Hello TODers with electro-mechanical engineering expertise,
I have posted this speculative brainstorm info before, in little posting 'bits and pieces' in earlier threads-- just as these threads went stale--thus no replies from anyone. I am hoping for some intelligent feedback as to the scientific plausibility.
I am not an engineer, so try not to laugh too hard if this idea is totally unworkable from a future technical 'Energy Storage' viewpoint. But please consider carefully.... does this idea have any merit for possible postPeak PETAWATT energy storage and periodic GIGAWATT generation?
Since we will have several billion vehicles going nowhere without fuel soon: is it possible to convert this huge mass to several septillion ball bearings? Then any future non-peak biosolar power from wind, sun, tides, PV, Stirling engines, etc could gradually, over time, lift this mass with conveyors to a lofty height to imbue it with a lot of potential kinetic energy to be later used during peak hours, or when the biosolar sources are insufficient in a particular locale. In short, using the height reduction of ball bearings for generation purposes, instead of the current method of height reduction of water behind a dam to create electricity. If we cannot count on raindrops and melting snow for reliable electricity--can we make our own steel raindrops for future power generation?
Imagine, if you will, approx. 100 billion marble-sized 'steelies' rolling out of a dam sluicegate atop a sloping mountaintop plateau-- wouldn't they basically flow like water? In sufficient quantity: wouldn't the 'steelies' power a series of 'in-flow water wheels' or impellers that could be connected to electric dynamos? Additionally, from their movement-- wouldn't they generate huge amounts of frictional static electricity and magnetic-flux hysteresis energy [correct scientific term?] that could be somehow electrically harvested too?
I picture the sluicepath as having three drives to generate electricity: the impellers on the bottom for the kinetic force collection, suspended coils above to harvest the changing magnetic flux lines, and in-flow metal rails to harvest the bi-polar charging forces from static electricity. Imagine this sluice gate descending into the Grand Canyon or some other suitably dry desert canyon to minimize the rusting of the 'steelies. Could GIGAWATT/hours be generated this way?
If this is technically possible for our postPeak future, then I could imagine certain heavy industrial processes that require a huge and reliable electrical flow to be the primary users of this process. Let's say we need to smelter some metal using the Bessemer Electric System-- we can't risk this process having an electrical blackout halfway-- could the deafening thunder of countless rolling 'steelies' be the postPeak answer? The energy could be sent over the grid to whichever locale can best justify its use.
I would be interested in reading replies from those with more technical expertise than me. Admittedly, this is highly speculative: but storing kinetic energy potential in 'steelies' could be comparably equivalent to today's hydro-generation, but have the additional electrical kick from magnetic and static forces too.
Here is a little more of my thinking on this idea:
Basically, steelies will flow much easier than water on a firm, gentle slope because there is no adhesion effect like H2O. Also, rusting is a much slower process than the evaporation of water. Global Warming is alarmingly making water storage behind dams problematic already, as some water must be released to retain habitat viability downstream. But the gradual buildup of steelies can be biosolar-powered guaranteed over time, until the harvesting of the energy is needed. My SWAG is that the conveyor system would work 24/7/365 to uplift the steelies, but postpeak, maybe the steelie system would only run one 24 hour period out of the week, but would make a huge amount of electricity that would be sent over the grid!
Those with more technical backgrounds could determine the actual energy density of a flowing 'steelie stream'. My totally wild-ass guess is that a foot high flood of steelies has the same energy density as a twenty foot high tsunami or hurricane storm surge. Basically, imagine a cubic foot of steel hitting you versus a cubic foot of water--the basic idea of a bullet being lethal versus kids playing with water-pistols.
Obviously, you cannot pile the steelies so high that the bottom units deform from compression. My WAG is maybe 20 ft high maximum for the dam, but it would only require a very gentle slope to insure that the steelies will roll through the sluicegate to the generation system below the dam. Therefore, I could see steelie dams built all over the world's deserts with the uplift conveyors powered by windmills, Stirling engines, and/or PV.
IF iron ore is still plentiful across the planet, then replacing those steelies that will eventually rust away is possible. Their small size means they are totable by humans or draft animals in the worst case situation if some electricity for some special purpose is desired.
Some more wild-ass thinking: if you can imagine a five mile square 'lake of steelies' above the dam/generation facility, and another five mile square 'lake of steelies' below with the relentless Arizona sunshine blazing down upon this huge mass-- there is a tremendous daily heating updraft and nightly cooling downdraft that could be harvested with horizontal helicopter windmills suspended above these steel lakes. Would this additionally help the gradual conveyor moving of the steelies from below the dams back upstream?
