....as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

R

RicodJour said:

...as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Now that was cool! I especially like the caption:

"A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus
broke its brakes and a storm made it break."

I wonder how far the blade shards traveled.


Greg G.

RicodJour wrote:
....as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

I like windmills - but like tools, it obviously pays to go for the
quality product.

One of the guys here in Des Moines is working on a residential wind
plant and sent me this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfIoV-1g2co

This will produce a lot less power, but probably won't suffer that kind
of runaway rotation.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Morris Dovey wrote in :

RicodJour wrote:
....as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

I like windmills - but like tools, it obviously pays to go for the
quality product.

One of the guys here in Des Moines is working on a residential wind
plant and sent me this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfIoV-1g2co

This will produce a lot less power, but probably won't suffer that kind
of runaway rotation.

Even the Dutch-type windmills of the 1600's and today had to be tended,
otherwise they'd go wild, or worse catch fire. All the gearing was/is
wooden ... And a straw/thatched roof.

see http://www.kinderdijk.com/

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han wrote:
....
Even the Dutch-type windmills of the 1600's and today had to be tended,
otherwise they'd go wild, ...

Ayup...

Not much worse than having to climb a windmill tower on which the brake
wire broke in a stiff KS wind (DAMHIKT)...

Wasn't/isn't enough room on the platform to get away from the blades if
the head rotated on you while you were up there.

--

dpb wrote in :

Han wrote:
...
Even the Dutch-type windmills of the 1600's and today had to be tended,
otherwise they'd go wild, ...

Ayup...

Not much worse than having to climb a windmill tower on which the brake
wire broke in a stiff KS wind (DAMHIKT)...

Wasn't/isn't enough room on the platform to get away from the blades if
the head rotated on you while you were up there.

Hence the Dutch saying
"Hij heeft een tik van de molen gehad"
He received a slap from the windmill
Meaning, "he is mentally a bit off"
Actually, getting hit by a wing of a windmill is likely mostly fatal.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

"Morris Dovey" wrote in message
...
RicodJour wrote:
....as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

I like windmills - but like tools, it obviously pays to go for the quality
product.

One of the guys here in Des Moines is working on a residential wind plant
and sent me this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfIoV-1g2co

This will produce a lot less power, but probably won't suffer that kind of
runaway rotation.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/


There was a news item on our local news just recently about a similar
concept which is mounted transversly. The idea being it could be extensively
used in suburbia to backfeed the state electricity grid. Currently in
pre-production trials.
Having used wind power almost exclusively on the farm to pump water where we
used large capacity storage to overcome the intermittent nature of the wind,
I've wondered whether it would be feasible to have a wind/hydro generation
system.
e.g. Windmill pumps water into massive storage tank from borehole, lets say
200 ft deep. Second borehole on the same watersource, has a mini turbine at
the bottom, also 200ft down. Any overflow from storage tank drives turbine
and feeds grid. When winds are light, storage tank feeds turbine. (I'm
guessing a 200 ft drop would provide considerable velocity.)
The water tank, in effect, becomes a very large cost effective battery.
Fluid, (water) is returned to source in a semi enclosed loop situation.
I know nothing of turbines, but windmills were very low maintenance and had
extremely low running costs. I wonder if it's feasible or has been tried?

diggerop

diggerop wrote:

There was a news item on our local news just recently about a similar
concept which is mounted transversly. The idea being it could be
extensively used in suburbia to backfeed the state electricity grid.
Currently in pre-production trials.

It's a great idea, although suburbia offers a few challenges. Can you
imagine having neighbors with chronic bad bearings?

Having used wind power almost exclusively on the farm to pump water
where we used large capacity storage to overcome the intermittent nature
of the wind, I've wondered whether it would be feasible to have a
wind/hydro generation system.

