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NeilT

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So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« on: June 13, 2013, 01:59:28 AM »
Which would generate 5-7kw of energy (for a reasonable sized installation), 24x7x365, regardless of weather or sunlight.  Which could be installed in any home which had, perhaps, 2 sq meters of spare space to be used.

Given that I'm not just going to give the idea away.

Who would even listen to me or work with me on it to develop the idea??

Then, much more importantly, could the Government allow me to sell a device which could, possibly, completely do away with the grid for home users???

This is, of course, assuming that I'm right in my idea. But it would be nice to get it out of my head and into some sort of verification.

So far I've seen that the University of Southampton will "verify" your ideas, so long as you come up with enough thousands of £, but nobody wants to advertise that they are willing to partner in the development of "off the wall" ideas.
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Laurent

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #1 on: June 13, 2013, 10:01:18 AM »
Do you want to be paid or what ? Go on !!!
I am with you !

NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #2 on: June 14, 2013, 10:23:11 AM »
Do you see the point I just made?

Nobody and I do mean NOBODY is interested in any technology which does not fit into a pre existing mould and will make billions of $£Yen for a very small and limited change to the existing status quo.

If there were initiatives out there to work through, perhaps crowdsourcing, to develop innovative ideas, someone here would know it and would have pointe me in the right direction.

If this does not highlight the problem, nothing will....

I guess I'll take my idea to patent in the next year or so.  We'll see where it goes then....
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Neven

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #3 on: June 14, 2013, 10:31:56 AM »
Why aren't you just giving the idea away? Even without a patent you'll get plenty of praise and money for saving the world from AGW and other problems.
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Laurent

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #4 on: June 14, 2013, 10:39:57 AM »
That's very unfair of you, my saliva was wetting the soil !!!

Artful Dodger

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #5 on: June 14, 2013, 11:12:38 AM »
Hi Neil,

I have to agree with Neven on this one. There are lots of brilliant, cheap and effective alternate energy ideas sitting on shelves because of IP rights. Remember, only Nixon can go to China! ;)

Have you heard of a fellow named Linus Thorvald? He gave his idea away for free. He called it LINUX. And Linus did alright...  (ain't 'Tux' cute?)



Read about Copyleft. It is a key component for a steady-state economy, and a sustainable future.

Now, on to the fun part: Guessing your invention!  ???

I says itsa Combined Heat & Power (CHP) home furnace fired by switch grass pellets?!  ::)

« Last Edit: June 14, 2013, 11:17:56 AM by Artful Dodger »
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NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #6 on: June 14, 2013, 11:40:31 AM »
Why aren't you just giving the idea away? Even without a patent you'll get plenty of praise and money for saving the world from AGW and other problems.

I'm not after praise.  I'm not even after riches.  I just want to get out of the rat race by using some of my ideas.  I'd accept my current level of income for the rest of my life but I won't allow companies to make Trillions of $ and leave me to work 40 hours a week doing a job I hate.

Small minded I know.  But that is the reality of life.

However, having said that, I'd need someone to step up and work with me to develop it.  Personally I'm 40 hours a week at work and most of the rest of my time working on my house in France, which needs both the money from my work and my effort to bring it up to a standard we want to live with.

I don't have the resources to take a year off and just develop my idea.  I would if I could.

Call me self centred, but I'm not willing to let my idea go just like that.

I'll discuss changes to IC engines if you want. That is already in the public domain.  How about changing HRD Geothermal so that it is sustainable and draws from a much larger area and doesn't saturate the area with water, or can be plugged into the side of a volcanic magma chamber.  Or Tidal rise fall generation, not tidal flow or wave action.

All of which I believe have a place in renewable energy.  I'll discuss all of those ideas, but I won't discuss my other idea unless I can get a partner to stump up the funds to remove me from my day job at the same rate.  I looked at Kickstarter but, really, it's about post R&D, production kick off funding.

How about we have a clean energy innovations thread?  You can all shred my ideas for other things...
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NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #7 on: June 14, 2013, 11:53:37 AM »

Have you heard of a fellow named Linus Thorvald? He gave his idea away for free. He called it LINUX. And Linus did alright...  (ain't 'Tux' cute?)

I work in IT... Go figure...  ;D

Yes.  Have you heard that Linus was a student in University when he developed Linux and it took a solid decade of Microsoft haters to bring it to the place it stands today which is a "sometimes" money maker.



Now, on to the fun part: Guessing your invention!  ???

I says itsa Combined Heat & Power (CHP) home furnace fired by switch grass pellets?!  ::)

Nope it's WAY more off the wall than that.  It's a gravity engine.

Don't all groan now....  It doesn't magic some energy on the way down which can somehow get it over the hump of the return and then try and generate some infinitesimal amount of energy on the next cycle.

It works where gravity works in both directions and manages the switch by sequestering some the power at the end of one cycle to manage the transition to the next, fully powered, cycle.  In the opposite direction.

There is no amazing maths, no bizarre electronic gizmo’s, no string theory magic.  Just good old fashioned 19th century engineering.  Oh and principles going back to classical times.  I’ve only seen one thing even slightly like it and they simply (to my mind), didn’t understand the gravity relationship of what they were trying to do.  Like every other gravity engine they were trying to pick themselves up by their own bootlaces.

That is as much as I’m willing to say on it as it is possible to guess if you know more.
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SATire

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #8 on: June 14, 2013, 12:25:47 PM »
You will not get a patent on a perpetuum mobile. As long as your machine tries to work arround thermodynamics, the patent will not be granted anyway and it doesn't matter how much money you would put into it.

If you need venture capital to develop the idea, e.g. you need 1 mio € to build some prototypes, you would have to promise the investors 10 mio € because they know that you have only a 10% chance for success. So - for me you gave not enough information to give you that money.

But if you see a chance to explain your idea and you could attract some investors to give the necessary money for reasonable costs, I could find some poeple to build a prototype and a fab here.

Laurent

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Neven

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #10 on: June 14, 2013, 12:44:02 PM »
Quote
It's a gravity engine.

Don't all groan now....  It doesn't magic some energy on the way down which can somehow get it over the hump of the return and then try and generate some infinitesimal amount of energy on the next cycle.

It works where gravity works in both directions and manages the switch by sequestering some the power at the end of one cycle to manage the transition to the next, fully powered, cycle.  In the opposite direction.