I wonder if these steel lakes would attract a lot of lightning strikes and if there is any way to harvest this enormous energy. If the steel lakes were divided by a grid of insulating rails and further insulated from ground by specialized electro-isolation of the steel cladded and heavily reinforced concrete lake bottom--could this make huge capacitors when the lightning hits? Obviously, this would require careful engineering so that the lightning doesn't just arc-weld together a couple of million steelies, but the mass of steel would safely conduct, then temporarily store this energy in a monumental Resistive-Capacitive and Inductive Tank Circuit as it is ultimately bled off into the national grid.
As I ponder this hypothetical steelie generation system--I realize that tremendous human safeguards will have to be designed up-front to protect human life. The buildup of static electricity charges alone from moving steelies could badly electrocute someone, and if someone fell into the steelie stream it would probably quickly grind them down to powder. So this whole generation system, if technically viable, would require a lot of fences and/or guards to keep people out for their own protection [my guess is this would be fascinating process to watch]. I wonder how loud a few billion moving steelies would be--I am assuming it would be deafening if you are near the sluicepath.
OK, all you electro-mechanical engineers, if you can visualize what I have described--you are now free to split your sides from laughing hilariously-- or does my SWAG have any merit? I retain any legal patent rights, but I am willing to share with investors--Vinod Khosla, do you want in for a minimal venture capital risk of $1 million to get this idea off the ground?
Imagine, if you will, approx. 100 billion marble-sized 'steelies' rolling out of a dam sluicegate atop a sloping mountaintop plateau ... The steelies would grind up your turbine blades, regardless of what you make them from.
But an oversize elevator, with motor-generators, lifting something like a kilometer cube of earth? Or gather up all the used lithium batteries from the cellphone industry and tie them in parallel?
Flywheels? Supercapacitors? i got it __ a giant wimshurst machine ... fill the lake with mercury
I am imagining more of a multiple series of small ribbed metal logs across the sluicepath and connected to gearboxes to spin the correct RPM for the dynamos, not a turbine.
Because water is less dense than steelies: that is why you need the big drop to spin the turbine. The steelies could roll much slower because of their tremendous energy density. The arch design of the sluicepath would determine the rolling speed and how many millions of tons of rolling pressure would push the steelies relentlessly forward.
I understand your fascination with steelies, they're fun to play with. But along with the other objections listed below, I doubt you could get more efficiency out of them than falling water. You're still allowing something to fall and trying to recover energy from it. (note: filling that lake with mercury would allow you to use a magnetohydrodynamic generator with no moving parts other than the mercury stream)
But as others have mentioned, there is a tremendous amount of embedded energy in the steel itself. We use water for this application because (maybe not in the Sonoran desert, but some places) it is readily available, environmentally innocuous (give or take a breaking dam) and nature does some of the lifting for us.
NaK is cheaper than mercury, a much, much better conductor, and fluid at any place they need electricity for summer airconditioning peaking.
Go with flow cells for cheap energy storage for any place that doesn't have hydroelectricity to use instead.
I've done a lot of reasearch here and at the end of the day the best storage for cost and energy density is a liquified gas. Liquid nitrogen is and obvious choice. C02 is another ammonia and organics are possible.
Now these sources have been dismissed for mobile power sources because of there energy density but they all work well as a capacitor for an eletric network. The beauty of liquid nitrogen is its free.
I would disagree with the statement that they all work as well as a capacitor in an electrical network.
One problem is the heat transfer--where and how to dump all that heat when you liquify it and then getting it back later. That impacts the efficiency of the complete cycle as well as the rate at which you can get the energy back out. That is an issue with LNG.
Converting high quality energy (electicity) into heat (latent heat potential, in this case), has inherent disadvantages.
It might be possible to store the lost heat in water and add it back later and even add more heat to it with cheap and simple thermal solar panels which would add (simple) solar energy to system.
Yes its a thermo cycle so there is the inherent loss but your losing energy that would be wasted to add peak power handling capability. Pumped storage has losses also. As long as the losses are resonable and I consider 50% reasonable then it makes sense to add the capacity. Consider the effect of having a several hundred thousand gallons of liquid nitrogen stored at a wind farm it makes them viable for full load. In the home in the summer the liquid nitrogen can be used directly for air conditioning and also electric generation. Massively reducing the load. Also if you have a home windmill and solar panel your liquid nitrogen storage system means you keep the energy you generate or if you do sell back to the grid you can sell at peak price rates so your in control of when and how much energy you put back on the grid.