It's being done (Google for 'pumped hydro'), although I think most of
the major sites are using solar, rather than wind. I expect that wind
will catch up.

e.g. Windmill pumps water into massive storage tank from borehole, lets
say 200 ft deep. Second borehole on the same watersource, has a mini
turbine at the bottom, also 200ft down. Any overflow from storage tank
drives turbine and feeds grid. When winds are light, storage tank feeds
turbine. (I'm guessing a 200 ft drop would provide considerable velocity.)
The water tank, in effect, becomes a very large cost effective battery.
Fluid, (water) is returned to source in a semi enclosed loop situation.
I know nothing of turbines, but windmills were very low maintenance and
had extremely low running costs. I wonder if it's feasible or has been
tried?

It sounds do-able, but you're talking really large boreholes here (as in
kilometers, rather than meters) to produce any significant amount of
power for a useful period of time.

I would guess that Australia might be ahead to pump water up a sea cliff
to a large reservoir - where the water could then be used for hydro
power and/or provide a well-pressurized flow to a desalinization plant.

As you can see at

http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...HydroPump.html

I share your interest in pumped storage for hydro power.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

"Morris Dovey" wrote in message
...
diggerop wrote:

There was a news item on our local news just recently about a similar
concept which is mounted transversly. The idea being it could be
extensively used in suburbia to backfeed the state electricity grid.
Currently in pre-production trials.

It's a great idea, although suburbia offers a few challenges. Can you
imagine having neighbors with chronic bad bearings?

Having used wind power almost exclusively on the farm to pump water where
we used large capacity storage to overcome the intermittent nature of the
wind, I've wondered whether it would be feasible to have a wind/hydro
generation system.

It's being done (Google for 'pumped hydro'), although I think most of the
major sites are using solar, rather than wind. I expect that wind will
catch up.

e.g. Windmill pumps water into massive storage tank from borehole, lets
say 200 ft deep. Second borehole on the same watersource, has a mini
turbine at the bottom, also 200ft down. Any overflow from storage tank
drives turbine and feeds grid. When winds are light, storage tank feeds
turbine. (I'm guessing a 200 ft drop would provide considerable
velocity.)
The water tank, in effect, becomes a very large cost effective battery.
Fluid, (water) is returned to source in a semi enclosed loop situation.
I know nothing of turbines, but windmills were very low maintenance and
had extremely low running costs. I wonder if it's feasible or has been
tried?

It sounds do-able, but you're talking really large boreholes here (as in
kilometers, rather than meters) to produce any significant amount of power
for a useful period of time.

I would guess that Australia might be ahead to pump water up a sea cliff
to a large reservoir - where the water could then be used for hydro power
and/or provide a well-pressurized flow to a desalinization plant.

As you can see at

http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...HydroPump.html

I share your interest in pumped storage for hydro power.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/


Thanks Morris. Interesting stuff.

diggerop

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:44:22 -0500, the infamous Greg
scrawled the following:

RicodJour said:

...as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Now that was cool! I especially like the caption:

"A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus
broke its brakes and a storm made it break."

I wonder how far the blade shards traveled.

I thought they all had safeties in them, feathering the props in super
high winds like that. Hmmm. Cool.

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

Larry Jaques said:

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:44:22 -0500, the infamous Greg
scrawled the following:

RicodJour said:

...as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Now that was cool! I especially like the caption:

"A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus
broke its brakes and a storm made it break."

I wonder how far the blade shards traveled.

I thought they all had safeties in them, feathering the props in super
high winds like that. Hmmm. Cool.

Apparently it broke its brakes and a storm made it break. ;-)

If we could harness the power of a couple of class 4 hurricanes,
without the broken bits, THAT would be cool.

How about the recent announcement by Minesto; which is a spinoff from
the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab: 18 terawatthours
of wave generated energy from a novel underwater kite design:

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/23/...-ocean-energy/

http://www.minesto.com/

Now that's cool!



Greg G.

Greg wrote in
:

Larry Jaques said:

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:44:22 -0500, the infamous Greg
scrawled the following:

RicodJour said:

...as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Now that was cool! I especially like the caption:

"A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus
broke its brakes and a storm made it break."

I wonder how far the blade shards traveled.

I thought they all had safeties in them, feathering the props in super
high winds like that. Hmmm. Cool.