There is no amazing maths, no bizarre electronic gizmo’s, no string theory magic.  Just good old fashioned 19th century engineering.  Oh and principles going back to classical times.  I’ve only seen one thing even slightly like it and they simply (to my mind), didn’t understand the gravity relationship of what they were trying to do.  Like every other gravity engine they were trying to pick themselves up by their own bootlaces.

This reminds me a bit of this video by Andy Lee Robinson (who makes the popular PIOMAS animations):

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NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #11 on: June 15, 2013, 10:34:23 AM »
For finance problems you may see :

Sadly my eyes have been opened about how these schemes work.  For early R&D it's just not there.  I've also learned to look with a critical eye at the mission statement of every funding source.  They are very vertical and will not stray.


Where do you live in France (roughly)?

16

For an EU wide patent, the cost is something like €500,000.  For a UK one, the cost is roughly £300.  I might do that as it might focus me and get people interested.
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NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #12 on: June 15, 2013, 02:44:34 PM »
Quote
Antigravity

I went down that line for quite a while Neven.  It is a fairly simplistic answer to the problem, which is how to generate more energy on the down stroke than is required to lift the other weights on the up stroke.  This model uses the power of two out of three weights to carry the third over i'ts lift and allows the third to reduce its drag on the last part of the cycle by moving in towards the centre.  It may be an animation, but the mechanical logic is there.

As I said, infinitesimal energy devolved from gravity.

How about the full 9.81 watts/kg/s on the way down and on the way back up again, less mechanical inefficiency of power take-off?
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SATire

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #13 on: June 15, 2013, 02:54:02 PM »
For an EU wide patent, the cost is something like €500,000.  For a UK one, the cost is roughly £300.  I might do that as it might focus me and get people interested.
No - an EU-patent is about 30.000 € - it can be cheaper if you write it without the lawyer, but normaly the lawyer makes some sense here. There are 2 reasons for a patent: 1st for a start up - a patent would be considered as your "property" - so you have some value to balance the money from vc, so you may take a larger fractio nof the company. 2nd reason is, that a patent is a entrance card to the court - e.g. if you want to sue SIEMENS. No chance at all for you. So - if you do not want to get investors - make it public or build it secret, since a patent explaines everybody how to do it...

And to repeat: No chance to patent a perpetuum mobile in EU. They know it will not work so there is no benefit so there is nothing to protect. That is simple logic. Try it in USA - everything is possible there.

Laurent

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #14 on: June 15, 2013, 03:40:12 PM »
Satire,
what happened if presumably you have a very good idea, want to make it public but if some money is done out of it, you want a (small) percentage to come back to you. What would you choose !? Eventually you want your name to go with the product and the idea, would you choose a creative commons like CC BY-NC-SA and an other licence for a commercial purpose or something else? Once you know the type of licence, how do you make it public without buying a patent ?
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/


Jim Pettit

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #15 on: June 15, 2013, 04:10:08 PM »
Absent some bit of unexplainable technology delivered by a benign being from a parallel universe where the laws of physics as we know them don't apply, there is no such thing as an over-unity device. Period. There never has been, and never will be.

I've had the "pleasure" of working with some bright and dedicated people who thought they had figured all this out. And the investors I worked with were extremely happy to have a look at each new invention, keeping their fingers crossed that the next one would be the one. But every time--and I mean every time--I went to see one of these machines in operation, there was always some "mundane detail" to work out, some "final hurdle" that need be solved, and then the billions would pour in. But those hurdles were, of course, never mundane. I've seen automobiles that would run on tap water--as soon as the inventor could find out a way to move the vehicle with the gasoline engine removed. I've seen energy generators that could create boundless free electricity--as soon as the inventor could figure out a way to run it without it being plugged into the wall. And I've seen gravity engines that worked well--as soon as the inventor could find out how to get the weight back to the top of the machine at the end of each descent without manually transporting it.

The thing to consider here: inventors have for years sought the elusive over-unity device. And despite dedication to the task that has driven some to madness, no one has ever created a functional device that did what was promised. The odds of success are, obviously, minuscule, if not nonexistent.

My advice would be to build a working prototype (and by "working", I mean one that doesn't rely on an external energy source because that last "mundane detail" hasn't been worked out). Test it objectively. And once you're absolutely positive that there is a net gain of energy from this perpetual motion device--and because you said you weren't interested in riches--announce it to the world. That is, post schematics of it on every technology/energy/climate change online forum you can find all at once; send a massive email blast to everyone and anyone. The way to beat the fossil fuel companies isn't by taking them on in court--where their bottomless pockets ensure that your invention will get locked up for decades--but by spreading your knowledge across the globe.

After Jonas Salk famously developed his polio vaccine, he gave it away. No patent, no profit; he did so for the good of mankind. Yet he managed to earn a very healthy and honorable living afterwards, while being regarded to this day as a hero, and almost a savior. It stands to reason that anyone who could simultaneously bring an end to climate change, energy wars, massive environmental degradation, and the instability of oil-based economies would be looked upon with even higher regard than the good Dr. Salk.

SATire

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #16 on: June 15, 2013, 04:41:32 PM »
Laurent, that strategy depends on your personal plans.

If you can build that machine - build it and sell it. Do not tell how it works to get rich in a short time.
If you want to sue anybody else who wants to build it - make a patent and sue everybody and become richer on the longer run.
If you can build it together with investors money - write the patent to prevent, that all success goes to the investors (the owner of the company is the one, who gave most money and a patent has some "future-value").
If you know someone else who would build it and want some money - write a patent and sell some licences to producers (not only one - because that may kill the idea if the buyer changes his mind).

But in most cases I would follow Jim Pettit's suggestion - if you do not want to / can not sue everybody else: Make it public domain if you can not build it allone. If it needs a lot of poeple, their work is valuable, too. Think of GNU-license (copy-left) - that guarantees, that the idea will stay in the world.

Neven

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2013, 05:33:53 PM »
If this were some invention that would make toilet paper redundant, by all means, take as much time as you like, patent the sh*t out of the thing and become a multi-bulti-zillionaire.

But if you're sitting on an invention that could save the lives of millions and kickstart the transition to a sustainable future and conquest of the stars (Carl Sagan said that's the only option besides collapse), then for crying out loud, do what Jim Pettit advises.

Man, I would give my life to be able to do that...
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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #18 on: June 15, 2013, 06:12:22 PM »
Hi folks,

One night, I dreamt that I discovered PI ...
But when I woke up, my briefs were gone.