In the case of a wind farm or solar array located in the desert when you boil the liquid nitrogen you will be able to condense a fair amount of water from the atmosphere so it also makes it a source of water and of course nice cold air in the desert.
The energy density of liquid nitrogen is pretty high not quite enough to make it a good system for mobile transportation but its really quite reasonable for fixed energy storage.
Finally a co-product would be pure C02 this can be combined with electrolysis of H20 to give you H2 which gives you CH4 and you have a product for organics production.
The last I heard it costs about the same per gallon as milk. In fact the author of the piece was amazed at how closely it tracked milk over the decades.
The big disadvantage right now is the cost of creating it.
The use of stirling engines help and as I said I'm investigating using hirsch vortex tubes. There are also acoustic refrigeration. Needless to say efficient condensation of gasses is not and area that has recieved a huge amount of research since regular compressors work well even though there not efficient. You can use other working fluids the only real requirment is the boiling point is lower then room temperature. The energy is from the phase change liquid->gas.
Hmm. I looked at your site. You'll still run into some laws of thermodynamics. Extracting useful work from a temperature difference is always going to be less than 100% efficient.
And the cost of LN2 is almost entirely the cost of the energy to produce it.
If I had the money, time, and patience to build an energy storage system in my garage, I'd go with nickel-iron batteries. Your energy out / energy in is only about 40% but they last forever, have no moving parts, and are beautifully low-tech.
I thought a lot about batteries but they don't seem to provide the load response that a thermodynamic system can. LNG is also potentially a good choice but again with liquid nitrogen you don't care about the working fluid. Both work well for the major peak load problem air conditioning since the effectively replace that use case via cooling the air using a stored refrigerant. Current refrigerants are also a good possibility I'd say freon but it not freon any more. The problem with anything not liquid nitrogen is you have to store the gas till you compress again which is why I chose liquid nitrogen since you
can exhaust to the atmosphere.
That link I dropped below on "oil shocks" actually leads to a piece on the Energy Security Leadership Council. The CEO of FedEx, and a retired commandant of the Marine Corps ... they seem to be pushing conserving, and living conservatively.
This would not be a drop-in replacement for anything we have now, but might be a possibly reliable way to make intermittent gobs of power at scheduled times with power grid load matching. I have read articles that say that all the good damsites to build water-powered electricity are already taken, and some dams should be removed to restore riverine habitat downstream to help protect aquatic species. My thinking is that due to the compact design of a 'steelie generation facility' out in the Southwest's deserts that it might inflict less environmental damage than any present day hydro-source. But I could be wrong.
Yes, I understand that you were suggesting a storage solution for intermittent renewable sources. And we were deconstructing it.
In your case, it might make sense to move your house mostly underground, and to have thick masonry walls for the aboveground part. Since you Sonorans insist on irrigation, irrigate the roof. Grow shade plants on it. And there you've conserved about 4-6 kW of electricity. You could run a smallish ground-heatsink refrigeration unit for lower humidity in your living space.
Not that it wouldn't be a thrill to see millions of BBs rolling down the sluice, but most of us view that as really very impractical.
About a month ago, I posted my idea of building a small house in a bought-used, then mostly-buried culvert, so we are thinking much alike in this regard. But sadly, I don't have the funds, real estate, nor time to do this yet. I think alot of TODers are in the same predicament too. It is very difficult to try and move ahead when it seems we are constantly moving backwards.
I am very happy for Todd and the others that are re-pioneering the future. I really hope they succeed and can pass their skills and knowledge to the next generation.
Yeah, I hear you on the money thing. I'm trying to figure out how to put together enough money to buy some land, since I think future survival will hinge on land ownership. Though as Airdale and Wharf Rat have mentioned, the land is just the beginning. There's lotsa stuff that is nice to have on the land, such as a garden. A source of water. Knowledge to deal with bugs & pests in said garden. Ability to defend said land from gangs of hungry zomboids from the city. Etc.
I never really thought my mchouse in the mcburbs had much of a future, having been 'into' this stuff since the last crisis in the '70s. But after reading TOD for a while, I realize it's a lot worse than I thought. This ol' mchouse probably isn't going to be worth living in by 2015 or so. Not that it was poorly built (it was; OSB anyone?) — but by then I think our lifestyle will have collapsed sufficiently that we won't have reliable utilities nor city services.
One possibility is building a small log house. You find some wooded acreage with some nice popular trees on it. They grow very straight and no lower limbs. They make excellent logs for laying up a house. You want some rocks to build a 3 ft or so above ground foundation and start laying logs on that.
While chainsaws are still doable its not that hard to create something rather on a small scale.