Apparently it broke its brakes and a storm made it break. ;-)

If we could harness the power of a couple of class 4 hurricanes,
without the broken bits, THAT would be cool.

How about the recent announcement by Minesto; which is a spinoff from
the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab: 18 terawatthours
of wave generated energy from a novel underwater kite design:

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/23/...sses-ocean-ene
rgy/

http://www.minesto.com/

Now that's cool!



Greg G.

This indeed real cool, but a caveat may in the experiences of an
underwater turbine generator in the East River of New York
http://verdantpower.com
I can't find the right cite, but believe that there were unanticipated
problems with corrosion and/or damage by debris(??).
--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:04:49 +0800, the infamous "Morris Dovey"
wrote in message
...
diggerop wrote:

There was a news item on our local news just recently about a similar
concept which is mounted transversly. The idea being it could be
extensively used in suburbia to backfeed the state electricity grid.
Currently in pre-production trials.

It's a great idea, although suburbia offers a few challenges. Can you
imagine having neighbors with chronic bad bearings?

Having used wind power almost exclusively on the farm to pump water where
we used large capacity storage to overcome the intermittent nature of the
wind, I've wondered whether it would be feasible to have a wind/hydro
generation system.

It's being done (Google for 'pumped hydro'), although I think most of the
major sites are using solar, rather than wind. I expect that wind will
catch up.

e.g. Windmill pumps water into massive storage tank from borehole, lets
say 200 ft deep. Second borehole on the same watersource, has a mini
turbine at the bottom, also 200ft down. Any overflow from storage tank
drives turbine and feeds grid. When winds are light, storage tank feeds
turbine. (I'm guessing a 200 ft drop would provide considerable
velocity.)
The water tank, in effect, becomes a very large cost effective battery.
Fluid, (water) is returned to source in a semi enclosed loop situation.
I know nothing of turbines, but windmills were very low maintenance and
had extremely low running costs. I wonder if it's feasible or has been
tried?

It sounds do-able, but you're talking really large boreholes here (as in
kilometers, rather than meters) to produce any significant amount of power
for a useful period of time.

I would guess that Australia might be ahead to pump water up a sea cliff
to a large reservoir - where the water could then be used for hydro power
and/or provide a well-pressurized flow to a desalinization plant.

As you can see at

http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...HydroPump.html

I share your interest in pumped storage for hydro power.

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a little one
on the prairie?

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:35:35 -0500, the infamous Greg
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques said:

On Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:44:22 -0500, the infamous Greg
scrawled the following:

RicodJour said:

...as the alternative to your system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3FZtmlHwcA

Now that was cool! I especially like the caption:

"A windmill in Hornslet near Aarhus
broke its brakes and a storm made it break."

I wonder how far the blade shards traveled.

I thought they all had safeties in them, feathering the props in super
high winds like that. Hmmm. Cool.

Apparently it broke its brakes and a storm made it break. ;-)

If we could harness the power of a couple of class 4 hurricanes,
without the broken bits, THAT would be cool.

How about the recent announcement by Minesto; which is a spinoff from
the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab: 18 terawatthours
of wave generated energy from a novel underwater kite design:

http://cleantechnica.com/2009/10/23/...-ocean-energy/

Well, if the Carbon Trust gave its consent, who am I to argue? wink


http://www.minesto.com/

Now that's cool!

Yeah, interesting.

But I still think that our best, cheapest (if we can refrain from
using either gov't or lawyers), bet is to increase our number of
nuclear power plants worldwide, and stop burning coal. Now, how do you
retrain a miner for nuke work? Maybe just retrain most for the
construction, since they're used to heavy manual labor anyway, then
send them around the USA/world installing? But the cleanup from the
coal power plants will be a nightmare. There's more radiation coming
from them than from nuke plants.

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

But I still think that our best, cheapest (if we can refrain from
using either gov't or lawyers), bet is to increase our number of
nuclear power plants worldwide, and stop burning coal. Now, how do you
retrain a miner for nuke work? Maybe just retrain most for the
construction, since they're used to heavy manual labor anyway, then
send them around the USA/world installing? But the cleanup from the
coal power plants will be a nightmare. There's more radiation coming
from them than from nuke plants.

