gemini5362
Veteran Member
Defective you beat me to it. I was going to ask him to tell the story.
Burning Water
- Thread starter TomPenny
- Start date
- Views: 16071
barneyrb said:
It's called "Brown's Gas" because that's the color your elbow is after you pull it out of your.... well, this is a G rated forum so decorum dictates that you use your own imaginations.
Some energy conversion facts for your thoughts.
Electrolysis is between 15 and 30% efficient. In other words, it takes 3 to 6 times the energy to separate H2 from O as is released when they get back together. The higher efficient % use a VERY caustic solution around 14 pH.
Converting rotational energy into moving electrons with the aid of magnets is also about 15% efficient.
Unless the users of this technology are sporting 3" lead shields or dying from neutron radiation damage they ain't getting the energy needed to traverse the USA on 22 gal of water. Now, cool the water into 15ml solids, mix that with 3.5%fructose, 4%sucrose, 8% by weight aliphatic C2H5OH, trace amounts of various aromatic hydrocarbon complexes, more di-hydrogenated oxygen and they may just think they did it! That's a stiff mixed drink by the way...
(the lead shields would be needed if there was any "cold fusion" occurring. The fact that the original scientists in the cold fusion cabal were not dying from radiation sickness and did not use any shielding instantly told any 1/4 intelligent physicists that it was a bogus claim. A point overlooked by the news media and the naive gullible types that in later years sent their life savings to a Nigerian King so he would send them millions.)
Just because it's a result we want, doesn't make it any more likely or even possible!
Egon
Epic Contributor
Drive across the country on 22 gallons of stiff drinks; oh my!
Definitely, Pat should retell his story!!
patrick_g
Elite Member
Gee, guys, I hope the story isn't a big let down after all the expectation.
Once upon a time, between my free lance consulting phase and my computer scientist phase I took an extended (about two years) sabbatical (at least a total change of pace) where I got a commercial radiotelephone lisc with ships radar endorsement and worked in marine electronics as a field service engineer.
Due to a previous "situation" (not quite as good of a story) I was "name requested" to make an emergency trip to Cabo San Lucas Baja California del Sur to put a new sat nav on a Mexican owned tuna boat (large purse seiner) and oh well what the heck since I'd be there anyway why not install a new marine band single side band antenna and some new power amp tubes in their transceiver and give it a good tuneup too and oh by the way shove a broom up my backside and sweep the floor at the same time.
(OK, so flying to Cabo, staying in a beach front hotel where your room is actually a separate cabin on the beach, and being treated like a king by the customer's reps isn't all bad.)
I got the SatNav installed and up and running so the American navigator was willing to leave port. (Back then a sat nav was twice the size of a microwave oven and fairly complex to install or to operate.) Then later...
After getting creative and running 120VAC up the coax a few hundred feet to run my soldering gun to solder the fittings on the coax I then proceeded to check out the radio transceiver mounted on the wall in the office. It was after closing time and the large tuna packing plant was pretty deserted. I got busy removing the cover, jumping the safety interlocks, warming it up and connecting test equipment.
For a time I was so engrossed in the task at hand that I didn't notice I was not alone. A middle aged guy in really scruffy clothes was leaning on the office door jam and just watching. From the looks of his clothes I thought maybe he was a dumpster diver there at the tuna packing plant looking for a scrap to eat. Then I assumed maybe he wanted to panhandle me, otherwise why hang around. Surely watching someone doing test and calibration with electronic equipment couldn't be of much interest to an uneducated peon/dumpster diver/panhandler.
I tried to not be a total jerk so I just smiled and said hola (howdy in Spanish.) Having been acknowledged and spoken to he was now at liberty to speak. I thought oh boy here it comes now... So this guy says, in excellent English, "Ah, I see you are using a phantom load (in America we usually say dummy load) to adjust the output stage for the lowest VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio) and look to be neutralizing the output final amplifier on the highest band.
(Bullseye!!! exactly what I was doing!)
I tried to regain my composure, get my wide eyes down to normal, close my hanging open jaw, and be real nonchalant like I was used to having a cabbage speak to me or seeing an Irish Wolfhound play ragtime piano, or little gray space aliens doing Jose Cuervo shooters at the beach bar while winning the boogaloo contest.
Seems this gentleman (my how quickly our opinions can change) was an engineer from Guadalajara who had bid on and won a contract to rework some of the steam system used in running the canning operation. Although his specialty wasn't steam, he thought any competent engineer should be able to do the job. He was dressed the way he was because he didn't want to make a mess out of nicer clothes in a tuna packing plant working on boilers and steam systems.
