MORE ENERGY
GEOTHERMAL
Abundance, if you can get to it.
As best as I can presently figure, it would take over 8 Quadrillion years to drop the whole of the interior of the earth 1 degree Fahrenheit at the present use of (other) non-renewable energies. To get to it, one is probably talking about get down 20 or more miles down into the earth. The places where there are faults, subduction zones or mid-oceanic ridges, it may be at much less depth. In any case, most places take a depth that most drilling rigs cannot presently reach. I suspect it may be possible to extend the depth that a rig can reach by using a lighter drilling pipe, perhaps made out of carbon composite materials that would more than likely almost float in the drilling fluid.
As for the concern of getting the heat off the surface of the earth; one should note that the deserts have shown that losing energy is not hard if the sky is clear. They are noted for frying one in the day and freezing one at night. In fact the word dessert is a derivative of the word desert. By insulating things in the day time, desert people were able to make a cold treat long ago without a refrigerator.
Also it inherently takes a relatively large volume of earth to supply the heat. That is why finding a fault in the hot area to supply the large surface area is a nice situation. One might also consider the fact that faults which slip easily are more likely not to generate a major jolt. There are slipping faults in areas of Oregon that have evidenced that effect. Should one use a relatively soft substance like salt as part of the thermal carrier, it may even help the fault slip more easily. Parts of California or the likes might find it well worth studying.
A new cone is also developing where Krakatoa blew it top in the 1800's. When that happened they could hear the explosion about 1000 miles away in Australia, and the whole earth cooled off for over a year from the dust thrown up into the sky. It it relatively close to where they had the tidal wave in Asia in December 2005. It is a concern for many on down the road. Having a way to prevent it from growing and also get energy from that source at the same time, may be a great development.
WAVES
Really ReSealiant ?
The
Flexing Out-Rigger Pump:
In analyzing some very preliminary
numbers. It doesn't seem impossible to generate about 2+ Megawatts
of power with a 1 mile run of wave capturing floats tied to
hydraulic pumps in 6 foot waves. That could be multiplied if you
added more rows. The limitation being the dampening effect of the
devices themselves on the size of the waves. Properly designed,
they may even be greatly appreciated by wild life of the seal
variety.
Details:
1
Kilowatt of Electricity = 24630.6ft-lbs/min or
410.51016ft-lbs/sec
100tons of displacement or buoyancy is
available in about 3342 cubic feet of air in a vessel.
that is
about equal to a 10 foot diameter pipe, 50 feet long
To keep it
light and responsive to the waves, we will only figure on it
working in the lift mode.
100 tons moving vertically about 6ft
every minute has about 97 Kilowatts of energy potential.
We
will divide that by two since we are only using half of the cycle,
that is, only the lifting effect.
So we have about 1 KW/Linear
Ft run.
To be sure things are not running into each other we
will space the floats about 50 ft apart, cutting that output in
half.
There are 5280 Ft per mile, so one half of that gives
2640 KW or around 2.5 Megawatts per mile.
Structural
Concerns:
Probably
the hardest matter to solve is getting sufficient strength in the
arms going to the outrigger floats. Ideally they will have to be
long enough to span one half of the distance between wave peaks or
troughs. Since I don't know the distance that typically is, I will
guess about 100 yards. Probably the only way to accomplish this is
to make them almost a vessel in their own right. To keep them
aligned properly will require diagonal cabling between two
parallel arms. To make the center work properly, it will have to
be anchored to the sea floor and about half full of water or made
out of concrete with very thick walls for the weight to generate
the downward force necessary. To keep the center from rolling and
not working the hydraulic pumps tied to the arms, one would need
two out rigged floats on opposite sides. One could say that would
double the output, but I would play it safe and stick with the
value previously figured; since some of the actual rise of the
float is lost to the need for it to sink into the water to
generate the required lift.
The Output:
The
output all depends on the size of the hydraulic cylinders used. to
accept the force. A larger diameter cylinder would give more flow
and less pressure and may be easier, up to a point, to transport
the energy as pressurized water by hose and pipe to the shore for
running a generator. Also keeping the pressure low lets one
potentially use softer and cheaper materials, such as plastics and
rubber, for more of the parts.
Details:
If
each arm was to receive one-half of the force, or 50 tons of force
each:
Each hydraulic cylinder receives 250tons force when the
arm is fulcrummed at the 50ft point out from the hydraulic
cylinder
To
make it put out a reasonably low pressure requires a large
diameter cylinder.