Now that is sensible talk!
Let's double tax the coal commercials ... sigh

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han said:

Larry Jaques wrote in
:

But I still think that our best, cheapest (if we can refrain from
using either gov't or lawyers), bet is to increase our number of
nuclear power plants worldwide, and stop burning coal. Now, how do you
retrain a miner for nuke work? Maybe just retrain most for the
construction, since they're used to heavy manual labor anyway, then
send them around the USA/world installing? But the cleanup from the
coal power plants will be a nightmare. There's more radiation coming
from them than from nuke plants.

Now that is sensible talk!
Let's double tax the coal commercials ... sigh

Before Christmas last year I ventured out to downtown Atlanta to look
for Sheilas, and was approached by a guy who started preaching, out of
the blue, about how "clean coal" was the answer to all of our woes.
When I mentioned stack scrubbers and a new experimental technique
using algae to clean up exhaust emissions he went blank. Not a clue.
Guess who was paying for his shilling? (Rhetorical question...)

Two days later, the huge ash spill at the TVA coal plant in Tennessee
occurred. I found it rather ironic...


Greg G.

Larry Jaques wrote:

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a little one
on the prairie?

I've been keeping my focus on small-scale water pumping because that's
currently the greatest need, and only recently came up with a
single-piston design

see http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...g/5mPump2.html

that /might/ be adequate to the task of direct power production if used
to drive a small linear alternator for charging batteries for a "little
house on the prairie". Cost (not price) of the engine and parabolic
trough collector could be less than US$1K. I have no idea what cost a
linear alternator, charge controller, battery bank, and inverter might add.

Using mechanical (water) storage for that little house would probably be
prohibitively expensive. It'd need an elevated reservoir (think in terms
like "water tower") to hold enough water. It'd need a turbine, valves,
flow control system, alternator/generator, and also the charge
controller, battery bank, and inverter as above.

I don't know _anything_ about electrical power generation (but I'm aware
that there's more than one person here with in-depth knowledge of the
field) but I'll guess that (on the prairie) the mechanical portion of a
small-scale pumped hydro system would be expensive to implement and a
monstrous PIA to maintain.

laughing at self Did I just find a really long way of saying "I don't
know"?

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Greg wrote in
:

Before Christmas last year I ventured out to downtown Atlanta to look
for Sheilas, and was approached by a guy who started preaching, out of
the blue, about how "clean coal" was the answer to all of our woes.
When I mentioned stack scrubbers and a new experimental technique
using algae to clean up exhaust emissions he went blank. Not a clue.
Guess who was paying for his shilling? (Rhetorical question...)

Two days later, the huge ash spill at the TVA coal plant in Tennessee
occurred. I found it rather ironic...

So we have you to thank for the coal ash spill???

On another note, I remember the local gas works in Wageningen, Holland,
long before natural gas came in vogue. They would use a very well-known
process of heating coke (semipurified coal) with steam.
C + H2O - CO + H2.
solid + liqid ielded nicely combustoble gases.

This was pumped at low pressures (much lower than natural gas) around
town for cooking etc. Of course at that time our heating systems were
stoves fed with anthracite coal. Remeber shoveling coal from the shed's
coal bin as my chore during the winter.

I do wonder why the steam + coal system isn't used anymore to transmutate
solid coal into usable pumpable gas.

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

Han said:

Greg wrote in
:

Before Christmas last year I ventured out to downtown Atlanta to look
for Sheilas, and was approached by a guy who started preaching, out of
the blue, about how "clean coal" was the answer to all of our woes.
When I mentioned stack scrubbers and a new experimental technique
using algae to clean up exhaust emissions he went blank. Not a clue.
Guess who was paying for his shilling? (Rhetorical question...)

Two days later, the huge ash spill at the TVA coal plant in Tennessee
occurred. I found it rather ironic...

