Paul Baker said...
Pretty much the only waste produced from the entire operation (besides some CO2 emissions·which are in part reclaimed by the corn growing)·is the portion of pigs that is not used by the slaughterhouse, and one day even that may be used in the new process of turning biomass into petroleum oil (high pressure, high heat, replicating in a few hours what takes 100s of thousands of years for nature to do), this process is already being done next to a turkey processing plant where all unused portions of the turkey are turned into oil.
Here in Norway we already have some·busses running on the output of such treatment plants, and the drivers claims that it gives the machines a little bit more 'zip' then when using diesel...
It was mentioned in the newspapers as we recently had a problem with (suspicions of)E.Coli infected meat-products and instead of conventional destruction-methods, the meat-products was sent to one of those plants.
BTW: pjv, 5000C IS the surface-temperature of the Sun...
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pjv,
I really was unaware of the 14% limitation on solar panels. That really sinks the ship before it sets sail. I obviously was presuming they produce something far closer to 100% as the starting point. It is quite remarkable that they are used in space stations.
Burning anything in a stove sends 30-70% of the thermal energy up the flue. I lived solely on wood heat for a decade in Oregon. Doesn't matter if it is coal, oil, wood, hydrogen, ethanol, methanol, or whatever.
All electric is by far the most convienent forms of conversion to heat. You can toggle it on and off as you like and there is much less loss [noparse][[/noparse]mainly resistance in the power transmission lines].
The 'heat pump' is quite popular because it can both heat and cool, but I suspect it is less efficent for heating than electric radiation.
Of course, a small thermo-nuclear pile in your basement could do the trick. Just have it heat water and put radiators in all the rooms. It looks like we will never be independent of the power company.
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
The 'heat pump' is quite popular because it can both heat and cool, but I suspect it is less efficent for heating than electric radiation.
No.
The heat-pumps only use electricity to transport the heat, and are VERY efficient.
Estimates is that a $2000 heat-pump is earned back in 4 - 5 years here in Norway.
(That is compared to using normal electric heaters)
Of course, if the temperature drops much below -15C they lose efficiency, but some are better than electric heaters even at -30C.
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dechief, sorry this thread doesn't seem to be staying in the direction you want. I have been looking into this subject alot, and hydrogen is just not a very good storage mechanism for energy. Given the equipment and energy required to properly store the material, you get a really horrible energy in to energy out ratio. And this isnt considering the inefficiencies of aquiring the energy (solar panels), or reclaiming the energy as heat.
It really seems that the future lies in simple hydrocarbons (ethanol, methanol, butanol), in thier natural state (room temperature and pressure) they are in liquid form making thier storage and transportation inherently easier and safer (though there are still problems with high concentration ethanol). And thier energy density is astronomically better. Natural gas and coal (of which there are still vast untapped reserves of) are easily converted into methanol, making coal a much cleaner energy and much easier and safer to transport than·liquified natural gas. Methanol and butanol can be dispensed in pre-existing petrol pumps with little to no modifications nessesary. Simple hydrocarbons can be aquired from both directions, either through conversion of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) or created from simpler elements through the process of fementation. The newest generation of fuel cells are being designed around ethanol and methanol and can be made to be regenerative (two way process, use fuel to create electricity or use electricity to create fuel). Also fuel cells can reduce the inefficiencies of burning fuel by keeping the system electrical. From what Ive been seeing when the world switches to a hydrogen based economy, it may end up being hydrogen that is produced and consumed, but the means of transference from source to user will likely be simple hydrocarbons, and a portion of the market will be the direct production and direct consumption of simple hydrocarbons.
Oh btw, take heed in what pjv has said in this thread, he works closely with the energy industry and knows quite a bit about it.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 6:19:45 PM GMT
Yeah nothing is worse than having the cold side of your heat pump freeze over in ice during the winter. You can vent the hot side during summer no problem, but freeze up the cold side in winter and the whole thing stops working altogether until it melts (which can take a very long time unless you are willing to run the air conditioner in the dead of winter).