He had bought an old ragged out but reliable car there in Baja to use for the duration of this job, leaving the family car behind in Guadalajara for his wife. I was on foot and at the mercy of taxis so I accepted his kind offer to let him drive me around and be an impromptu tour guide. We stopped at my hotel and had a couple beers at the outside bar where half of the customers were sitting on concrete bar stools that were under water in the swimming pool. When the bar conversation wandered past politics as a topic he acquitted himself masterfully being up to date on Mexican politics as well as American politics and world affairs. I watched in amusement as the gringos and gringas and higher class Mexicans at the bar had their perceptions altered by him, apparently a blue collar urchin looking guy who somehow talked intelligently on all topics and the manner of a gentleman. It took a while for folks to wrap their minds around that.
So, I learned to be a little more circumspect and not to be prematurely judgmental as well as truly enjoying the man's company. A side bonus for me was that his physical appearance made him a good double for Contiflas, a Mexican comedian, sort of the Charley Chaplin of Mexico, complete right down to the baggy pants and mustache.
You don't know Contiflas???????? He played the father of Elvis Presley's love interest in "Viva Acapulco."
Hope you weren't too disappointed.
Pat
Once upon a time, between my free lance consulting phase and my computer scientist phase I took an extended (about two years) sabbatical (at least a total change of pace) where I got a commercial radiotelephone lisc with ships radar endorsement and worked in marine electronics as a field service engineer.
Due to a previous "situation" (not quite as good of a story) I was "name requested" to make an emergency trip to Cabo San Lucas Baja California del Sur to put a new sat nav on a Mexican owned tuna boat (large purse seiner) and oh well what the heck since I'd be there anyway why not install a new marine band single side band antenna and some new power amp tubes in their transceiver and give it a good tuneup too and oh by the way shove a broom up my backside and sweep the floor at the same time.
(OK, so flying to Cabo, staying in a beach front hotel where your room is actually a separate cabin on the beach, and being treated like a king by the customer's reps isn't all bad.)
I got the SatNav installed and up and running so the American navigator was willing to leave port. (Back then a sat nav was twice the size of a microwave oven and fairly complex to install or to operate.) Then later...
After getting creative and running 120VAC up the coax a few hundred feet to run my soldering gun to solder the fittings on the coax I then proceeded to check out the radio transceiver mounted on the wall in the office. It was after closing time and the large tuna packing plant was pretty deserted. I got busy removing the cover, jumping the safety interlocks, warming it up and connecting test equipment.
For a time I was so engrossed in the task at hand that I didn't notice I was not alone. A middle aged guy in really scruffy clothes was leaning on the office door jam and just watching. From the looks of his clothes I thought maybe he was a dumpster diver there at the tuna packing plant looking for a scrap to eat. Then I assumed maybe he wanted to panhandle me, otherwise why hang around. Surely watching someone doing test and calibration with electronic equipment couldn't be of much interest to an uneducated peon/dumpster diver/panhandler.
I tried to not be a total jerk so I just smiled and said hola (howdy in Spanish.) Having been acknowledged and spoken to he was now at liberty to speak. I thought oh boy here it comes now... So this guy says, in excellent English, "Ah, I see you are using a phantom load (in America we usually say dummy load) to adjust the output stage for the lowest VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio) and look to be neutralizing the output final amplifier on the highest band.
(Bullseye!!! exactly what I was doing!)
I tried to regain my composure, get my wide eyes down to normal, close my hanging open jaw, and be real nonchalant like I was used to having a cabbage speak to me or seeing an Irish Wolfhound play ragtime piano, or little gray space aliens doing Jose Cuervo shooters at the beach bar while winning the boogaloo contest.
Seems this gentleman (my how quickly our opinions can change) was an engineer from Guadalajara who had bid on and won a contract to rework some of the steam system used in running the canning operation. Although his specialty wasn't steam, he thought any competent engineer should be able to do the job. He was dressed the way he was because he didn't want to make a mess out of nicer clothes in a tuna packing plant working on boilers and steam systems.