So we have you to thank for the coal ash spill???

LOL. Hardly... I have a microbiology professor friend who lives in
that area and that's not the sort of devastation I would wish on
anyone. Except, perhaps, parts of DC.

On another note, I remember the local gas works in Wageningen, Holland,
long before natural gas came in vogue. They would use a very well-known
process of heating coke (semipurified coal) with steam.
C + H2O - CO + H2.
solid + liqid ielded nicely combustoble gases.

This was pumped at low pressures (much lower than natural gas) around
town for cooking etc. Of course at that time our heating systems were
stoves fed with anthracite coal. Remeber shoveling coal from the shed's
coal bin as my chore during the winter.

I do wonder why the steam + coal system isn't used anymore to transmutate
solid coal into usable pumpable gas.

Expense of processing and the requirement of re-jetting the furnaces?
You would think that if a viable solution that the plants themselves
would use the material in-house to satisfy a portion of their energy
needs. Not being in the energy business, can't answer that one.
But it's probably because it's cheaper to burn it as is - with all the
attendant problems ignored/put off till tomorrow. Profit is God.


Greg G.

"Morris Dovey" wrote in message
...
Larry Jaques wrote:

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne
system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a
little one
on the prairie?

I've been keeping my focus on small-scale water pumping because
that's currently the greatest need, and only recently came up
with a single-piston design

see http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...g/5mPump2.html

that /might/ be adequate to the task of direct power production
if used to drive a small linear alternator for charging
batteries for a "little house on the prairie". Cost (not price)
of the engine and parabolic trough collector could be less than
US$1K. I have no idea what cost a linear alternator, charge
controller, battery bank, and inverter might add.

Using mechanical (water) storage for that little house would
probably be prohibitively expensive. It'd need an elevated
reservoir (think in terms like "water tower") to hold enough
water. It'd need a turbine, valves, flow control system,
alternator/generator, and also the charge controller, battery
bank, and inverter as above.

I don't know _anything_ about electrical power generation (but
I'm aware that there's more than one person here with in-depth
knowledge of the field) but I'll guess that (on the prairie) the
mechanical portion of a small-scale pumped hydro system would be
expensive to implement and a monstrous PIA to maintain.

laughing at self Did I just find a really long way of saying
"I don't know"?

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

Does anyone make or use a ram pump anymore? If you have flowing
water, it's about the cheapest and easiest way to raise it.

--
Nonny

What does it mean when drool runs
out of both sides of a drunken
Congressman's mouth?

The floor is level.

"Nonny" wrote in :

snip

Does anyone make or use a ram pump anymore? If you have flowing
water, it's about the cheapest and easiest way to raise it.

I think the original intent of Morris Dovey was to make a pump to help
people with not enough irrigation water (and no electricity) make a cheap
pump to get water up from down somewhere in their soil. Such scarcity of
water would preclude your "ram" pump, I think ...

--
Best regards
Han
email address is invalid

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:41:52 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a little one
on the prairie?

I've been keeping my focus on small-scale water pumping because that's
currently the greatest need, and only recently came up with a
single-piston design

see http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...g/5mPump2.html

that /might/ be adequate to the task of direct power production if used
to drive a small linear alternator for charging batteries for a "little
house on the prairie". Cost (not price) of the engine and parabolic
trough collector could be less than US$1K. I have no idea what cost a
linear alternator, charge controller, battery bank, and inverter might add.

A grand? What volume of pump are we talkin' here, Mo?


Using mechanical (water) storage for that little house would probably be
prohibitively expensive. It'd need an elevated reservoir (think in terms
like "water tower") to hold enough water. It'd need a turbine, valves,
flow control system, alternator/generator, and also the charge
controller, battery bank, and inverter as above.

I don't know _anything_ about electrical power generation (but I'm aware
that there's more than one person here with in-depth knowledge of the
field) but I'll guess that (on the prairie) the mechanical portion of a
small-scale pumped hydro system would be expensive to implement and a
monstrous PIA to maintain.