Do you know why there hasn't been a big push towards butanol? I can't see any reason why this isn't happening. Supposedly all of the following is true:
[*]butanol has a higher·octane fuel value·than·gasoline with increased low-end torque. [*]butanol can be produced for far less than fossil based vehicle fuels. [*]butanol dramatically reduces vehicular emissions. [*]butanol does not readily adsorb moisture, so is less affected by changes in the weather, unlike the combustion of pure ethanol, which requires engine and fuel system modifications.·Biodiesel gels at low temperatures, which requires fuel system modifications in cold climates, or blending with other fossil fuels (kerosene or #1 diesel). [*]100% Butanol can be utilized in normally·gasoline powered car without any modifications, producing similar milage preformace to gasoline and is less polluting (produces less·NOX pollutants), being produce from a biomass source there is no net·carbon dioxide·production. [*]butanol does not affect materials common to vehicular internal combustion engines.
So what am I missing, why aren't there companies out there making industrialized fermentation plants creating this stuff? Supposedly it costs around $0.40/gallon to manufacture, you could charge $1.50/gallon (300% profit) and not meet demand for the stuff. Plus you can·use whey, sugar, starch, lignin, cellulose and other biomass as the feeder fuel. Many things that fall into these catagories could be aquired from waste products or other low cost sources.
Using a 2 stage fementation process (first using·Clostridium tyrobutyricum, second using Clostridium acetobutylicum) a 42% conversion of energy is possible.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 7:34:39 PM GMT
The liquid in it has a freezing-point so low that when it freezes you'll be looking around to see where the man with horns and forked tail is standing...
And all condensate on it is warm, so runs off with no problem.
(Unless you have a long drainage-pipe, but then all bets are off.. )
Me?
I'm in the process of getting an apartment, and while the living-room and kitchen will be heated with a pump, the bedroom will have a conventional electric panel-oven. I will also get a modern wood-burning stove.
(building the powergrid here in Norway is expensive and difficult, and in very cold periods there may be usage-restrictions because the grid can't transfer enough power from one part of the country to another. And then there's the odd hurricane which may drop a tree or three on the lines... )
I wanted a ground-tap, but as the others in the complex can't look ahead, that would be too expensive.
(The developer is looking into making them an integral part of new projects)
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Hmm maybe I dont understand how heat pumps work, but I thought in order to produce heat, the cold side must become colder than the ambient air. If the temperature is near the dew point ice begins to form on the outside, and once that happens the thing just doesn't work. I have this happen several times a winter, in an impending storm the heat just stops blowing, only cool (not cold) air. The only thing that fixes the situation is turning it off for a while.
Howstuffworks confirms this: "Heat pumps can be extremely efficient in their use of energy. But one problem with most heat pumps is that the coils in the outside air collect ice. The heat pump has to melt this ice periodically, so it switches itself back to air conditioner mode to heat up the coils. To avoid pumping cold air into the house in air conditioner mode, the heat pump also lights up burners or electric strip heaters to heat the cold air that the air conditioner is pumping out. Once the ice is melted, the heat pump switches back to heating mode and turns off the burners."
The Viginia winters cycle from being dry to wet, sometimes on a moments notice. Its during the wet winter periods this problem happens. I probably also have an older heat pump which doesn't have a burner or an inadequate one.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 7:40:15 PM GMT
The nice thing about heat pumps (when heat is the desired output) is that they can be thought of as more than 100% efficient. The work the pump is doing transfers heat from the source side, thereby cooling that, and dumping it at the destination side. So the work moves heat. Then, the inefficiency of the system mostly aslo manifests itself as heat, and thus adds to the heat transferred, provided the device is located in the area where the heat is destined.
For cooling purposes one would not like this pump inefficiency waste heat to show up in the area being cooled. A bit of a dilemma, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
Paul.... as far as butanol is concerned, I know nothing of it. I do know that butane in petroleum sources exist only in trace quantities, but even then are worthwhile stripping out because of the high price commanded by them.
Personally, I'm contemplating a relatively simple cooling system for a lakefront cottage intend to build. Since I'm right on the water, I plan to submerse a cooling loop into the lake water, and simply pumping that through a heat exchanger to cool the dwelling in the summer.