The US Patent Office maintains a list of Perpetual Motion gimmicks. For example, see "Gravity-actuated fluid displacement power generator ".

Proposals for such inoperable machines have become so common that the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has made an official policy of refusing to grant patents for perpetual motion machines without a working model:

Quote
With the exception of cases involving perpetual motion, a model is not ordinarily required by the Office to demonstrate the operability of a device.
The United Kingdom Patent Office has a specific practice on perpetual motion; Section 4.05 of the UKPO Manual of Patent Practice states:

Quote
Processes or articles alleged to operate in a manner which is clearly contrary to well-established physical laws, such as perpetual motion machines, are regarded as not having industrial application.
Probably best to try your hand at building Apps for mobile phones, Neil. At least that'll get you out of the IT salt mines, old boy.

::)
« Last Edit: June 17, 2013, 09:11:23 AM by Artful Dodger »
Cheers!
Lodger

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #19 on: June 15, 2013, 06:34:35 PM »
We don't really need new renewable energy methods anyway - there are plenty of old ones that our species is largely neglecting or developing far more slowly than is appropriate to the gravity of the situation. What we do need is to get off fossil fuels - and a whole host of other measures to stabilise both the earth system and human civilisation (basically short term geoengineering and social justice).

If by some infinitesimally small chance you did happen to have some magic new thing that would contribute to supplying clean energy and you withheld it for any amount of money - in some eyes you are then just as guilty as those who are murdering us with the existing energy system.

Almost none of the rest of us are making a single damn penny trying to do the right thing for our species. I'm quite confident of that. We are prisoners in a system that is rotten to the core, and some close to fighting for survival even now.

TerryM

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #20 on: June 16, 2013, 01:51:58 AM »
Neil
I have to agree with ccg. If you have a means of alleviating the suffering to come you have a moral obligation to do so. If Big Oil, or any other organization was withholding such information for monetary gain I'm sure you'd agree that it was reprehensible - why would you expect to be held to a different bar?
Would you watch a small child die of dehydration because she couldn't pay for a bottle of water? How is your position different from this?
FWIW I can't imagine that your solution to perpetual motion works any better than the solutions that have come before, but as a principle I think it's important to dissuade all from thinking of personal enrichment when so much is at stake.
Terry

Anne

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #21 on: June 16, 2013, 02:09:59 AM »
All you guys who are being so pious, please just read this again:
Quote
However, having said that, I'd need someone to step up and work with me to develop it.  Personally I'm 40 hours a week at work and most of the rest of my time working on my house in France, which needs both the money from my work and my effort to bring it up to a standard we want to live with.

I don't have the resources to take a year off and just develop my idea.  I would if I could.

Yanno, if you're going to criticise him for an inadequate level of sacrifice...
« Last Edit: June 16, 2013, 02:16:08 AM by Anne »

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #22 on: June 16, 2013, 03:13:08 AM »
All you guys who are being so pious, please just read this again:
Quote
However, having said that, I'd need someone to step up and work with me to develop it.  Personally I'm 40 hours a week at work and most of the rest of my time working on my house in France, which needs both the money from my work and my effort to bring it up to a standard we want to live with.

I don't have the resources to take a year off and just develop my idea.  I would if I could.

Yanno, if you're going to criticise him for an inadequate level of sacrifice...

Seems you missed this, Anne:

I'm not after praise.  I'm not even after riches... I'd accept my current level of income for the rest of my life

Yanno, if you're going to criticise others for being pious...  ;)

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #23 on: June 16, 2013, 03:58:12 AM »
All you guys who are being so pious, please just read this again:
Quote
However, having said that, I'd need someone to step up and work with me to develop it.  Personally I'm 40 hours a week at work and most of the rest of my time working on my house in France, which needs both the money from my work and my effort to bring it up to a standard we want to live with.

I don't have the resources to take a year off and just develop my idea.  I would if I could.

Yanno, if you're going to criticise him for an inadequate level of sacrifice...

Then you get into a risk of ending up in a situation where we may as well all lay our "personal sacrifice and hardship cards" out on the deck to see "who has it worst". A temptation I must resist, as to do so might tinge perceptions towards what I actually think is important to discuss in all these things.

Suffice it to say that personal hardship and sacrifice is very much in the mind of the beholder - what to someone seems like an absolute necessity, a basic human right and their god given entitlement may represent unimaginable luxury to another.

SteveMDFP

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #24 on: June 16, 2013, 05:55:03 PM »
There's a lot of words and time wasted on this thread for a perpetual motion machine.
It's all absurd, really, and very much off-topic for the forum.

NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #25 on: June 17, 2013, 08:08:25 AM »
OK right.

This has split up into several themes on the old saw.

1. I have received a few good pointers to the same old vertical support mechanisms which are only interested in "Their thing".

2. My idea was immediately likened to every supposed "overunity" idea ever created. Even though I clearly stated that it was nothing like this.  In fact it's "Under Unity" but you need to understand what "Unity" is in this context.

3. My commitment was challenged.

With my experience in this field, I expected little else.

So apart from Laurent, who posted some links, most input has been to tell me why my idea won't work.  I don't have any "pieces" which are left to be resolved, the idea is complete and the switchover transition is realised.

However, since everyone seems to feel that my commitment is lacking.  Let me give you another one of my ideas.  It is extremely simple in both creation and execution.  Can be built by a third wold country and can deliver terawatts of power when scaled.  In fact you can even use some old Oil rigs to test it out.

Take one flotation chamber of 2million tonnes buoyancy. This should not be difficult as we already have super tankers of 500,000 tonnes draught.

Now put on top of it 1 million tonnes of ballast. For the Greens, we can make this look like an island and make some bird sanctuaries on it.

Place around it a framework which can be anchored onto the sea bed and connect it to the frame by rack and pinion tracks with the pinion wheels being the power take-off.

When the tide falls, the potential energy of the ballast is 0.981 gigawatts/s.  When the tide rises it is the same due to the double buoyancy.  Actually when it falls it's a bit more because of the weight of the flotation chamber...

Place 1000 of these and your potential energy is 1 terawatt/s

Is that enough??  I'll keep playing with my personal model though.  Not everybody has a seaboard.

I'll also keep thinking my way around direct thermal conduction geothermal instead of pumping water in.

Right, now I've done my duty to civilisation, I can sit back and watch the world doing everything BUT what I've just outlined.