He had bought an old ragged out but reliable car there in Baja to use for the duration of this job, leaving the family car behind in Guadalajara for his wife. I was on foot and at the mercy of taxis so I accepted his kind offer to let him drive me around and be an impromptu tour guide. We stopped at my hotel and had a couple beers at the outside bar where half of the customers were sitting on concrete bar stools that were under water in the swimming pool. When the bar conversation wandered past politics as a topic he acquitted himself masterfully being up to date on Mexican politics as well as American politics and world affairs. I watched in amusement as the gringos and gringas and higher class Mexicans at the bar had their perceptions altered by him, apparently a blue collar urchin looking guy who somehow talked intelligently on all topics and the manner of a gentleman. It took a while for folks to wrap their minds around that.
So, I learned to be a little more circumspect and not to be prematurely judgmental as well as truly enjoying the man's company. A side bonus for me was that his physical appearance made him a good double for Contiflas, a Mexican comedian, sort of the Charley Chaplin of Mexico, complete right down to the baggy pants and mustache.
You don't know Contiflas???????? He played the father of Elvis Presley's love interest in "Viva Acapulco."
Hope you weren't too disappointed.
Pat
Treemonkey1000
Veteran Member
Great story. You had my interest at VSWR and Sideband. Having been a ham radio operator for about 30 years now. I work in a calibration lab servicing Voltmeters on up to RF microwave transmitters. We have a large antenna lab to verify antenna patterns at one of our sites. The ham radio hobby is what got me into installing antennas on towers and trees for the Hams. Some of the Engineers here are brilliant. A few of them look like the Panhandlers you might see at Freeway onramps looking for spare change...
Anyhow sounds like a fun adventure you had. Now I put on my coveralls and play on my tractor.. The folks that I work with have a hard time picturing me on a Tractor.. Although they know I have a tree climbing business. They wonder about my sanity in doing that. Let's see messing around with 10,000 volts at work or climbing a 100' tree...
Ok I guess all of this is off the topic of burning water and perpetual motion....
Let's just harness gravity for our energy.. Hmmm can you use a falling object as a useful energy source?
Anyhow sounds like a fun adventure you had. Now I put on my coveralls and play on my tractor.. The folks that I work with have a hard time picturing me on a Tractor..
Although they know I have a tree climbing business. They wonder about my sanity in doing that. Let's see messing around with 10,000 volts at work or climbing a 100' tree...Ok I guess all of this is off the topic of burning water and perpetual motion....
Let's just harness gravity for our energy.. Hmmm can you use a falling object as a useful energy source?
SLOBuds
Gold Member
Treemonkey1000 said:
Sure, happens every day as water falls through turbines.
My father is 94 years old. Aeronautical engineer by trade. He worked on everything from the DC4 through Douglas Aircraft's Manned Orbital Laboratory project which was canceled in 1969.
I tell dad that he's led a charmed life. During a stint as Cockpit Coordinator for the DC8, he would talk to test pilots who would say 'move this here and move that there.' Dad was able to go out and move those things here and there. He is very proud of his trade.
My recent assignment to him is for engineers to go out there and figure a better way to store energy. Seems like the best thing engineers have come up with so far is water behind a dam. I'm OK with that myself. But a smaller form factor would help.
Option B is to invent something small that produces lots of power, on demand. Like that small round gadget on Iron Man. No need for tiny dams because it just makes so much energy that you flip a switch (or maybe even just WILL it) and you have all that you need.
Why are we so dead against nuclear power generation, by the way? I hug as many trees as the next guy, but don't understand the reluctance.
tallyho8
Elite Member
- Joined
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SLOBuds said:
But would you be for it if they wanted to build a reactor or a nuclear disposal site 1 mile from your home?
Many of us are all for nuclear reactors, as long as they are 500 miles away.
patrick_g
Elite Member
You could power most of the worlds energy needs by composting all the BS on the internet and running gas turbines on the methane produced!!!
The last time I looked into it seriously (been a while) the front runner for energy density and efficiency was rotating mass. Yup, like a spinning wheel or gyroscope. The limit is strength of materials. At the time of my investigation the technology was like this: The "wheel" is composed of radial filaments attached to an axle which is floating in a contact free magnetic bearing. The wheel is enclosed by a cover and you evacuate the interior to remove aerodynamics from consideration.
The tensile strength of the filaments with respect to their mass is the limiting factor on RPM and the length of the filaments. Modern materials like Kevlar and such would be candidates for an experimental demonstration device. Energy can be coupled into the storage device electrically like a motor and extracted electrically like a generator. Super conductor technology can help there to reduce losses.
You can pretty much get out what you put in.
Superconducting magnets are also pretty efficient energy storage devices but the care and feeding of super conductors is not cheap or simple just now. With improvements in "room temp" super conductors this technology could be quite useful.