I will also consider running a heat-pump inside to pull heat out of the lake in the winter time. It all depends on prevailing energy prices.
Furthermore, I've been experimenting with thermal siphons to transfer heat from one place to another. One particular commercial unit I bought (an evacuated glass tube with a solar heat collector and a contained transfer fluid inside) worked pretty well. The result was a bit less than 50 watts of heat out of 4 cm by 120 cm. with a pretty bright sun. So in round numbers that's 1 watt per 10 sq cm. The neat thing was the output temperature was about 350F as I recall..... plenty to boil water..... make steam....... hmm.
Problem is that it cost about $100 for the one tube; $2 per watt. So I designed my own, and hope to make one soon. Assuming some production scaling efficiencies, I believe I could cover the roof of that cottage, say 1500 sq ft for five-ish dollars per square foot in materials. I'm hoping to hit a bare target of 5 cents per watt, although I'd still be very happy with 10 cents. Labor of course is free.
Trouble is, this only works when the sun is shining, so need to figure a practical way to store large quantities of heat while its available.
At this point generating electricity from that heat and rotating the power meter backwards has only just been little more than a fleeting thought, but........
Butanol is the alcohol form of butane, as ethanol is the alcohol form of ethane, basically one of the hydrogen is replaced by a hydroxide (OH-) (oxygenate). Everyone talks about ethanol, but it seems that butanol is a more viable near-term solution, with methanol as a better long-term solution, oh well.
Here's the website for the company which owns the patent on the two step fermentation process I mentioned: http://www.butanol.com/
Even considering it's likely market-hyped, its still sounds promising.
Ok, after looking into thier site, thier quoted cost/gallon ($1.20/gallon in manufacturing cost) was way off what I thought. Still too exensive for commercial viability, maybe it was methanol that was 40 cents/gallon, sigh.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 9:39:05 PM GMT
Ok dechief, found some stuff youd be interested in. The entries to the 2005 solar decathalon, of particular intrest to you would be NYIT's entry: http://iris.nyit.edu/solardecathlon/·(uses solar to produce hydrogren which is·reclaimed as electricity via fuel cell)
and Rhode Island School of design http://solar.risd.edu/index.html·(used phase change cells to store thermal energy, which is evidently a very efficient short term storage mechanism)
The world will continue to need free roaming vehicles, even if we run out of crude oil. Butane, propane, and similar hydrocarbons will likely take over from traditional gasoline in the long run. In many ways, it is an extreme waste to use natural gas deposits for uses other than transportation.
Though the conversion from water to fuel is extremely efficient, Hydrogen fails as a fuel due the smallness of the molecule and the amount of effort to compress it into a small package.
Gasoline apparently was a fortunate discovery as it changes from a liquid state to gas state within the range of engine temperatures and requires no compression for storage. Other fuels work with a deisel engine. Deisel provides better economy if constant torque is useful. Thermodynamic combustion engines seem to provide the best for small mobile engines [noparse][[/noparse]land transportation] that is not on a regular circuit, though fuel cells have begun to enter the picture.
So, having made those observerations,
the next generation of fuels seem to still require the ability to package a lot of energy in a Hydrocarbon that is liquid at normal temperatures or requires mild compression to make it so. The phase change from gas to liquid offers a bonus in compact fuel storage and convienent transfer. But when the required pressure is too high or the molecule too small, storage becomes problematic. Alcohols seem to have negative storage attributes as they are corrosive to plastics and metals.
There has been some recent mention in the local newpapers of mining a crystalized methane gas that has precipitated to the bottom of the world's oceans. In Southeast Asia, the shallow oceans offer greater access [noparse][[/noparse]if this is a real resource]. Apparently as it is brought to the surface it melts and vaporizes into a gas, so attempts are being made to package it under pressure before bringing to the surface. That would eliminate a lot of double handling. It seems to be less polluting that oil or coal.