Oh and I'll keep my ideas for smoothing out the high/low tide in this invention to myself.  After all what's a few terawatts between friends.
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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #26 on: June 17, 2013, 10:40:58 AM »

 1 terawatt/s


Specifying nonsense units (energy per second-squared?) is not improving your case.

The proper calculation goes like this:

Assuming 1 meter tidal difference (you will get more in estuaries of course, if space is not limited there).

1) 1 millions tonnes provides potential energy g*m = 9.8 10^9 Joules
2) 4 tidal movements per day: 4*9.8 10^9 Joules
3) average wattage: 4*9.8 10^9/(3600*24) W
(Watt is Joule per second)

Result is 453703.7 W.

About half a megawatt, about one sixth of a median wind turbine. You need about to have two thousand of these for the equivalent of a small conventional central power station.


Artful Dodger

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #27 on: June 17, 2013, 11:13:54 AM »
... (for a reasonable sized installation)... Which could be installed in any home which had, perhaps, 2 sq meters of spare space to be used.

Take one flotation chamber of 2million tonnes buoyancy... Now put on top of it 1 million tonnes of ballast.

So reading between the lines, your home installation component takes high pressure hydraulics sent from a public utility to the home, and converts it into electricity at the home.

Unfortunately, it's less efficient to send high pressure fluid over any distance to create electricity remotely. It's far more efficient to generate the electricity at the power plant, and send the energy that way. That's what the electrical grid does. That's also why there is an electrical grid.

If sending energy hydraulically was more a more efficient form of energy transfer, coal-fired power plants would connect to the grid with pipes, not with wires.

Sorry, mate. Not seeing this as patentable.  :'(
Cheers!
Lodger

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #28 on: June 17, 2013, 11:57:34 AM »
... (for a reasonable sized installation)... Which could be installed in any home which had, perhaps, 2 sq meters of spare space to be used.

So reading between the lines, your home installation component takes high pressure hydraulics sent from a public utility to the home, and converts it into electricity at the home.

Unfortunately, it's less efficient to send high pressure fluid over any distance to create electricity remotely....

Sorry, mate. Not seeing this as patentable.  :'(

Y'all are being too kind.  No, he specified that the home power unit is a "gravity engine."  You know, tapping the gravitational field of the earth to generate energy.  Except gravity is not an energy source.  No details on the mechanism?  Riiight.

These are crackpot ideas.  A supertanker-sized float as a tidal engine?  First storm that comes along, you've got scrap metal for your efforts.  Plus paltry energy output, even if it works.

I'd be more interested if he said he had a "zero-point energy" engine.  Slightly.  Maybe.

This is worse than that idea of coriolis forces and ocean currents heating up the arctic.

What was Dodger's advice?  "Don't feed the trolls" sounds familiar.

Glenn Tamblyn

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #29 on: June 17, 2013, 02:04:42 PM »
NeilT

If you device is based on gravity then it needs to be based on some process that can lift a mass against gravity, adding potential energy to it. Then extract that energy again when the mass is lowered, probably as kinetic energy to move a generating device, although there might be other conceivable extraction techniques. And the lifting process must be extracting energy from somewhere else to do the lift.

I can only think of two classes of processes that can lift something to a height so that energy can be recovered from it when it falls:

1. Tidal forces. The cyclical passage of the moon raises and lowers stuff. Here you are in effect tapping into a miniscule percentage of the Moon's Kinetic energy through gravitational coupling.

2. Convection. Heating of a fluid (liquid or gas) generates a lifting force (or cooling it can generate a force pushing it down) that can elevate a mass of the fluid. Here you are tapping into the heat source that caused the original heating. This might be achieved through capturing the fluid as it falls later after having been lofted and getting mechanical work from it. Or you can extract mechanical work from it as it rises - solar towers where warmed air rises up a hollow tower and drive turbines on the way up do this.

In all these cases, the maximum amount of energy that can be captured (in joules) is 9.8 * the mass (in kilos) * the vertical travel(in meters). And that is the theoretical maximum energy available. In reality there will be other factors, real world inefficiencies, that limit that.

So if you are suggesting generating at a rate of 7 KW, continually, using a gravity based method, then that is 7 KiloJoules every second. A joule is 1 Newton Meter. So if we round off the force of gravity to 10 rather than 9.8, moving a kilogram requires 10 Newtons. So 7000 Newton Meters is 700 Kilogram Meters.

So to generate 7kW you need to move a kilogram of mass 700 meters vertically every second. Or a 2 kilo mass 350 meters or ... a 700 kilo mass vertically 1 meter every second. Or a 15000 tonne mass vertically 1 meter twice a day which is what tidal forces do.

So any gravity based system that uses tidal forces as its source requires the movement of huge amounts of mass - the oceans. Which doesn't square with your suggestion of something that fits into a house.

The converse, of moving small masses large distances is sort of what convection (and evapo-transpiration) do, lifting water high into the atmosphere so that we can capture some of it as it falls again and using it for Hydro-power. But this requires large vertical distances, again, not house sized.

The key sticking point for the idea of a gravity based energy system that is also compact is that you simply can't achieve the energy density to support that claim. You must either move large masses or large distances.

So I suspect that your idea is actually a form of perpetual motion machine. It just might not be apparent to you that it is.

So, you don't need funding to develop your idea. You need some careful mathematical analysis of the idea to show how it works, mathematically.

I am not trying to put you down in any way here, but history and the laws of Thermodynamics are against you here.

To give you some thing to think about, consider your second example - the flotation chamber with the ballast. You don't need the ballast. The system will generate just as much energy without it. All the ballast is doing is splitting the generation between the rising and falling phases. But it doesn't change the total amount of energy available.

Case 1  - no ballast, and ignoring the mass of the flotation chamber
In this case when the tide is rising, the upward force is enough to lift 2 million tonnes - the displaced volume of the flotation chamber. When the tide is falling, the downward force is zero! So lots of Newton Meters on the way up, none on the way down

Case 2 - with ballast, ignoring the mass of the flotation chamber
Now the upward force is enough to lift 1 million tonnes - the displaced volume of the flotation chamber less the weight of the ballast. When the tide is falling, the downward force is 1 million tonnes - the weight of the ballast! So equal Newton Meters on the way up and down.

The sum of both phases is the same.

Is this what you thought would be the result?