Lay up a stick and mud chimney or flueblocks.
I know a guy in North Carolina who went to the woods nearby and did just exactly what I am speaking of. It turned out very very nice and his huge fireplace gave him a method of heating and cooking at the same time.
While there is time is when to start on it. When resources are available. Read Thoreau. He did it and loved it.
He makes the economics look very promising as well.
Funny he was talking about the unnecessary extravagances of life even back in the mid 1880s.
Central Texas ranch land is running $1500 - $3000 an acre. And I figure to need more than one acre; it's not wooded like NC, so the log house is out. The trees are stunted and twisty. But it has plenty of stones.
Also, you want to avoid building your earth-house in a dry wash. I've lived in Texas about a quarter century now, and have some respect for a low water crossing. And they're bound to be worse in the desert.
Just thinking about the "power house" i.e. the point at which the bearings turn the "turbine":
This is just intuitive guess on my part, but I think it would actually be quite difficult to design a geometry that would both not have the balls jam the impeller, and also not have the balls clog in the intake chute, while at the same time transmitting a siginificant amount of back pressure from the resevoir.
I would expect that you would see a void develop upsteam of the powerhouse with a surface that looked like a cantinary curve rotated in the third dimension i.e. sort of an eliptical contic section extending from the powerhouse entry to the sides of the intake sluceway {Sure wish there was an easy way to stuff a napkin and a felt tip through this software :) }
There would of course be a huge embedded energy in producing the balls to fill the resevoir. If one of the main drawbacks that you see to using water is evaporative loss in arid regions I think it would be cheaper to cover the resevoir surface with loating rafts to reduce this... Why not install PV panels on the rafts while your at it?
Thxs for your reply, but I think I need the 'napkin sketch' to really visualize what your text is describing. I don't claim to have a perfect design: I am hoping that some geniuses here on TOD will see dramatic ways to improve my brainstorm to where it can be a positive, but intermittent postPeak energy storage solution.
It all started in my mind when I pictured billions of postPeak vehicles and the zillions of tons of steel in abandoned skyscrapers--I was trying to think of some way to put this steel to use instead of it just rusting away virtually everywhere. Maybe someone has a better idea.
If we ultimately live in a true biosolar fashion, then our culture will radically change to a profound concern for all species' viability; the web of Life. Damned rivers may be seen as un-natural in this context. If we can invent a sustainable way to generate electricity without the requirement of huge concrete dams blocking water--then it will be much more acceptable to never replace these dams when earthquakes [or nuclear bombs?] crumble them.
O.K . If we reduce the problem to 2 dimensions a bunch of equal sized circles will pack in the ideal case with thier center points on a hexagonal grid. If we assume gravity in this flat land is pulling them towards the bottom of the page of hex graph paper then if you draw the force vectors acting on each circle at the points of contact there are ones with lateral, as well as vertical components. So, if the sides of the page narrow from top to bottom, as the inlet to your power house would, you will see that the circles tend to wedge themselves into the opening, with some falling away at the bottom to form a natural arch shaped void.
I suppose one or a huge group could pull it off...provided
the oil crisis was a 'very very' soft landing.
If a hard landing then seems to me to be pretty impossible.
Taum Sauk is a water reserviour in mid Missouri owned and built by Union Electric. They use/d excess generated power to pump the water to the top of a hollowed out mountain(actually large hill) and then released the water to drive turbines as needed later.
Well last year it broke out of its holdings and did a darn heck of a flooding job on small towns located in its flood path. Roaring walls of water scared the shit out of many who were just out moseying around the town. Flattened a lot of real estate.
Never did hear about the the eventual outcome.
I wouldn't want to be in the path of zillions of speeding ball bearings. Water I could handle.
Water seems like it would be easier to engineer something like this with. Steel seems a bit harder. Lots of water towers still in use. Methods of pumping the water still exist. Obtaing the power to do so after an infrastructure crash might be a problem.
How about a windmill that hoists and stores water then you drive the small electric turbine when you release the water. Such windmills are still being built and used out west, I believe.
In fact a few of my neighbors have put some up just to decorate their farms with. Low tech stuff. Available ,and you get free running water to boot. Nice to have indoor plumbing in your 'Thoreau' shack out in the hinterlands. Always a bitch toting water uphill from the local spring.
Yep, preventing Zillions of runaway steelies would be a primary safety concern, but I would imagine that due to their small size that once they encountered softer ground--they would be rapidly immobilized in the dirt as they would tend to build their own berm. But I could be wrong.