I'da (she's been querying me about this, too) thought you'da
researched this a wee sight more before putting up a web page on the
subject. blink, blink


laughing at self Did I just find a really long way of saying "I don't
know"?

Indubitably, my dear Dovey. Does the term "You oughta be in politics"
ring any bells?

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:41:52 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a little one
on the prairie?

I've been keeping my focus on small-scale water pumping because that's
currently the greatest need, and only recently came up with a
single-piston design

see http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...g/5mPump2.html

that /might/ be adequate to the task of direct power production if used
to drive a small linear alternator for charging batteries for a "little
house on the prairie". Cost (not price) of the engine and parabolic
trough collector could be less than US$1K. I have no idea what cost a
linear alternator, charge controller, battery bank, and inverter might add.

A grand? What volume of pump are we talkin' here, Mo?

My crystal ball says somewhere between 2 and 3 HP. Note that if we're
driving an alternator, we're not pumping.

The cost of the engine itself will probably be in the $250 ballpark and
the trough, polar mount, and tracking system would probably work out
somewhere between $400 and $750 depending on design choices.

The 4"/100mm bore PVC pump engine being developed appears to be
something that can be user-built for under $100 worth of commonly
available materials - and the pumped volume will depend on size of
collector and height the water is raised. I'm shooting for somewhere
near 1000 gal/hour as a minimal-lift irrigation pump - but note that
this isn't really very much water when you consider hydro-electric systems.

If you really have your sights locked onto a micro-pumped-hydro setup,
then you'll also have pumping losses raising the water to storage and
turbine losses at generation.

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/

On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:52:33 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:
On Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:41:52 -0600, the infamous Morris Dovey
scrawled the following:

Larry Jaques wrote:

So, how much would it cost (and how large would the fluidyne system
be) to provide hydroelectric power to run one house, say, a little one
on the prairie?

I've been keeping my focus on small-scale water pumping because that's
currently the greatest need, and only recently came up with a
single-piston design

see http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/...g/5mPump2.html

that /might/ be adequate to the task of direct power production if used
to drive a small linear alternator for charging batteries for a "little
house on the prairie". Cost (not price) of the engine and parabolic
trough collector could be less than US$1K. I have no idea what cost a
linear alternator, charge controller, battery bank, and inverter might add.

A grand? What volume of pump are we talkin' here, Mo?

My crystal ball says somewhere between 2 and 3 HP. Note that if we're
driving an alternator, we're not pumping.

Um, my crystal ball says we need to know what volume the pump is so we
know what volume of tank to build and what kind of refill time it will
take, knowwhatImean,Vern?


The cost of the engine itself will probably be in the $250 ballpark and
the trough, polar mount, and tracking system would probably work out
somewhere between $400 and $750 depending on design choices.

OK.


The 4"/100mm bore PVC pump engine being developed appears to be
something that can be user-built for under $100 worth of commonly
available materials - and the pumped volume will depend on size of
collector and height the water is raised. I'm shooting for somewhere
near 1000 gal/hour as a minimal-lift irrigation pump - but note that
this isn't really very much water when you consider hydro-electric systems.

True. That's 16.67 gal/min.


If you really have your sights locked onto a micro-pumped-hydro setup,
then you'll also have pumping losses raising the water to storage and
turbine losses at generation.

Nah, I was just curious and thought you had researched it in much more
detail. I was looking for the Cliff's Notes version, mon.

--
When we are planning for posterity,
we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine

Larry Jaques wrote:

Nah, I was just curious and thought you had researched it in much more
detail. I was looking for the Cliff's Notes version, mon.

Then you'll need to wait a bit longer until the first one is running
halfway well. There are volunteer teams on five continents working to
make that happen.

You can read the closest thing there is to the Cliff's Notes version at

http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/Projects/.../TM-10475.html

but I haven't seen any evidence that the author ever built one of these
pumps, knew anyone who did, or ever even saw a fluidyne engine larger
than toy size...

--
Morris Dovey
DeSoto Solar
DeSoto, Iowa USA
http://www.iedu.com/DeSoto/