For stationary energy requirments, nuclear power in the form of Plutonium offers potential electrical power for a millenium or two. Hydroelectric seems to have only centuries of useful life. But, the problem remains that Plutonium is highly toxic and has a huge half-life. Once produced, it remains with us for tens of thousands of years. Since U238 is 99% of all uranium and not really useful reactor fuel, it needs to be converted to P239 in a intense nuclear reaction. The 1% of U235 will seed the process, but not sustain a nuclear energy economy for more than a century or so. The USA already has had this all worked out for decades and I suspect that the majority of the nuclear weapons arsenal is Plutonium that can easily be converted to peaceful energy production as required whenever the world is safe enough to accept the responsiblity.
So, hopefully this is all about beating swords into plowshares.
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
The 'heat pump' is quite popular because it can both heat and cool, but I suspect it is less efficent for heating than electric radiation.
No.
The heat-pumps only use electricity to transport the heat, and are VERY efficient.
Estimates is that a $2000 heat-pump is earned back in 4 - 5 years here in Norway.
(That is compared to using normal electric heaters)
Of course, if the temperature drops much below -15C they lose efficiency, but some are better than electric heaters even at -30C.
We were looking at ground source heat pumps at work and the costs were staggering!
Granted, we have a lot of square footage to heat/cool, but the cost of install was WAY more than the cost of product!
Also, the amount of piping that would've been needed to retrofit our building was looking to be quite ugly.· Luckily the funding fell through before we got stuck with it.
All this was a gov't project to "green" some gov't buildings.· We were going to be a guinea pig....they actually wanted to transplant 'greenery', that was lost from the square footage of the building, and put it on the roof!· Our building wasn't designed for it and they were looking at some big $$'s to reinforce the roofing to hold the weight.
Such green things are fantastic ideas, but have to be worked in to new plans as not all existing structures can be adequately modified.
Ah well....move to some geothermal rift area!
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Steve "Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
We were looking at ground source heat pumps at work and the costs were staggering!
Granted, we have a lot of square footage to heat/cool, but the cost of install was WAY more than the cost of product!
Also, the amount of piping that would've been needed to retrofit our building was looking to be quite ugly. Luckily the funding fell through before we got stuck with it.
Yes, those ARE expensive.
I've heard quotes of up to $15.000 just to drill the hole.
If the building already has a water-based heat-distribution system it isn't too costly to retrofit, but if not...
It's also OK for new buildings as the pipes and radiators can be fitted during building-time, and therefore won't cost too much.
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Gadgetman,
Did you say in the above thread that the heat pumps were more than 100% efficent? Wouldn't that be perpetual motion?
When I studied for my engineerign license exam, the basic premise is nothing is 100% efficient. And the more changes in mode, the more you loose.
So 90% x 90% = 81% and so on....
That is why I was so firm about direct solar gain.
I realize Norway and the rest of the Scandinavian countries have special requirements and a special environment. I read somewhere that up to 75% of the population actually lives under ground for a considerable portion of the year. Brrrrrr.......
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
No, they are not more than 100% efficient, if you look at all the energy inputs...
It's just that ONE of the inputs is free.
(They still haven't managed to find a way to tax you on outdoor temperature... )
The Electricity is only used to transport the heat(fans/pumps) and in extreme cases, to defrost the outside element.
And that is why you can get a heat-output equivalent of 2000W from a unit that only uses 500 - 750W.
Underground?
Where did you read that nonsense?
As for temperatures, we have it all...
35C in the shade in the summer(yes, it has happened. We really get to see the sun sometimes)
-35 in the winter...
Wet climate along the coast, dry in the interior, blizzards, hurricanes...
I've never seen hail get bigger than about .3" or so, though...
In Bergen(A city along the coast) it rains about 2 out of every three days.
Fun things happens when the Atlantic ocean is your next-door neightbour.
(And with the gulf-stream to heat the ocean enough to give us ice-free harbours...)
The midnight sun...
Very nice for the tourists, but I need it cool and dark to sleep...
(Where I live it's under the horizon for about two hours at midsummer, but it's still not dark.)
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Wow!· This is one of the best threads ever.· However, being simple minded myself and not being an engineer or scientist, I don't really follow it all.· It does seem to me though that this thread doesn't even approach the original question.· I think that was something like "Can I use a Basic Stamp to follow the sun?"
Being simple minded, I just looked at that question and did a little research.· Of course the answer is YES and here's how I would approach the problem.