I am not trying to diss' your idea, its just that the Laws of Physics are incredibly hard task masters. If we think we have found a way to beat them, the odds that we are right are 0.0000000000001%

And if we have beaten them, our entire understanding of EVERYTHING is wrong.

Glenn Tamblyn

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #30 on: June 17, 2013, 02:08:43 PM »
SteveMDFP

Neil's idea may or may not work. But he is putting up an idea in good faith. No need to attack him for that!

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #31 on: June 17, 2013, 02:31:49 PM »
I suppose I came across as dismissive, but that wasn't my intention; far be it from me to ever take a dump on another man's dreams. But I've been involved in this arena for many years, so you'll have to forgive me for being defensive; that always happens anytime someone says that a) they've come up with a desk-size device that can generate enough power to run a household; that b) will allow that home to be disconnected from the grid; that c) is a gravity engine for which d) no working prototype has yet been built and won't be until e) investors have been lined up, which may not happen because f) the government and/or g) Big Energy won't allow it to happen. Many of us have seen that very same movie lots and lots of times, and the ending is always the same. Always.

Again, it's theoretically possible that you have found the Holy Grail, that you and you alone have smashed the physical barrier that has prevented thousands of inventors from this extremely elusive technology. So my advice remains the same: build a working prototype--I can't imagine it would cost more than, say, a new automobile or two, a relatively paltry amount you'll easily recover--prove it, then release it to the world as the 'NeilT Unlimited Power Box' (or whatever). I can promise you you'll be hailed for centuries as The Man Who Saved The Planet. And I can also promise you you'll be compensated far beyond your wildest dreams.

I'm afraid any other course is just talk...

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #32 on: June 17, 2013, 04:03:19 PM »
SteveMDFP

Neil's idea may or may not work. But he is putting up an idea in good faith. No need to attack him for that!
Well, I did refer to him as a troll.  By which, I was refering to his posts, not his personal character.  I'm sure he's a lovely guy.
Silly ideas get posted here periodically.  They tend to get summarily shot down, or ignored.  This is appropriate.  Some posts by me have gotten shot down, and I don't take that personally.

There may be two contributions I can make to this conversation:
1.  As a point of IP law, patents go to the original inventor, not just whoever files paperwork first.  Publishing details of an invention tends to PROTECT one's IP rights, not undermine them.
2.  There's a far more appropriate site to post invention ideas:  www.halfbakery.com
I really don't think mysterious perpetual motion machines belong on an arctic sea ice forum.

NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #33 on: June 18, 2013, 02:49:34 PM »
Quote
NeilT

If you device is based on gravity then it needs to be based on some process that can lift a mass against gravity, adding potential energy to it. Then extract that energy again when the mass is lowered, probably as kinetic energy to move a generating device, although there might be other conceivable extraction techniques. And the lifting process must be extracting energy from somewhere else to do the lift.

Yes I know, but that energy is already in place today, provided by nature, for lifting and falling.  It is used on a daily basis and has been since the stone age. The trick is the switch between the two; lifting and falling.

Nature alone cannot provide the switch as it cannot sequester the energy or use it in a different direction.  Engineering can.

I said under unity for a reason.  Unity is the sum of the two actions Gravity provides, both rising and falling.  My device generates some of the energy when falling and some of the energy when rising. The rest is used to change state in order to utilise the power of gravity (fully) in each direction.

Jim you are correct.  I need to create a model. But to do that I need to get equipment, space and, most importantly, time.

As the financial crisis of 2008/9 destroyed me financially, I am unable to either borrow or fund this.  I'm just keeping my head above water right now.  It might take me a decade to get there without help.

I have a workshop at home but it is wood and diy based.  At home I have time for work in the home and DIY when I'm not working. When I'm away from home (3 weeks a month), I live in hotels.

I would not have even mentioned this if I had not run this by the cleverest person I know, who happens to be an astrophysicist and a pretty good one at that.  His final summation was that it goes against the grain because "perpetual motion" is such a debunked idea, but could not state any single solid reason why it would not work without calculating out the forces required in detail.

 Well it is debunked every other way I've seen it tried anyway.

In the end he accepted that the beginning of the cycle used normal and well known processes.  Just as the standard "Weight on a wheel" delivers the energy in one of the useless ideas.  However not in the same way at all.

When questioned about whether the energy imparted in the down stroke was not enough to change the equilibrium by 1kg, he agreed that it was more than capable of that.  When pointed out that the design uses the FULL power of gravity in each direction, once equilibrium has passed, not, as in virtually every other case, the energy of another falling weight, he did concede that the energy generated "would appear" to far exceed that required to change the state of the machine.

When pointed out that every kg change, beyond equilibrium added 1kg of force to the switch between states, he agreed that too.

When pointed out that the sheer design of the system drove itself to equilibrium at the end of each cycle and the energy needed to switch from equilibrium, was to tip the balance.  Remembering that each 1kg beyond equilibrium drives the next cycle which accesses the Full Power of gravity, once the change over is completed.

If I say any more I might as well draw you a picture….

I’m not a troll.  I’ve been thinking about this for 4 years.  Along with many other ideas.  Like my tidal rise fall idea.  Any idea how impossible it is to get the Severn barrier approved?  Nobody but the power companies and the government want it.  The engineering required is astronomical.  Discrete little (or not so little), islands out in the tide?  Possible.

Do you understand why people won’t come forward with ideas?

I saw a way to change the IC engine.  I was told it was “quite interesting” in its early stage because what I had done was to change the engine into an IC version of the Gas Turbine without the cruise requirement and eventual loss of efficiency in a motor vehicle. Granted it was an early stage (25 years ago). The assessor I was looking for funding from told me he was going down the coast to see someone who had created a new form of cylinder head which gave a potential 15% more mpg over the standard one.  He was much more interested in that, he could donate a few thousand £ to it and have a check mark on his spreadsheet.  My idea though?  It would have needed a year or two of investment and would have upset the Oil companies a lot.  Scotland produces a lot of Oil….

Welcome to innovation in the world.  I do understand that for every successful idea there are probably 50,000 duds.  However it doesn’t stop me from thinking.

I work in the field of IT. The nirvana in IT is to claim “recursive” compression on an infinite scale.  There have been as many “recursive compressors” as there have been “Perpetual Motion” machines.  I do understand what I’m saying.  I just don’t believe I fall into the charlatan mould.