If the harvesting of electricity from magnetic flux and frictional static forces is much greater than the electric harvest from the kinetic force-- the ERoEI and economics dramatically change. TODer Tom DePlume's idea of using a railroad is a good idea, but it merely harvests kinetic potential from the RR cars rolling back downhill-- my idea would harvest all possible electric generation methods. The suspended coils over the sluicepath and the in-stream rails to collect static juice would be very compact in my idea versus trying to extend this tech to the entire RR length of Tom's brainstorm. Hopefully MIT or CalTech will determine if either idea is postPeak viable.
In addition to the wind turbines (a very good use), we'll need that steel for railroad track and rolling stock. For the mid-life doomer: bicycles; for the hard-core doomer: guns and combat knives.
The tires can replace asphalt shingles or make irrigation systems. The bronze age, post paleo doomers can make siege engines (catapults).
I think throwing away your body is a waste. Mine is going to be cut up by medical students; special attention will be given to my exceptional brain;-)
Also, think of the huge amounts my estate saves by diddling the morticians out of every single dollar, and a dollar saved is one more for The Nature Conservancy.
(BTW, my kids know they will get not one dollar when I die. Thus they want to keep me alive and healthy and generous as long as possible.)
I don't have the expertise to evaluate engineering wise if Wind Towers maybe a better use for all this steel, but possibly my steelies/ton will generate more temporary surge energy than your towers/ton of steel will. Perhaps, towers for energy base-loading, combined with steelies for intermittent energy runs of heavy industrial processes like smeltering a load of metals.
I have posted this speculative brainstorm info before, in little posting 'bits and pieces' in earlier threads-- just as these threads went stale--thus no replies from anyone. I am hoping for some intelligent feedback as to the scientific plausibility.
I am not an engineer, so try not to laugh too hard if this idea is totally unworkable from a future technical 'Energy Storage' viewpoint. But please consider carefully.... does this idea have any merit for possible postPeak PETAWATT energy storage and periodic GIGAWATT generation?
Since we will have several billion vehicles going nowhere without fuel soon: is it possible to convert this huge mass to several septillion ball bearings? Then any future non-peak biosolar power from wind, sun, tides, PV, Stirling engines, etc could gradually, over time, lift this mass with conveyors to a lofty height to imbue it with a lot of potential kinetic energy to be later used during peak hours, or when the biosolar sources are insufficient in a particular locale. In short, using the height reduction of ball bearings for generation purposes, instead of the current method of height reduction of water behind a dam to create electricity. If we cannot count on raindrops and melting snow for reliable electricity--can we make our own steel raindrops for future power generation?
Imagine, if you will, approx. 100 billion marble-sized 'steelies' rolling out of a dam sluicegate atop a sloping mountaintop plateau-- wouldn't they basically flow like water? In sufficient quantity: wouldn't the 'steelies' power a series of 'in-flow water wheels' or impellers that could be connected to electric dynamos? Additionally, from their movement-- wouldn't they generate huge amounts of frictional static electricity and magnetic-flux hysteresis energy [correct scientific term?] that could be somehow electrically harvested too?
I picture the sluicepath as having three drives to generate electricity: the impellers on the bottom for the kinetic force collection, suspended coils above to harvest the changing magnetic flux lines, and in-flow metal rails to harvest the bi-polar charging forces from static electricity. Imagine this sluice gate descending into the Grand Canyon or some other suitably dry desert canyon to minimize the rusting of the 'steelies. Could GIGAWATT/hours be generated this way?
If this is technically possible for our postPeak future, then I could imagine certain heavy industrial processes that require a huge and reliable electrical flow to be the primary users of this process. Let's say we need to smelter some metal using the Bessemer Electric System-- we can't risk this process having an electrical blackout halfway-- could the deafening thunder of countless rolling 'steelies' be the postPeak answer? The energy could be sent over the grid to whichever locale can best justify its use.
I would be interested in reading replies from those with more technical expertise than me. Admittedly, this is highly speculative: but storing kinetic energy potential in 'steelies' could be comparably equivalent to today's hydro-generation, but have the additional electrical kick from magnetic and static forces too.
Here is a little more of my thinking on this idea:
Basically, steelies will flow much easier than water on a firm, gentle slope because there is no adhesion effect like H2O. Also, rusting is a much slower process than the evaporation of water. Global Warming is alarmingly making water storage behind dams problematic already, as some water must be released to retain habitat viability downstream. But the gradual buildup of steelies can be biosolar-powered guaranteed over time, until the harvesting of the energy is needed. My SWAG is that the conveyor system would work 24/7/365 to uplift the steelies, but postpeak, maybe the steelie system would only run one 24 hour period out of the week, but would make a huge amount of electricity that would be sent over the grid!
