New energy ideas

[Steam]

It's bullshit by they way. One every 4 days. Hahahahahaha.

I kid you not: From this BBC story

China is now building about two power stations every week, the top climate change official at the UK Foreign Office, John Ashton, has said.

From the New York times this story is from more than a year ago, since then things have accelerated.

Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.

[ManDownUnder]

Thermocouples - plenty of places with huge temperature differentials in reasonably close proximity - depths of ocean cf the surface, sink holes in geothermal areas etc. Every little bit helps.

Thermocouples? Ain't that just a techno word for hot sex?

[Wolf]

But power networks aren't much good.

Most networks run losses of between 7-10%.

About half of that is the powerline, losses at high voltage are about 3-4% per 1000km of line. The balance is lost at the lower voltage used to distribute power locally, and in the transformers that do the voltage change.

True, but what's the "power loss" (inefficiency) of the Toyota Prius that is burning petrol that was transported from Marsden Point to Wellington in a fucking great diesel-powered truck?

There are no "lossless" systems, but we could probably have a great play around with ways of lessening the total loss.

compare an electric car, a petrol-electric (or diesel-electric) hybrid and a petrol or diesel vehicle.

All are made up of lossy systems of varying degrees of efficiency and all rely on distribution of their source of energy which in turn relies on production of same.

going back through the chains:
electric car, power socket, electrical grid, power station (what else prior to that would depend on how that powerstation is powered and what mechanisms are in place to do so - e.g. Huntly relies on fucking great diesel trucks to haul coal; Arapuni relies on rainfall in the catchment area and gravity)

Hybrid or Internal combustion car, fuel pump, fuel tanker, fuel refinery, electrical grid, power station (for the electricity) ships, trucks, oil wells (for the crude oil) and, of course, the oil wells themselves rely on an electrical grid and a power station...

I think we need to get inventive about how we use the resources, find efficient means of doing things.

[Ocean1]

Whoa!!!
Thats way taller than I was thinking! Lets see.....speed at earth surface at equator about 1000mph, radius about 4000 miles.
We want 24000 mph, so tower needs to be about 96,000 miles tall absolute minimum.

Not quite, gravity is exponentially stronger the closer you get to the core of the masses involved, but centripetal force is more so with regards to angular velocity. Best way to picture the forces involved is to think about how you’d build it. Organise a stable geocentric platform, (look Ma, no hands…) somewhere over one of the more climatically stable parts of the equator. Start unreeling a small tracer cable up and down simultaneously, so that the tension is always balanced about your platform. Keep going until the one pointing at the planet touches, grab it and burry it in concrete. Wind the platform out a tad to keep the cable under a little tension. Start manufacturing a bigger cable, feeding it both ways along the tracer. When you get most of the way up / down tie a fucking big rock to the outwards end. Repeat. When you have a cable capable of taking a railcar stop.

What you’ve now got is basically a vertical bridge, with all the forces balanced lengthwise. It’s got a zero G station about 60% out along it’s length, at geocentric orbit, good place to set up manufacturing. You’ve got a 1G (upside down, but still 1G) station cruising out at the far end, doing just short of 2 x escape velocity. Glue a linear motor and a power cable to the side of the tower and organise some sort of energy recycler at the bottom. Make with that railcar on the linear motor and power up to the first stop, (geosync station), stop to admire the view. Drive out to the next stop, (the “ballast” rock), using a regenerative braking system all the way to replace, the energy you used getting to stop one.

From this point on the energy budget required to put a ton into orbit is the same as that to ship a ton across a similar distance on the surface. For the same price you can throw things off the top, or collect things passing by there.

Consider this - if we are going to use the Earth's rotational momentum to fire off spaceships, if we do it enough, will we slow the Earth down? Sort of permanent daylight saving.

Only up to the point where a significant portion of the planet's mass has been chucked. Want to take a shot at the energy required to do that? Also, seems likely that with such a device you'd be landing a lot of raw material from the asteroids at whatever velocities you need to balance that equation.

What would the view be like overhead from the second station?

[Wolf]

Bass and Ocean1. Either of you read Niven and Pournelle's "Barsoom Project" and/or "Descent of Anansi" (sp?)

Great SF around the logistics of space elevators and the construction thereof.

I doubt I'd live to see one built here or on Mars (Niven and Pournelle in at least one of their books had them building one on Mars as a test station - less gravity to worry about and if the cable breaks it's not going to wipe out a city falling to the ground).