A troll I’m not.  I was looking to see if anyone in the community knew, directly, of anyone who could help me realise my idea. Good, bad, or indifferent of results.  Someone who could take 98% of the profits and even the glory(but not the name of the discovery), I don’t care, so long as they help me realise it or disprove it.

I estimate that a good engineering workshop could prove or disprove the idea in a week.  Granted a week of a good engineering shop is “Expensive” with a capital E.

I’ll go back to thinking.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Robert A. Heinlein

NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #34 on: June 18, 2013, 04:12:29 PM »

 1 terawatt/s


Specifying nonsense units (energy per second-squared?) is not improving your case.

The proper calculation goes like this:

Assuming 1 meter tidal difference (you will get more in estuaries of course, if space is not limited there).

1) 1 millions tonnes provides potential energy g*m = 9.8 10^9 Joules
2) 4 tidal movements per day: 4*9.8 10^9 Joules
3) average wattage: 4*9.8 10^9/(3600*24) W
(Watt is Joule per second)

Result is 453703.7 W.

About half a megawatt, about one sixth of a median wind turbine. You need about to have two thousand of these for the equivalent of a small conventional central power station.

So I'm incorrect that every second that you hold up 1kg, that gravity does not confer the potential energy of 9.81 Watts?  Because if you were not holding it, it would have fallen 9.81m in that second. Or put another way around, it takes 9.81W of energy every second to hold up 1kg against the force of gravity.  Note not to raise it 1m but to just hold it there.

Or that if you hold that 1kg weight off the ground, potentially with very high gearing as all tidal systems have to have, that gravity will not deliver the potential of 9.81Watts for every second you do so?

It does not come down to meters, it comes down to hours under the influence of gravity.  The tide falls for approximately 4 hours and it takes about 2 hours to turn back to the point where it can provide sufficient buoyancy.

That is about 5 hours work if you gear it correctly.

Then the tide will rise for about 4 hours and stay at the top of the tide for about 1 hour.  Given that your buoyancy chamber is submerged for most of that time, that is about 5 hours work, giving about 1 hour to fall sufficiently to start the process all over again.

Twice a day that is 20 hours work.  At 1Watt per kg per second that gravity, or buoyancy, is working on the system.

If I read your maths correctly, that is

3) average wattage over a 24 hour period: ((3600*20) * 9.8 10^9)/(3600*24) W/s

Which I make an average of 701Mwh [edited to fix the kw to Mw], per hour, over a 24 hour period.

Or did I get that wrong?

There is a way to smooth the tidal effect and increase the top/bottom lag too. But that's an enhancement, not a core requirement.
« Last Edit: June 18, 2013, 04:39:17 PM by NeilT »
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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #35 on: June 18, 2013, 04:37:04 PM »
I estimate that a good engineering workshop could prove or disprove the idea in a week.  Granted a week of a good engineering shop is “Expensive” with a capital E.
Hi NeilT,
as mentioned above, the engineering and the manufacturing of the prototype I could organize here easily. But even if you offer 98% of the profit, nobody would invest a significant amount of time/material/machine costs, if the profit is below zero as it would be in the case that the machine is a perpetuum mobile. So either you find some investor to pay the cost or you give the details to calculate the machine. Normaly it takes less than a day to check that and all I need is a pencil to disprove a perpetuum mobile. It is only conservation of energies, momentums and sometimes also that entropy-thingy, if you did include gases or temperatures somehow.
If you want to think about it by yourself first - please consider that also angular momentum (spin and orbital angular momentum) are preserved and take also in count the kinetic energy in turning parts.
But in any case - if you do not "consume" any energy, you will not get any electrical power out of the machine. In a tidal power station you e.g. consume energy from the spining earth - you decelerate the earth a bit to get the power - so you make the days a bit longer. There is no energy for free in nature - even the sun consumes its hydrogen for our solar cells or plants. So think about which energy your machine consumes and if you have enough of that available.

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #36 on: June 18, 2013, 04:45:50 PM »
So I'm incorrect that every second that you hold up 1kg, that gravity does not confer the potential energy of 9.81 Watts? 
Yes, you are incorrect with that - just put it on the table and it costs you nothing to let it stay there. Your muscles ache for no reason ;-)

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #37 on: June 18, 2013, 04:55:08 PM »
OK I understand where you are coming from and your scepticism.

Right.

No orbital or angular momentum.  Linear movement only
No spin
No gas
No thermodynamics, the temperature does not change at all.

The energy already exists because the mediums exist and are already in opposition to each other. It is presence, or lack of, medium resistance which provides the power, through the force of gravity.

In either state, the full force of gravity is used to generate power.  Between states, the device must use energy to change state.  Half of the state change is donated directly buy the motive force of the medium.  the remaining "push" to flip between states must be delivered by the device.

50% state change delivered by the medium
>50% state change delivers energy to be used.  Even 0.0000001% is positive energy to drive further change.

Oh and btw.  It was my understanding that the ocean rise and fall was the result of the gravitational pull of the moon.  A traditional tidal station will, of course, hold back the water and slow the moon, if at such a small amount that it can only be measured in Aeons.  My tidal solution does not do this as it uses the power of gravity.

What energy does gravity consume when it pulls something towards the earth.  Let's say a trillion tonne satellite.

The clear cut is not quite so clear cut when we don't understand the fundamental engine of the universe....
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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #38 on: June 18, 2013, 04:56:36 PM »
NielT,

Basically, You are claiming to have invented a pendulum where the amplitude increases from one swing to the next. So much so that you can pull thousands of watts out and your pendulum still does not stop. HAHAHAHA. You just need a hundred thousand dollars or so to build it. HAHAHA. My advice. Do not actually approach anyone for money to do this. This would be the crime of fraud. You would have plenty of time to think up your next scheme. About 10 years in most jurisdictions.

Please actually take a course in physics and one in chemistry, and study hard. Then your thinking time will not be wasted.

Vergent

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #39 on: June 18, 2013, 07:20:33 PM »
So now we reach what I call my "you can convert torque in a gearbox" moment.

When I presented and idea to a "supposed" engineer, telling him that I could produce twice the torque on each revolution with everything else in the drive chain the same, necessitating half the energy to complete the cycle, he told me.  "You can change torque in a gearbox".

At this point I'm exiting this conversation.  It is going nowhere.  I've actually given you all the information you require to follow my steps in my entire narrative.  Just as I did.

Good hunting.  Oh sorry, you won't as you already know it's impossible.