Those with more technical backgrounds could determine the actual energy density of a flowing 'steelie stream'. My totally wild-ass guess is that a foot high flood of steelies has the same energy density as a twenty foot high tsunami or hurricane storm surge. Basically, imagine a cubic foot of steel hitting you versus a cubic foot of water--the basic idea of a bullet being lethal versus kids playing with water-pistols.
Obviously, you cannot pile the steelies so high that the bottom units deform from compression. My WAG is maybe 20 ft high maximum for the dam, but it would only require a very gentle slope to insure that the steelies will roll through the sluicegate to the generation system below the dam. Therefore, I could see steelie dams built all over the world's deserts with the uplift conveyors powered by windmills, Stirling engines, and/or PV.
IF iron ore is still plentiful across the planet, then replacing those steelies that will eventually rust away is possible. Their small size means they are totable by humans or draft animals in the worst case situation if some electricity for some special purpose is desired.
Some more wild-ass thinking: if you can imagine a five mile square 'lake of steelies' above the dam/generation facility, and another five mile square 'lake of steelies' below with the relentless Arizona sunshine blazing down upon this huge mass-- there is a tremendous daily heating updraft and nightly cooling downdraft that could be harvested with horizontal helicopter windmills suspended above these steel lakes. Would this additionally help the gradual conveyor moving of the steelies from below the dams back upstream?
I wonder if these steel lakes would attract a lot of lightning strikes and if there is any way to harvest this enormous energy. If the steel lakes were divided by a grid of insulating rails and further insulated from ground by specialized electro-isolation of the steel cladded and heavily reinforced concrete lake bottom--could this make huge capacitors when the lightning hits? Obviously, this would require careful engineering so that the lightning doesn't just arc-weld together a couple of million steelies, but the mass of steel would safely conduct, then temporarily store this energy in a monumental Resistive-Capacitive and Inductive Tank Circuit as it is ultimately bled off into the national grid.
As I ponder this hypothetical steelie generation system--I realize that tremendous human safeguards will have to be designed up-front to protect human life. The buildup of static electricity charges alone from moving steelies could badly electrocute someone, and if someone fell into the steelie stream it would probably quickly grind them down to powder. So this whole generation system, if technically viable, would require a lot of fences and/or guards to keep people out for their own protection [my guess is this would be fascinating process to watch]. I wonder how loud a few billion moving steelies would be--I am assuming it would be deafening if you are near the sluicepath.
OK, all you electro-mechanical engineers, if you can visualize what I have described--you are now free to split your sides from laughing hilariously-- or does my SWAG have any merit? I retain any legal patent rights, but I am willing to share with investors--Vinod Khosla, do you want in for a minimal venture capital risk of $1 million to get this idea off the ground?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
... The steelies would grind up your turbine blades, regardless of what you make them from.
But an oversize elevator, with motor-generators, lifting something like a kilometer cube of earth? Or gather up all the used lithium batteries from the cellphone industry and tie them in parallel?
Flywheels?Supercapacitors?i got it __ a giant wimshurst machine... fill the lake with mercuryI am imagining more of a multiple series of small ribbed metal logs across the sluicepath and connected to gearboxes to spin the correct RPM for the dynamos, not a turbine.
Because water is less dense than steelies: that is why you need the big drop to spin the turbine. The steelies could roll much slower because of their tremendous energy density. The arch design of the sluicepath would determine the rolling speed and how many millions of tons of rolling pressure would push the steelies relentlessly forward.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
But as others have mentioned, there is a tremendous amount of embedded energy in the steel itself. We use water for this application because (maybe not in the Sonoran desert, but some places) it is readily available, environmentally innocuous (give or take a breaking dam) and nature does some of the lifting for us.
Go with flow cells for cheap energy storage for any place that doesn't have hydroelectricity to use instead.
Grandfather clock anyone ?
I've done a lot of reasearch here and at the end of the day the best storage for cost and energy density is a liquified gas. Liquid nitrogen is and obvious choice. C02 is another ammonia and organics are possible.
Now these sources have been dismissed for mobile power sources because of there energy density but they all work well as a capacitor for an eletric network. The beauty of liquid nitrogen is its free.
See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_nitrogen_economy
http://www.stirling.nl/sp/sp3.html
I'm working on and alternative method to generate that
has no moving parts based on vortex tubes
http://www.iprocessmart.com/Exair/vortex_and_cooling_intro.htm
One problem is the heat transfer--where and how to dump all that heat when you liquify it and then getting it back later. That impacts the efficiency of the complete cycle as well as the rate at which you can get the energy back out. That is an issue with LNG.
