Green Energy

[clarencebunsen]

I ran across this summary of the problems & promises of several different technologies.
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=radical-energy-solutions-interactive

I found it easiest to read the text before watching the videos. Obviously these are all things that are are not near term technologies.

Comments

Heat Engines: I once tried to do some design work with shape memory alloys for cotrol valve applications. Not easy stuff to use. An operational unit would look almost magical while working.

Fusion Triggered Fission: A number of interesting possibilities, the "quick off" feature (although continued cooling would be required), using lower grade fuels, using fuels more completely (less waste to be stored).

[JGRobinson]

Great stuff CD, its funny, we see this Green NRG as a new thing but that was the only thing the founders of our nation could depend on in the unsettled regions of the country where cheap coal and wood were unavailable or unaffordable.

Windmills, Waterwheels and Crude Turbines were all the means needed to create a successful Town. Every Locality in this Nation that had the Word Mills on the End also had local NRG production from a Millpond, Stream, River, Artisian Well, Waterfall, Natural Geo Thermal or Wind powered drive trains or pumps.

Very cool, some are not so new ideas just being done better and cheaply because of new technologies emerging every day. Farms have been using what they call "Free Heaters" to capture the heat from fresh milk before it hits the Bulk Tank, they weren't cheap but they were pretty popular and saved allot of cooling costs.

The Rotary Vane Pulse Motor strangely resembles the Wankel a little bit. The Air conditioner is a modified Peltier Element but they are very inefficient. Thin film Solar is on the verge of exploding onto the scene. Cheap, efficient and almost indestructible paint on products will make any surface a power producer. I cant wait, Energizer and The Copper topper Bunny will be more like the Maytag Repairman.

Biofuels of all kinds can and will be made from pond scum, Managed and re-purposed Toxic Landfills, Cow Crap and Marijuana Production Byproducts.

I don't know crap about Fission or how close we are to sustaining it but The Middle East will bow down to our cheap power and our clean abundant water when we get it to work! It will clean the Environment while producing almost limitless yet inexpensive NRG.

That's all very cool stuff and we have much more to look forward to that is actually good for the earth not just amusing and entertaining.

[clarencebunsen]

Yes, I thought of the Wankel when I first saw the drawing of the Pulse Motor. Not the same concept but similar mechanical complexity. It seems like something for applications that need compact, light weight power sources.

Peltier Effect devices are not highly efficient for cooling but definitely have the uses in the correct applications. The reverse, using temperature differences to generate electricity (I think it's called the Seebeck effect) has been around for awhile. I think some of the deep space probes (Voyager & such) used them for power with a small amount of radioactive material as a heat source.

I've never thought about using a cycling magnetic field as a heat pump. That may take awhile to think through.

On a sort of related topic, I'm sure you've seen studies that the earth's magnetic field periodically reverses. I've fretted since my college days trying to work out the energy budget for a global field to collapse & rebuild. My best guess is that the energy goes to heat & as the field reforms with north & south switched, the energy used slows the earth's rotation by a bit. The numbers are left as an exercise for the student.

[Deleted]

I was reading that even if the United States did reduce it dependance on foreign oil and started to use lithium and the other 28 energy- critical elements the United States would still have to depend on places like South America to supply us with those elements. I guess Chili is the great source of lithium, if I am right.

I also read that the average gas-powered car converts only 12.6% of gasoline's energy to work. When gas is cheap this inefficiency is acceptable but now that the cost is rising if electric vehicles are to be used they need the best lithium batteries.ANd also the best magnetic motors which use other rare earth elements.

Popular Science Magazine has a artical called Crude Matter. It discusses issues like this. I find it interesting.

[JGRobinson]

"rare earth elements" hello China...