OH and BTW, I was very clear, no spin, no swing, no gas, no tempearature. 

Just up and down, up and down.  That is what reciprocation is.

How many ways can I say the same thing and get a response which says  2+2=5.  Too many for me.


Time to exit.

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #40 on: June 18, 2013, 09:18:56 PM »
Good luck with your endeavours, Neil. I'm sorry this isn't the right forum to discuss this subject, although SATire may be able to help you along.
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NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #41 on: June 19, 2013, 07:48:21 AM »
Hi Neven,

I didn't hold out much hope in the first place.  If the brightest and most off the wall person I've ever met could only offer the conviction that it "went against his training" but that he could offer no other objection than he would have to calculate it very finely, what could I hope for when I won't be as open here as I was with him?

I gave away my idea for tidal power as you asked I should.  If nobody challenges my calculation of 20 hours work giving 701mwh power then you can get someone to hand that over to somebody who can do something with it.  Because Twh is feasible with the idea.  Especially in places like the UK with such a large seabord.

If it is taken somewhere else I'd like to get a nod for the idea.  It is, after all, free power forever.  The (tongue in cheek), perpetual motion machine......

I've had one contact which I will follow up.  It's viable and I'll have to put a presentation together to discuss it if anyone is willing to listen.

There is, after all, one place on this planet where Gravity donates it's energy both down towards the planet and up towards the sky.  All you have to do is find the place to stand and they way of changing you balance.....  Nod and a big thank you to shanky, I will be following this up next week when I get back into the UK.

But enough.  I didn't put this up to be ridiculed, but what else could I expect.  The nicest put down was Jim and, yes, I dare to think that I might have found a place to stand.  At least it's not on my shoelaces.  Time will tell if I can get someone to work with me to build it.  If I can't, then I'll probably need 5 - 7 years to be in a secure enough position to build it myself.
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Glenn Tamblyn

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #42 on: June 19, 2013, 10:00:45 AM »
Neil

"It does not come down to meters, it comes down to hours under the influence of gravity."

Sorry Neil, absolutely wrong! Time has nothing to do with it. Energy (work in the engineering terminology applicable here) is force * the distance over which it acts. So to lift a mass of 1 kilogram requires a force of 9.8 Newtons. Lifting it 1 meter requires 9.8 joules of energy. That's it, that's all that can be added as potential energy. And if you let the mass fall 1 meter that potential energy is converted to kinetic energy in the fall. Which can then be tapped into to generate electricity or whatever.

How long it sits up there is irrelevant. The same amount of kinetic energy is released whether you drop it 1 second after lifting it or 1 year. There is no ongoing accumulation of energy over time.

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #43 on: June 19, 2013, 12:42:06 PM »
OK I accept.

I have an avenue to chase my other idea which is much more viable and is what I was looking for help on.  I had dropped the  tidal one as "not possible" for me anyway.
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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #44 on: June 20, 2013, 03:15:12 PM »
Right, I had to go away and think about this.  I know I said I’d drop it but I guess there is one more thing to do with this.

In the light that I missed the distance calculation and had it messed up, let me reiterate.  Taking into account, Wipneus' figures:

I had to go search for some sizes.  It seems we can easily get 1m tonnes of rig and buoyancy into 64m x 43 meters, let's go with that.

I recon 300m^2 should be an attainable build size, giving us ~31m Tonnes ballast. But we need twice the buoyancy, so let's make it 500m^2 for the same weight.

The tidal variance in the UK is quite large, in the Bristol Channel it ranges up to 9m. But for simplicity let's make it 1m, it makes it conservative.

The seaboard of the UK is estimated at 17,820 km.
Let's assume that we need to put them 5 deep for density.  That's a 2.5km swathe of sea covered in with tidal power generators.

So at 31 times the original calculation of Wipneus, based upon a 1M tide variance twice a day over 24 hours, let us remember that’s 453703.7W over a 24 hour period on average, per single station, that comes out as 14064814.7W

Right I have 17,820km of seaboard which will allow me a single row of 35,640 generation units.
5 deep that’s 178,200 of these
Which gives me 2.5twh of electricity or 914twh of power for the full year.

The tide time range from the tip of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall is circa 5 hours.  On a six hour cycle this gives me base load power for the entire day.

But, in fact, in 2010, the UK was only 357TWh for the year.  So I need to reduce my depth to 2.  That gives me 71,280  of these.

But now let’s come back to the tide.  I know for a fact that the tide in St Andrews is more than 2M because I was working in there at one time putting the buffers down the walls.  They were 24 Foot buffers and they didn’t have much left at high tide, but the harbour was dry at low tide.  But we have tidal cycles around the year and we’ll be generous and say 2 meters.  Now I only need one each of these around the coast.

So I’m down to 35,640 of them.  Still a lot, but I could change this by banking up more where the tide is higher.  Say 9 meters.  But anyway, let’s go with 35,640 of them.

Now there’s cost.  These are not exactly small are they?  But then again what are they?  One huge flotation tank and one huge weight tied to a rack and pinion and a few power take-offs.

OK so what does it cost?  Well the Petronious Oil platform cost $140m to build.  About £88m.  So I’ll go with half that.  The build complexity is Nothing like an oil platform and as it won’t house humans, the regulations are less severe. 
Before I come to cost let’s do some comparisons

The UK has allocated £14 billion for the production of ONE new nuclear plant.  The largest UK nuclear power plant produces 1.25GWh.

If we were to replace the entire UK generating capacity with nuclear power stations, (I know it’s not feasible), that would come to £456 billion

If we assumed £44m for my floating power stations that would be an eye watering £1,656 Billion.  Not feasible even for the UK.  The total gdp of the UK is around £1,400 Billion.  £1,656 Billion is a touch eye watering.

However if we assume economy of scale. What is the thing anyway but a huge float with a huge weight on top?  Then perhaps we can get down to £10million each.  In fact, we might even get down to £1 million each.  Who knows?  I haven’t done large structure cost analysis.

At ten million we come to a much more reasonable £376 Billion.  If we can get it down to £1 million each, then we are talking £37 Billion.  Less than 3 nuclear reactors.  No fuel costs.  No recycling hazardous waste, no resistance from locals.  OK some issues with the UK seaboard, but hardly as large as, say, the Severn wetlands.

Whilst I may have got my figures round my neck and underestimated the entire size of the project.  It is still worth Twh/h daily if the infrastructure is large enough.  The scale changed, but not the idea.