Look on page 208 for a circuit that uses a photo resister to measure light.· That section also has sample code.
I think I'd use one of these circuits to just detect when there is enough light to make it worth moving the solar cells.
I'd use 3 of these circuits such that the 3 photo resistors are horizonal (East/West) and close together.
I'd cover that with a box with a vertical slit that would project a North/South line of light and I'd write a program that would move the panels East/West until the brightest light is on the center photo resistor.· I'd hold that position until one of the side·PRs reached·a certain percentage of the center PR (that could be 100% or more based on experiment).· At that point, I'd recenter.
If I wanted to center North/South, I'd copy the above but turn it 90 degrees.
If I wanted to reset to east every night, I'd use one of those lamp timers modified to set one pin of the stamp to high once a day and I'd use that signal to reset to the east.
Someone may have addressed this in the volumes of material I could understand or haven't read yet.· If so, I'm sorry.· Keep us informed.
Actually, the original question was about using a BS2 to contol Solar panels and using the electricity to produce liquid Hydrogen, which would be stored and used in the winter to heat a house...
(I worked with LOX and highly compressed(350Athmospheres) Oxygen in the RNoAF, and well... I won't go near a house heated that way. )
I believe that idea was shot down pretty quickly...
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dechief michel said...
The STAMP will have to direct the sensors towards the sun and to manage all the processus(controle boiler and storage of liquid gas).
I guess you're right and I just got distracted by the later post.
Could a stamp store a lookup table with that much data?· Maybe it could use a small amount of data and some calculations and then a good clock.· It would be interesting to try.
The sun moves at a fixed 15degrees/hour across the sky, so that makes it easy to calculate the east/west position.
The Up/down posision is best handled by using an axle that is aligned with the Earth's axle.
Then you only have to deal with the minor adjustments up/down from day to day, and well...
As long as you're within a degree or so of target, I doubt it matters that much, so it shouldn't take a very large table for that, either. (It probably won't need adjustment more than once or twice a week)
So, yes, the BS2 should be capable of handling this.
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After going to the website that Beau listed above,I found in their index the subject of self sustaining permanent magnet motors and generators.Thinking of a way to use the energy inherent in magnets is a fascinating subject in itself.Surely someone out there has figured out how to utilize the powerful flux lines to generate current more efficently than we presently use.
Comments
It was mentioned in the newspapers as we recently had a problem with (suspicions of)E.Coli infected meat-products and instead of conventional destruction-methods, the meat-products was sent to one of those plants.
BTW: pjv, 5000C IS the surface-temperature of the Sun...
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I really was unaware of the 14% limitation on solar panels. That really sinks the ship before it sets sail. I obviously was presuming they produce something far closer to 100% as the starting point. It is quite remarkable that they are used in space stations.
Burning anything in a stove sends 30-70% of the thermal energy up the flue. I lived solely on wood heat for a decade in Oregon. Doesn't matter if it is coal, oil, wood, hydrogen, ethanol, methanol, or whatever.
All electric is by far the most convienent forms of conversion to heat. You can toggle it on and off as you like and there is much less loss [noparse][[/noparse]mainly resistance in the power transmission lines].
The 'heat pump' is quite popular because it can both heat and cool, but I suspect it is less efficent for heating than electric radiation.
Of course, a small thermo-nuclear pile in your basement could do the trick. Just have it heat water and put radiators in all the rooms. It looks like we will never be independent of the power company.
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
No.
The heat-pumps only use electricity to transport the heat, and are VERY efficient.
Estimates is that a $2000 heat-pump is earned back in 4 - 5 years here in Norway.
(That is compared to using normal electric heaters)
Of course, if the temperature drops much below -15C they lose efficiency, but some are better than electric heaters even at -30C.
