded up until the point of extreme pain or in rare instances the cessation of all necessary bodily functions.

It's all in the perception of the allegedly innocent, and that costs money.

We're putting much more money into the scientific research necessary to kill innocent civilians from home using drone technology. It's nice to be able to actually go home to your family at the end of a long day at the genocide factory.

We don't have armed forces on U.S. soil, i.e., they aren't allowed to fight our armed citizens. We have to go to countries where the civilians are unarmed, or unlegged in some cases where we choose to ignore land mine treaties.

It's nice to know that mankind relies so heavily on the good-natured killing fields of the United States!

Where is that smiley with his tongue in his cheek?