We’re talking about the survival of the species here.  We’re talking about complete transition from fossil fuels to renewables.  Not for monetary gain, but for sheer survival.  What cost is that?

Sadly the UK timeline for a slice of the €300m of EU grants on new renewable initiatives runs out today.  Not my problem though.

So, in the end, I say thanks to Wipneus for correcting my, admittedly, shocking maths.  It does not change the idea, just the scale.  Oh and re: the comment on wind farms.  In the UK the Maximum annual efficiency for a wind farm is 30%.  Most of the rest are significantly lower, in the 10%-20% range.  Which would mean you would need 3 – 10 wind farms of the size you mentioned to get the same power.  Oh and the wind would need to blow.  Not base load power.

Glenn, I still challenge your assertion that the power on the full tide cycle is 0%.  The buoyancy is 2* the ballast. Giving a net lift equivalent to the ballast and the same power generation capability.  As you say the laws of physics are fairly inflexible.

As for costs??If you follow this route, each power station is kicking out 14 Mwh average, per day, wind, rain, hail or shine as it is delivered.   That is money back for the money invested.  Power delivered free for the taking once the infrastructure is in place and the infrastructure would be rolling so profit would be being recovered from the first installation and would be at 50% of estimated when half way through.

Personally I think it is viable.  There is a lot of seaboard out there.  Waves don’t always happen, wind does not always blow, sun does not always shine, but the tides go on and on so long as the moon rotates around the world.  We’ve been building flotation devices since the day we picked up hard animal bone and hollowed out boats from tree trunks which we burned to make it easier to hollow.

Now I can go.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Robert A. Heinlein

johnm33

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #45 on: June 20, 2013, 04:53:08 PM »
NeilT since I have nothing else to offer Good Luck.

NeilT

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #46 on: June 20, 2013, 06:15:48 PM »
Thanks anyway.

This one's not for me.  I threw it out at Neven's request.

I'm just illustrating the possibility of the sheer power of the tide when linked to a device for taking that power and using it.  Without having to pen and contain seawater which is very destructive to nature.

My other idea I'm going to play with more.  I've taken steps to get access the equipment and support to make a model.  That I will do.
Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

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johnm33

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #47 on: June 20, 2013, 09:12:30 PM »
NeilT Just so you are not alone in the line of fire for ridicule here's one I prepared earlier [92, initially]
This Idea could be applied in either the thames or severn estuaries or on the north coast of norfolk, or adapted to other areas I'm not familiar with.
 The first part of the scheme would be to construct a series of vats, at sea, there would have to be a special vessel, or more,  to act as a platform for this . There may be a variety of construction methods as not all of them would need to be of the same strength structurally, but they would all be dimensionally identical, [30m sides?] and triangular, so that in section they would appear as a grid of equilateral triangles. Ideally the structural ones would be of fibre reinforced poreless concrete [if the romans could manage this for the dome of the pantheon it ought not to be beyond the wit of man today] possibly cast in a permanent recycled plastic formwork [a bit like that woven tarpaulin?]. The less structural could use the same formwork but be filled with puddled clay mixed with a dry aggregate coated with a water soluble sealant that dissolved after 3 days or so, this would be consolidated by sonic means. In all 3 areas above dredging takes place to recover aggregate from the sea bed, this would now be done by suction where the vats are to be postioned, and the vats filled with fresh/sea-water as desired to sink them as work progresses. Sufficient aggregate may be raised to provide an income stream. Once the structural outer elements were finished each one would be filled with suitably crushed building rubble and clay from excavations, providing another income stream.
Although the strings of 'vats' would be connected to the coastline they would essentially create [leisure?] lagoons to store/inhibit tidal waters and would be sold as coastal defences and as such would be built to cope with anticipated worst case scenario sea level rise [6m?]. So they'd be built more or less parallel to the coastline, and possibly 2 lagoons deep where the coastlines are far apart with the view to later having the possibility to form locks to allow shipping and for protection upstream. The openings to the tidal flow would have undersea turbines to generate power, and lock gates to inhibit flow. At the surface the 'vats' would have vawts floating in them, beneath the surface they would have a series of , well, think of them as giant[15mD] inverted polycarbonate woks, and inside these would be lights, specifically designed for encouraging the growth of algae, in an atmosphere of C02, suspended in a sea of presumably toxic dilute mud sucked from the sea bed[less likely in norfolk]. Alternatively the C02 could be provided by burning of domestic/commercial waste, or coal, and the nutrients directly from the sewage systems of nearby cities. Generally the policy would be to sell the power during peak demand and otherwise to encourage algal growth and fermentation with it, to provide a source of methane . Which of course would be used to generate power and C02 to complete the cycle.
 Thats enough for now, carbon storage, natural batteries, green power.
« Last Edit: June 22, 2013, 01:24:41 PM by johnm33 »

johnm33

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #48 on: June 23, 2013, 12:22:42 PM »
An Example of what engineers can achieve when they refuse to be bound by theoretical limits.  http://www.blacklightpower.com/technology/ciht-cell/

Jim Pettit

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Re: So if I had an idea for renewable energy generation
« Reply #49 on: June 23, 2013, 02:58:31 PM »
An Example of what engineers can achieve when they refuse to be bound by theoretical limits.  http://www.blacklightpower.com/technology/ciht-cell/

That's interesting indeed. But BPL hasn't actually "achieved" anything yet but the ability to acquire tens millions of dollars in funding. It's founder, Randell Mills, claims he has discovered a new energy source which makes use of hydrogen atoms capable of reaching an energy level below ground state. (He calls these magical atoms "hydrinos") The problem is, such a thing violates the laws of physics and chemistry. An even bigger problem is that BLP has so far been unable and/or unwilling to get independent scientific validation of either Mills' "Grand Unified Theory of Classical Quantum Mechanics", or his "hydrino" theory. In fact, most experts who've looked into the matter consider Mills a fraudster. A particularly intelligent one, sure. But a fraudster nonetheless. And thus he'll always be looked upon as until he actual produces something workable. (And I won't even get into his history of wanton plagiarism, or his inability to secure a patent related to the CIHT.)

The laws of physics are not "theoretical limits"; over-unity devices do not exist. That's not because every single one of the thousands of people who have already tried to build one has lacked in imagination or creativity or intelligence; it's because it simply can't be done. At least not in this universe.