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It really seems that the future lies in simple hydrocarbons (ethanol, methanol, butanol), in thier natural state (room temperature and pressure) they are in liquid form making thier storage and transportation inherently easier and safer (though there are still problems with high concentration ethanol). And thier energy density is astronomically better. Natural gas and coal (of which there are still vast untapped reserves of) are easily converted into methanol, making coal a much cleaner energy and much easier and safer to transport than·liquified natural gas. Methanol and butanol can be dispensed in pre-existing petrol pumps with little to no modifications nessesary. Simple hydrocarbons can be aquired from both directions, either through conversion of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas, coal) or created from simpler elements through the process of fementation. The newest generation of fuel cells are being designed around ethanol and methanol and can be made to be regenerative (two way process, use fuel to create electricity or use electricity to create fuel). Also fuel cells can reduce the inefficiencies of burning fuel by keeping the system electrical. From what Ive been seeing when the world switches to a hydrogen based economy, it may end up being hydrogen that is produced and consumed, but the means of transference from source to user will likely be simple hydrocarbons, and a portion of the market will be the direct production and direct consumption of simple hydrocarbons.
Oh btw, take heed in what pjv has said in this thread, he works closely with the energy industry and knows quite a bit about it.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 6:19:45 PM GMT
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Do you know why there hasn't been a big push towards butanol? I can't see any reason why this isn't happening. Supposedly all of the following is true:
[*]butanol has a higher·octane fuel value·than·gasoline with increased low-end torque. [*]butanol can be produced for far less than fossil based vehicle fuels. [*]butanol dramatically reduces vehicular emissions. [*]butanol does not readily adsorb moisture, so is less affected by changes in the weather, unlike the combustion of pure ethanol, which requires engine and fuel system modifications.·Biodiesel gels at low temperatures, which requires fuel system modifications in cold climates, or blending with other fossil fuels (kerosene or #1 diesel). [*]100% Butanol can be utilized in normally·gasoline powered car without any modifications, producing similar milage preformace to gasoline and is less polluting (produces less·NOX pollutants), being produce from a biomass source there is no net·carbon dioxide·production. [*]butanol does not affect materials common to vehicular internal combustion engines.
So what am I missing, why aren't there companies out there making industrialized fermentation plants creating this stuff? Supposedly it costs around $0.40/gallon to manufacture, you could charge $1.50/gallon (300% profit) and not meet demand for the stuff. Plus you can·use whey, sugar, starch, lignin, cellulose and other biomass as the feeder fuel. Many things that fall into these catagories could be aquired from waste products or other low cost sources.
Using a 2 stage fementation process (first using·Clostridium tyrobutyricum, second using Clostridium acetobutylicum) a 42% conversion of energy is possible.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 7:34:39 PM GMT
How?
The liquid in it has a freezing-point so low that when it freezes you'll be looking around to see where the man with horns and forked tail is standing...
And all condensate on it is warm, so runs off with no problem.
(Unless you have a long drainage-pipe, but then all bets are off.. )
Me?
I'm in the process of getting an apartment, and while the living-room and kitchen will be heated with a pump, the bedroom will have a conventional electric panel-oven. I will also get a modern wood-burning stove.
(building the powergrid here in Norway is expensive and difficult, and in very cold periods there may be usage-restrictions because the grid can't transfer enough power from one part of the country to another. And then there's the odd hurricane which may drop a tree or three on the lines... )
I wanted a ground-tap, but as the others in the complex can't look ahead, that would be too expensive.
(The developer is looking into making them an integral part of new projects)
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Howstuffworks confirms this: "Heat pumps can be extremely efficient in their use of energy. But one problem with most heat pumps is that the coils in the outside air collect ice. The heat pump has to melt this ice periodically, so it switches itself back to air conditioner mode to heat up the coils. To avoid pumping cold air into the house in air conditioner mode, the heat pump also lights up burners or electric strip heaters to heat the cold air that the air conditioner is pumping out. Once the ice is melted, the heat pump switches back to heating mode and turns off the burners."
The Viginia winters cycle from being dry to wet, sometimes on a moments notice. Its during the wet winter periods this problem happens. I probably also have an older heat pump which doesn't have a burner or an inadequate one.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 7:40:15 PM GMT
The nice thing about heat pumps (when heat is the desired output) is that they can be thought of as more than 100% efficient. The work the pump is doing transfers heat from the source side, thereby cooling that, and dumping it at the destination side. So the work moves heat. Then, the inefficiency of the system mostly aslo manifests itself as heat, and thus adds to the heat transferred, provided the device is located in the area where the heat is destined.