Of course we can use gravity to store energy and get it back. MGH is the deal where M is mass, G is gravity, and H is height. Given that over very small changes of height (compared to the radius of the earth) gravity doesn't change much so we can just think of mass times height times a constant. Doubling the mass is as good as doubling the height. Storage is linear. Unfortunately it costs as much to raise a weight as we get back letting it down again and there are all those frictional and other losses involved in the practical application.
If you had a very tall mountain with a sheer cliff you could take rocks at the top and lower them down with a rope wrapped around an axle. The potential energy of the mass of the rocks and the distance lowered would give you the quantity of energy you would "mine." You could use the torque or HP of the rotating axle to do useful work. This would be a good example of a NON-renewable energy source. Of course if the tectonic plates cooperated, the mountain might continue to be thrust upward replacing the rocks you took off the top.
This is just a variation on rain falling at higher elevations and the water being allowed to gather in rivers and behind dams where we have it fall through a mechanical contrivance like a mill or a hydroelectric plant. It is actually solar energy we get in a hydroelectric plant as the sun provides the heat energy to evaporate the water and carry it back up to higher elevations to be used again. If we lost the sun shine the process would soon stop.
All us SG-1 and Atlantis fans are waiting for the wisdom of the "Ancients" in the form of a ZPM to be revealed to us.
When Nikola Tesla is reincarnated in a more useful form than a Shetland pony and picks up where he left off who knows what to expect?
In the mean time all the denial, wishful thinking, wishy washy thinking, setting on our backsides waiting for science to save us, or just grumbling will not effect a beneficial change in our circumstances. Until or unless there are remarkable breakthroughs in areas not now being considered likely, things are going to go from bad to worse. We will watch fuel prices continue to soar while we wring our hands and look for scapegoats, magic fixes, and other improbable means of returning to the status quo of just a few years ago. It is not going to happen. Like the song, "those days are gone my friend, we thought they'd never end." Well they are.
Look to the eastern horizon and you see a freight train running at full steam toward the west and on the same track you see on the western horizon another train running full speed ahead eastbound. While we sit on our collective backsides wishing it were not so the trains will collide with disastrous results the like of which we have never seen before on this earth. In the sense best described by the Chinese, we will live in interesting times.
Is anyone prepared or actually in the process of getting prepared? The vast majority (at least in America) are still hoping that somehow magically it will all just get better, a result of too much government intervening too much of the time to eliminate the need for citizens to be responsible for anything of much consequence or for there ever to be bad consequences associated with bad decisions or the lack of decisions. If Mt. Vesuvius were in the US on high dollar real estate and it were rumbling and preparing to erupt residents would have to be physically forced to evacuate (remember the die hards who wouldn't leave Mt. Saint Hellens and did DIE HARD?)
The petro-shortage crisis is the first of several rude wakeup calls that will be difficult challenges, especially for those whose only response to crisis is to tune in to TV to see what the Gov is going to do for them.
Pat
The last time I looked into it seriously (been a while) the front runner for energy density and efficiency was rotating mass. Yup, like a spinning wheel or gyroscope. The limit is strength of materials. At the time of my investigation the technology was like this: The "wheel" is composed of radial filaments attached to an axle which is floating in a contact free magnetic bearing. The wheel is enclosed by a cover and you evacuate the interior to remove aerodynamics from consideration.
The tensile strength of the filaments with respect to their mass is the limiting factor on RPM and the length of the filaments. Modern materials like Kevlar and such would be candidates for an experimental demonstration device. Energy can be coupled into the storage device electrically like a motor and extracted electrically like a generator. Super conductor technology can help there to reduce losses.
You can pretty much get out what you put in.
Superconducting magnets are also pretty efficient energy storage devices but the care and feeding of super conductors is not cheap or simple just now. With improvements in "room temp" super conductors this technology could be quite useful.
Of course we can use gravity to store energy and get it back. MGH is the deal where M is mass, G is gravity, and H is height. Given that over very small changes of height (compared to the radius of the earth) gravity doesn't change much so we can just think of mass times height times a constant. Doubling the mass is as good as doubling the height. Storage is linear. Unfortunately it costs as much to raise a weight as we get back letting it down again and there are all those frictional and other losses involved in the practical application.