The force divided by the area of the
cylinder give the desired value.
So, a 10 ft diameter cylinder,
having an area of about 75 sq.ft. gives about 6666 psi output. A
bit high for most plumbing.
A 20 ft diameter cylinder, having
an area of about 300 sq.ft. gives about 1666 psi output. Not low
but possibly workable
The likely working range of the cylinder
(how far it lengthens) will likely be between 1 and 6 ft., with 10
ft. likely to be the max.
Having each arm work two or more
cylinders at a time would divide the pressure output obtained,
though multiplying the volume. The results being a simple factor
of the count. One may also reduce the size of the floats and
center, to get a smaller force on the cylinders.
Alternative designs:
Direct
Float to Cylinder:
There are other designs, such as having
floats run pumps on two parallel pumping stations each end of the
floats that run parallel to the waves, so the whole length of the
float is on the same part of the wave.
It might even work
best, where the stations were semi-floating to practically
submerged. That is, one or two float being enough to keep the
station and floats up and near the surface.
As the highest
floats progressed along the length, the stations would pull with
its weight on the previously shortened cylinders attaching to
those floats, while the lower floats would get a chance to shorten
their cylinders with little resistance. This scheme would limit
the pressure output to the atmospheric pressure at sea level, or
about 14 psi. That would be sufficient to pump water to about 25
ft. above sea level. To generate higher pressures one would have
to turn the system over and let the floats shorten the cylinders
under the weight of the pumping stations. Which means that the
cylinders would likely to be above water, unless one used arms to
reach them under water. (Which means one would likely end up with
a case of floats bumping each other all the time. Which may not be
to big a concern with the proper guards on them.) In both cases,
the cylinders would have to have a working length as long as the
highest waves used to generate power from.
I will presently let
someone else work out the details on that idea, should they wish.
The principals are all the same. Without the need to figure in the
fulcrum effect, as one is not used.
Just
a Flexible Vessel:
One simply could have a vessel that would
flex and work two hydraulic cylinders to pump as they extend, at
the flexing joint.
Then the length of the sections (relative to
the distance between the cylinders), and the weight and
displacement (all relatively adjustable by design) would be the
factors involved.
The longer the relative length and the
greater the displacement and weight, the greater the force. And of
course, the larger the cylinders the greater the volume and the
less the force.
It is not the safest idea to be trying to generate the power as electricity in the water and transferring it to shore by electric cables. Should you get insulation failure, you have a very dangerous hazard to life.
SUN
Molten Mega Mass
Over a year ago, a new item on TV gave a relatively short presentation about a solar powered electrical generation facility. It used an array of mirrors and a tower with a tank on top full of salt which it could heat to the point of making it a molten mass. With such a large heated mass, it was able to generate power, enough for a small city, up to three hours after dark. I believe that it was in the tens of Megawatts, at least.
Given such evidence of potential viability, it is not impossible for one to imagine either using multiple towers to extend that night time generation potential. Or perhaps, using a system that stored the molten material, perhaps under ground, by circulating a material, perhaps tin or salt from the collector to the storage area.
The biggest concern one might have in that endeavor likely would be the need to get the circulating material fluid again should it ever cool down. Using a conductive material, which metals and most salts are, would allow one to put a low voltage current through plumbing to reheat that material. So I believe that problem is surmountable.
One reason I tend to prefer large scale generation to small, is that it presently leaves more doors open as to what the energy may be relatively cheaply applied to. Ideally, one would like to see hydrogen fuel as a viable source for vehicles, which is likely to be inherently large scale. And I think that can be even more safe in an accident than gasoline presently is.
If one used multiple hard metal spheres encased in a protective plastic, with a cocoon of fine wire embedded in the plastic; should any disrupt the fine wire cocoon, all the spheres would be sealed off. (They presently use plastic to help enhance the strength of the armor on the military's tanks.) That way, should an accident occur, there wouldn't likely be little fuel escaping to further damage things. There are other things one might do to keep the bulk of the fuel cold should leaking occur. By adding a porous ceramic insulation layer covered with a metal shell, guiding any necessary venting that occurred through insulation before escaping, could keep the pressure venting and the actual storage tank as cool as possible. Properly made, even a fire would have a hard time making it a hazard.
As for other uses for large scale energy production: it is also likely that water purification (such as desalinization) as well as other material refining processes could use such energy quite readily. And it is likely that it would be safer and more cost effective to manage as a large scale facility.