For cooling purposes one would not like this pump inefficiency waste heat to show up in the area being cooled. A bit of a dilemma, depending on what you're trying to accomplish.
Paul.... as far as butanol is concerned, I know nothing of it. I do know that butane in petroleum sources exist only in trace quantities, but even then are worthwhile stripping out because of the high price commanded by them.
Personally, I'm contemplating a relatively simple cooling system for a lakefront cottage intend to build. Since I'm right on the water, I plan to submerse a cooling loop into the lake water, and simply pumping that through a heat exchanger to cool the dwelling in the summer.
I will also consider running a heat-pump inside to pull heat out of the lake in the winter time. It all depends on prevailing energy prices.
Furthermore, I've been experimenting with thermal siphons to transfer heat from one place to another. One particular commercial unit I bought (an evacuated glass tube with a solar heat collector and a contained transfer fluid inside) worked pretty well. The result was a bit less than 50 watts of heat out of 4 cm by 120 cm. with a pretty bright sun. So in round numbers that's 1 watt per 10 sq cm. The neat thing was the output temperature was about 350F as I recall..... plenty to boil water..... make steam....... hmm.
Problem is that it cost about $100 for the one tube; $2 per watt. So I designed my own, and hope to make one soon. Assuming some production scaling efficiencies, I believe I could cover the roof of that cottage, say 1500 sq ft for five-ish dollars per square foot in materials. I'm hoping to hit a bare target of 5 cents per watt, although I'd still be very happy with 10 cents. Labor of course is free.
Trouble is, this only works when the sun is shining, so need to figure a practical way to store large quantities of heat while its available.
At this point generating electricity from that heat and rotating the power meter backwards has only just been little more than a fleeting thought, but........
Cheers,
Peter (pjv)
Here's the website for the company which owns the patent on the two step fermentation process I mentioned: http://www.butanol.com/
Even considering it's likely market-hyped, its still sounds promising.
Ok, after looking into thier site, thier quoted cost/gallon ($1.20/gallon in manufacturing cost) was way off what I thought. Still too exensive for commercial viability, maybe it was methanol that was 40 cents/gallon, sigh.
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Post Edited (Paul Baker) : 5/2/2006 9:39:05 PM GMT
and Rhode Island School of design http://solar.risd.edu/index.html·(used phase change cells to store thermal energy, which is evidently a very efficient short term storage mechanism)
Heres the DOE website which highlights all the entries: http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar_decathlon/
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Though the conversion from water to fuel is extremely efficient, Hydrogen fails as a fuel due the smallness of the molecule and the amount of effort to compress it into a small package.
Gasoline apparently was a fortunate discovery as it changes from a liquid state to gas state within the range of engine temperatures and requires no compression for storage. Other fuels work with a deisel engine. Deisel provides better economy if constant torque is useful. Thermodynamic combustion engines seem to provide the best for small mobile engines [noparse][[/noparse]land transportation] that is not on a regular circuit, though fuel cells have begun to enter the picture.
So, having made those observerations,
the next generation of fuels seem to still require the ability to package a lot of energy in a Hydrocarbon that is liquid at normal temperatures or requires mild compression to make it so. The phase change from gas to liquid offers a bonus in compact fuel storage and convienent transfer. But when the required pressure is too high or the molecule too small, storage becomes problematic. Alcohols seem to have negative storage attributes as they are corrosive to plastics and metals.
There has been some recent mention in the local newpapers of mining a crystalized methane gas that has precipitated to the bottom of the world's oceans. In Southeast Asia, the shallow oceans offer greater access [noparse][[/noparse]if this is a real resource]. Apparently as it is brought to the surface it melts and vaporizes into a gas, so attempts are being made to package it under pressure before bringing to the surface. That would eliminate a lot of double handling. It seems to be less polluting that oil or coal.