Converting high quality energy (electicity) into heat (latent heat potential, in this case), has inherent disadvantages.
Yes its a thermo cycle so there is the inherent loss but your losing energy that would be wasted to add peak power handling capability. Pumped storage has losses also. As long as the losses are resonable and I consider 50% reasonable then it makes sense to add the capacity. Consider the effect of having a several hundred thousand gallons of liquid nitrogen stored at a wind farm it makes them viable for full load. In the home in the summer the liquid nitrogen can be used directly for air conditioning and also electric generation. Massively reducing the load. Also if you have a home windmill and solar panel your liquid nitrogen storage system means you keep the energy you generate or if you do sell back to the grid you can sell at peak price rates so your in control of when and how much energy you put back on the grid.
In the case of a wind farm or solar array located in the desert when you boil the liquid nitrogen you will be able to condense a fair amount of water from the atmosphere so it also makes it a source of water and of course nice cold air in the desert.
The energy density of liquid nitrogen is pretty high not quite enough to make it a good system for mobile transportation but its really quite reasonable for fixed energy storage.
Finally a co-product would be pure C02 this can be combined with electrolysis of H20 to give you H2 which gives you CH4 and you have a product for organics production.
The last I heard it costs about the same per gallon as milk. In fact the author of the piece was amazed at how closely it tracked milk over the decades.
I meant the working fluid i.e nitrogen.
The big disadvantage right now is the cost of creating it.
The use of stirling engines help and as I said I'm investigating using hirsch vortex tubes. There are also acoustic refrigeration. Needless to say efficient condensation of gasses is not and area that has recieved a huge amount of research since regular compressors work well even though there not efficient. You can use other working fluids the only real requirment is the boiling point is lower then room temperature. The energy is from the phase change liquid->gas.
And the cost of LN2 is almost entirely the cost of the energy to produce it.
If I had the money, time, and patience to build an energy storage system in my garage, I'd go with nickel-iron batteries. Your energy out / energy in is only about 40% but they last forever, have no moving parts, and are beautifully low-tech.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/load_balancing.php
looks interesting.
key words here
As opposed to conserving, and living conservatively. Which USians will refuse to do ... we are so so screwed.
This would not be a drop-in replacement for anything we have now, but might be a possibly reliable way to make intermittent gobs of power at scheduled times with power grid load matching. I have read articles that say that all the good damsites to build water-powered electricity are already taken, and some dams should be removed to restore riverine habitat downstream to help protect aquatic species. My thinking is that due to the compact design of a 'steelie generation facility' out in the Southwest's deserts that it might inflict less environmental damage than any present day hydro-source. But I could be wrong.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
In your case, it might make sense to move your house mostly underground, and to have thick masonry walls for the aboveground part. Since you Sonorans insist on irrigation, irrigate the roof. Grow shade plants on it. And there you've conserved about 4-6 kW of electricity. You could run a smallish ground-heatsink refrigeration unit for lower humidity in your living space.
Not that it wouldn't be a thrill to see millions of BBs rolling down the sluice, but most of us view that as really very impractical.
About a month ago, I posted my idea of building a small house in a bought-used, then mostly-buried culvert, so we are thinking much alike in this regard. But sadly, I don't have the funds, real estate, nor time to do this yet. I think alot of TODers are in the same predicament too. It is very difficult to try and move ahead when it seems we are constantly moving backwards.
I am very happy for Todd and the others that are re-pioneering the future. I really hope they succeed and can pass their skills and knowledge to the next generation.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I never really thought my mchouse in the mcburbs had much of a future, having been 'into' this stuff since the last crisis in the '70s. But after reading TOD for a while, I realize it's a lot worse than I thought. This ol' mchouse probably isn't going to be worth living in by 2015 or so. Not that it was poorly built (it was; OSB anyone?) — but by then I think our lifestyle will have collapsed sufficiently that we won't have reliable utilities nor city services.
While chainsaws are still doable its not that hard to create something rather on a small scale.
Lay up a stick and mud chimney or flueblocks.
I know a guy in North Carolina who went to the woods nearby and did just exactly what I am speaking of. It turned out very very nice and his huge fireplace gave him a method of heating and cooking at the same time.
While there is time is when to start on it. When resources are available. Read Thoreau. He did it and loved it.
He makes the economics look very promising as well.
Funny he was talking about the unnecessary extravagances of life even back in the mid 1880s.