The way things are going, I'm doubtful that my kids will live to see it.

Think its a great idea, though. Ultimate "Indian Rope Trick".

[Winston001]

Thanks for the great discussion folks. We seem to have split the topic as usual into alternative energy sources and space elevators. Arthur C Clarke wrote about a tether based in Sri Lanka in Fountains of Paradise.

There was a competition last year to build an elevator to assess engineering and materials. Anyway here is wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator And another I just stumbled across http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast07sep_1.htm

Jerry Pournelle wrote his book on alternative energy more than 25 years ago (A Step Further Out) and I still haven't read anything in recent times to compare. And that is so frustrating - these ideas have been around (thermocline, geoenergy, ocean currents) for years but ignored by industry. The simple reason is oil is cheap. End of story.

The good news is that there is a research project running a turbine on the west coast of Wellington in the current running into Cook Strait - just as Ocean suggested. Magnitudes better than wind power. The downside is engineering - the marine environment is very challenging.

[Ocean1]

Bass and Ocean1. Either of you read Niven and Pournelle's "Barsoom Project" and/or "Descent of Anansi" (sp?)

Great SF around the logistics of space elevators and the construction thereof.

I doubt I'd live to see one built here or on Mars (Niven and Pournelle in at least one of their books had them building one on Mars as a test station - less gravity to worry about and if the cable breaks it's not going to wipe out a city falling to the ground).

The way things are going, I'm doubtful that my kids will live to see it.

Think its a great idea, though. Ultimate "Indian Rope Trick".

Barsoom Project? No, have read a lot of both though.

And you're right, the orbital tower/elevator was first suggested by a russian, in the mid 50's. It took much longer to develope the calculus to define such structures. Your reference reminded me, a lot of that work was developed by both professionals and complete ametures and mailed to Niven in response to "Ringworld". Simply amazing.

[Hitcher]

I have invented a perpetual motion device. All I need to do now is patent it. Undreamed of riches beckon!

[Ocean1]

And that is so frustrating - these ideas have been around (thermocline, geoenergy, ocean currents) for years but ignored by industry. The simple reason is oil is cheap. End of story.

And yet there was a time when we built the world's most advanced hydro-electric projects. The problem isn't the price of oil dude, artificial or otherwise, it's the lack of political balls. Even if we still had the tech resources we then did can you see any MMP contrived government supporting such long-term projects?

[davereid]

Yes, nature can build dams, and no fuss... but no way an energy company gets to do it !

[Wolf]

I have invented a perpetual motion device. All I need to do now is patent it. Undreamed of riches beckon!

You mean...

you've found a way to harness the energy poured into the "Scottish Thread"?



We're not worthy. We're not worthy...

[Jantar]

As an energy professional, I'm having a good giggle at this thread. Please keep it going until I return in 4 weeks time.

[Ocean1]

As an energy professional, I'm having a good giggle at this thread. Please keep it going until I return in 4 weeks time.

Don't fergit to turn yer KB off at the wall eh?

[Bass]

Not quite, gravity is exponentially stronger the closer you get to the core of the masses involved,

Inverse square law a la Sir Isaac and I used a linear relationship! Doh!

Only up to the point where a significant portion of the planet's mass has been chucked. Want to take a shot at the energy required to do that? Also, seems likely that with such a device you'd be landing a lot of raw material from the asteroids at whatever velocities you need to balance that equation.

What would the view be like overhead from the second station?

Two things: -
Firstly, surely conservation of energy says that the effect on the earth's rotational momentum is much greater than than the mass proportionality. After all, you are taking mass that is moving at some speed X at the surface and biffing it off at some much greater speed, into space.
I do agree even so, that you would have to chuck away an awful lot of mass before any effect was seen, although I wouldn't want to be in the neighbourhood when an energetic asteroid was landing.
Secondly, there is the issue of changing angular momentum. As your elevator climbs the tower, it is being accelerated in the direction of rotation and so exerts a force on the tower in the opposite direction. The opposite of course applies on the way down.
How do you tangentially stabilise the tower?
I guess that you could arrange that the effing big rock on the outer end is much more massive than the elevator, but then your cable has to be able to handle much more than just a railcar.

Still pretty cool but.

[ManDownUnder]

As an energy professional, I'm having a good giggle at this thread. Please keep it going until I return in 4 weeks time.

You drink Red Bull and start calling yourself a what? (p/t)