Spot false dilemmas now, ask me how!
(If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
Bert Bates wrote:
1 - medium tech mirrors
2 - some sort of stirling engine
It seems like there are medium or even low tech ways to build fresnel mirrors, I'm still searching for that mythical 1-5 hp stirling engine. I've even considered whether, on a local basis, steam engines could be resurrected?
There isn't quite enough detail on the drawings to simply build an engine directly from the book, but a good machinist should be able to fill in the missing details.
Spot false dilemmas now, ask me how!
(If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
Bert Bates wrote:but I thought that for much of the U.S., the "grid" is mandated to accept power from individual homes. In other words, assume a homeowner has solar panels or some such, and is also on the "grid". Whenever the homeowner's solar panels produce more power than the homeowner needs, the homeowner is free to push the excess power onto the grid and get a credit for that.
Bert Bates wrote:About "moving power"...
I am admittedly on thin ice here, I haven't done much research on this point... but I thought that for much of the U.S., the "grid" is mandated to accept power from individual homes. In other words, assume a homeowner has solar panels or some such, and is also on the "grid". Whenever the homeowner's solar panels produce more power than the homeowner needs, the homeowner is free to push the excess power onto the grid and get a credit for that.
No doubt the "grid" itself loses a lot of efficiency as it moves "power" from spot to spot, but that seems besides the point when discussing everyone's individual ability to feed it (the grid).
Spot false dilemmas now, ask me how!
(If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
Bert Bates wrote:Again, not well researched, but I thought that the grid had been moving lots of power around for a long time? ..... billions doesn't seem unreasonable - but I wonder if that's not necessary regardless of whether homeowners are feeding it or not?
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Spot false dilemmas now, ask me how!
(If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
Bert Bates wrote: I recently read that they're making some real progress using flywheels to store energy. I could imagine that being medium-tech, but maybe not.
David O'Meara wrote: One example is pumping water into raised water tanks. While the water could be poured out and used to run a generator, the main purpose is to provide water pressure, and using local generated power saves pumping water into the tank using network electricity.
Spot false dilemmas now, ask me how!
(If you're not on the edge, you're taking up too much room.)
Chris Baron wrote:Regarding the storage of energy: what's wrong with batteries?
Chris Baron wrote:And regarding toxics: the solar battery chargers are very similar to car batteries and almost maintanace free.
Chris Baron wrote:But for car batteries exists a recycle system too. Actually all batteries have to be returned here. And i think it's still better and cheaper than rising a huge water tank and buying a generator.
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Paul Anilprem wrote:Question: How do I calculate various parameters such as Temprature difference, pipe diameter that will be required to produce a steady flow. For example, if I want to generate say 100 Watts/Hr, then what must be the temprature difference and the size of the water pipe that would be required?
Pat Farrell wrote:
Chris Baron wrote:Regarding the storage of energy: what's wrong with batteries?
Just about everything. For starters, they are all made with toxic and often lethal materials. Then there is the minor engineering fact that they provide a small amount of power over time, whereas peak load needs are lots of power right now. No battery can deliver that. Then you have to look at their low power density per cubic foot/meter. The list goes on and on.
Batteries are great for small amounts of power where portability is king. If you want even a modest amount of power, you need huge and heavy batteries (look at any car battery). There is no portability in solar, wind or hydro power, they are fixed, batteries are a poor fit from a simple engineering view, let alone economics.
Chris Baron wrote: it's nothing that couldn't be handled with care and responsibility.
There are only two hard things in computer science: cache invalidation, naming things, and off-by-one errors
Paul Anilprem wrote:
I do feel that it wouldn't work. But how do I theoretically prove that it wouldn't work? Any ideas?