WRT your ball bearing lakes idea:
Just thinking about the "power house" i.e. the point at which the bearings turn the "turbine":
This is just intuitive guess on my part, but I think it would actually be quite difficult to design a geometry that would both not have the balls jam the impeller, and also not have the balls clog in the intake chute, while at the same time transmitting a siginificant amount of back pressure from the resevoir.
I would expect that you would see a void develop upsteam of the powerhouse with a surface that looked like a cantinary curve rotated in the third dimension i.e. sort of an eliptical contic section extending from the powerhouse entry to the sides of the intake sluceway {Sure wish there was an easy way to stuff a napkin and a felt tip through this software :) }
There would of course be a huge embedded energy in producing the balls to fill the resevoir. If one of the main drawbacks that you see to using water is evaporative loss in arid regions I think it would be cheaper to cover the resevoir surface with loating rafts to reduce this... Why not install PV panels on the rafts while your at it?
Thxs for your reply, but I think I need the 'napkin sketch' to really visualize what your text is describing. I don't claim to have a perfect design: I am hoping that some geniuses here on TOD will see dramatic ways to improve my brainstorm to where it can be a positive, but intermittent postPeak energy storage solution.
It all started in my mind when I pictured billions of postPeak vehicles and the zillions of tons of steel in abandoned skyscrapers--I was trying to think of some way to put this steel to use instead of it just rusting away virtually everywhere. Maybe someone has a better idea.
If we ultimately live in a true biosolar fashion, then our culture will radically change to a profound concern for all species' viability; the web of Life. Damned rivers may be seen as un-natural in this context. If we can invent a sustainable way to generate electricity without the requirement of huge concrete dams blocking water--then it will be much more acceptable to never replace these dams when earthquakes [or nuclear bombs?] crumble them.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Hope this is more clear...
the oil crisis was a 'very very' soft landing.
If a hard landing then seems to me to be pretty impossible.
Taum Sauk is a water reserviour in mid Missouri owned and built by Union Electric. They use/d excess generated power to pump the water to the top of a hollowed out mountain(actually large hill) and then released the water to drive turbines as needed later.
Well last year it broke out of its holdings and did a darn heck of a flooding job on small towns located in its flood path. Roaring walls of water scared the shit out of many who were just out moseying around the town. Flattened a lot of real estate.
Never did hear about the the eventual outcome.
I wouldn't want to be in the path of zillions of speeding ball bearings. Water I could handle.
Water seems like it would be easier to engineer something like this with. Steel seems a bit harder. Lots of water towers still in use. Methods of pumping the water still exist. Obtaing the power to do so after an infrastructure crash might be a problem.
How about a windmill that hoists and stores water then you drive the small electric turbine when you release the water. Such windmills are still being built and used out west, I believe.
In fact a few of my neighbors have put some up just to decorate their farms with. Low tech stuff. Available ,and you get free running water to boot. Nice to have indoor plumbing in your 'Thoreau' shack out in the hinterlands. Always a bitch toting water uphill from the local spring.
Yep, preventing Zillions of runaway steelies would be a primary safety concern, but I would imagine that due to their small size that once they encountered softer ground--they would be rapidly immobilized in the dirt as they would tend to build their own berm. But I could be wrong.
If the harvesting of electricity from magnetic flux and frictional static forces is much greater than the electric harvest from the kinetic force-- the ERoEI and economics dramatically change. TODer Tom DePlume's idea of using a railroad is a good idea, but it merely harvests kinetic potential from the RR cars rolling back downhill-- my idea would harvest all possible electric generation methods. The suspended coils over the sluicepath and the in-stream rails to collect static juice would be very compact in my idea versus trying to extend this tech to the entire RR length of Tom's brainstorm. Hopefully MIT or CalTech will determine if either idea is postPeak viable.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
The steel would see much better use in tubular towers for wind turbines.
The tires can replace asphalt shingles or make irrigation systems. The bronze age, post paleo doomers can make siege engines (catapults).
I think we'll have lots of use for those cars.
Also, think of the huge amounts my estate saves by diddling the morticians out of every single dollar, and a dollar saved is one more for The Nature Conservancy.
(BTW, my kids know they will get not one dollar when I die. Thus they want to keep me alive and healthy and generous as long as possible.)
I don't have the expertise to evaluate engineering wise if Wind Towers maybe a better use for all this steel, but possibly my steelies/ton will generate more temporary surge energy than your towers/ton of steel will. Perhaps, towers for energy base-loading, combined with steelies for intermittent energy runs of heavy industrial processes like smeltering a load of metals.
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?