If you had a very tall mountain with a sheer cliff you could take rocks at the top and lower them down with a rope wrapped around an axle. The potential energy of the mass of the rocks and the distance lowered would give you the quantity of energy you would "mine." You could use the torque or HP of the rotating axle to do useful work. This would be a good example of a NON-renewable energy source. Of course if the tectonic plates cooperated, the mountain might continue to be thrust upward replacing the rocks you took off the top.
This is just a variation on rain falling at higher elevations and the water being allowed to gather in rivers and behind dams where we have it fall through a mechanical contrivance like a mill or a hydroelectric plant. It is actually solar energy we get in a hydroelectric plant as the sun provides the heat energy to evaporate the water and carry it back up to higher elevations to be used again. If we lost the sun shine the process would soon stop.
All us SG-1 and Atlantis fans are waiting for the wisdom of the "Ancients" in the form of a ZPM to be revealed to us.
When Nikola Tesla is reincarnated in a more useful form than a Shetland pony and picks up where he left off who knows what to expect?
In the mean time all the denial, wishful thinking, wishy washy thinking, setting on our backsides waiting for science to save us, or just grumbling will not effect a beneficial change in our circumstances. Until or unless there are remarkable breakthroughs in areas not now being considered likely, things are going to go from bad to worse. We will watch fuel prices continue to soar while we wring our hands and look for scapegoats, magic fixes, and other improbable means of returning to the status quo of just a few years ago. It is not going to happen. Like the song, "those days are gone my friend, we thought they'd never end." Well they are.
Look to the eastern horizon and you see a freight train running at full steam toward the west and on the same track you see on the western horizon another train running full speed ahead eastbound. While we sit on our collective backsides wishing it were not so the trains will collide with disastrous results the like of which we have never seen before on this earth. In the sense best described by the Chinese, we will live in interesting times.
Is anyone prepared or actually in the process of getting prepared? The vast majority (at least in America) are still hoping that somehow magically it will all just get better, a result of too much government intervening too much of the time to eliminate the need for citizens to be responsible for anything of much consequence or for there ever to be bad consequences associated with bad decisions or the lack of decisions. If Mt. Vesuvius were in the US on high dollar real estate and it were rumbling and preparing to erupt residents would have to be physically forced to evacuate (remember the die hards who wouldn't leave Mt. Saint Hellens and did DIE HARD?)
The petro-shortage crisis is the first of several rude wakeup calls that will be difficult challenges, especially for those whose only response to crisis is to tune in to TV to see what the Gov is going to do for them.
Pat
patrick_g
Elite Member
tallyho8 said:
Many of us live or have lived close to nuclear power stations and never had an actual problem. San Onofre in San Diego is close to lots of residences.
We don't have to store waste really near population centers but so long as individuals or small groups can tyranize large groups by not allowing trains to transport waste through their state or whatever geographic division, it really makes things hard for the rest of us.
The truth is that sometimes the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few or the one. There are examples of safe power plants in other countries. Russia and their Chernobyl is not the only facts in evidence. They did not run their plant with the regard for safety and maint that is used in the US. We have learned a lot since Three Mile Island. To totally ignore an entire segment of energy production because of correctable issues is not smart.
Pat
SLOBuds
Gold Member
Yea, we've bottled ourselves into some kind of funk where we don't worry about 400k people dying a year from smoking, 45k from cars, breast and colon cancer that probably take around 100k. We probably worry about those things but can't stop people from doing them. Each nuclear reactor needs 'permission' and funding first, so it's an easy thing to deny.
I'd like to have a small personal reactor that I carry in my briefcase. I want to be able to take it out into the field to power a welder (naturally, also used as fuel for the tractor that schleps my welder from shed to field.). Then I want it to slide in the trunk of my converted 1968 Dodge Challenger so my wife and I can drive up to Napa for a couple of sips. On hot days the reactor will power one of those small fans you can set inside a baseball cap. Run my iPod. Power my web servers. Etc.
All that should be possible. Right?
I don't think that nuclear is a dirty word, and I don't think we should give up on it.
Don't quit on the burning water though.
I'd like to have a small personal reactor that I carry in my briefcase. I want to be able to take it out into the field to power a welder (naturally, also used as fuel for the tractor that schleps my welder from shed to field.). Then I want it to slide in the trunk of my converted 1968 Dodge Challenger so my wife and I can drive up to Napa for a couple of sips. On hot days the reactor will power one of those small fans you can set inside a baseball cap. Run my iPod. Power my web servers. Etc.
All that should be possible. Right?
I don't think that nuclear is a dirty word, and I don't think we should give up on it.
Don't quit on the burning water though.