For stationary energy requirments, nuclear power in the form of Plutonium offers potential electrical power for a millenium or two. Hydroelectric seems to have only centuries of useful life. But, the problem remains that Plutonium is highly toxic and has a huge half-life. Once produced, it remains with us for tens of thousands of years. Since U238 is 99% of all uranium and not really useful reactor fuel, it needs to be converted to P239 in a intense nuclear reaction. The 1% of U235 will seed the process, but not sustain a nuclear energy economy for more than a century or so. The USA already has had this all worked out for decades and I suspect that the majority of the nuclear weapons arsenal is Plutonium that can easily be converted to peaceful energy production as required whenever the world is safe enough to accept the responsiblity.
So, hopefully this is all about beating swords into plowshares.
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
Granted, we have a lot of square footage to heat/cool, but the cost of install was WAY more than the cost of product!
Also, the amount of piping that would've been needed to retrofit our building was looking to be quite ugly.· Luckily the funding fell through before we got stuck with it.
All this was a gov't project to "green" some gov't buildings.· We were going to be a guinea pig....they actually wanted to transplant 'greenery', that was lost from the square footage of the building, and put it on the roof!· Our building wasn't designed for it and they were looking at some big $$'s to reinforce the roofing to hold the weight.
Such green things are fantastic ideas, but have to be worked in to new plans as not all existing structures can be adequately modified.
Ah well....move to some geothermal rift area!
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·
Steve
"Inside each and every one of us is our one, true authentic swing. Something we was born with. Something that's ours and ours alone. Something that can't be learned... something that's got to be remembered."
It is my favorite place to see how emerging technology actually works.
http://www.uspto.gov/patft/
you will need to download a TIFF imager to view the scans of the patent applications.
see How to Access and View Full-Page Images
I would search Hydrogen in the Title - Maybe solar ....
Yes, those ARE expensive.
I've heard quotes of up to $15.000 just to drill the hole.
If the building already has a water-based heat-distribution system it isn't too costly to retrofit, but if not...
It's also OK for new buildings as the pipes and radiators can be fitted during building-time, and therefore won't cost too much.
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Did you say in the above thread that the heat pumps were more than 100% efficent? Wouldn't that be perpetual motion?
When I studied for my engineerign license exam, the basic premise is nothing is 100% efficient. And the more changes in mode, the more you loose.
So 90% x 90% = 81% and so on....
That is why I was so firm about direct solar gain.
I realize Norway and the rest of the Scandinavian countries have special requirements and a special environment. I read somewhere that up to 75% of the population actually lives under ground for a considerable portion of the year. Brrrrrr.......
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"When all think alike, no one is thinking very much.' - Walter Lippmann (1889-1974)
······································································ Warm regards,····· G. Herzog [noparse][[/noparse]·黃鶴 ]·in Taiwan
It's just that ONE of the inputs is free.
(They still haven't managed to find a way to tax you on outdoor temperature... )
The Electricity is only used to transport the heat(fans/pumps) and in extreme cases, to defrost the outside element.
And that is why you can get a heat-output equivalent of 2000W from a unit that only uses 500 - 750W.
Underground?
Where did you read that nonsense?
As for temperatures, we have it all...
35C in the shade in the summer(yes, it has happened. We really get to see the sun sometimes)
-35 in the winter...
Wet climate along the coast, dry in the interior, blizzards, hurricanes...
I've never seen hail get bigger than about .3" or so, though...
In Bergen(A city along the coast) it rains about 2 out of every three days.
Fun things happens when the Atlantic ocean is your next-door neightbour.
(And with the gulf-stream to heat the ocean enough to give us ice-free harbours...)
The midnight sun...
Very nice for the tourists, but I need it cool and dark to sleep...
(Where I live it's under the horizon for about two hours at midsummer, but it's still not dark.)
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Being simple minded, I just looked at that question and did a little research.· Of course the answer is YES and here's how I would approach the problem.
Someone may have addressed this in the volumes of material I could understand or haven't read yet.· If so, I'm sorry.· Keep us informed.
(I worked with LOX and highly compressed(350Athmospheres) Oxygen in the RNoAF, and well... I won't go near a house heated that way. )
I believe that idea was shot down pretty quickly...
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Seems a look-up table would· be the best way to move the panel.· That way if you get cloud cover - your sensor isn't "searching" for the sun.
The Up/down posision is best handled by using an axle that is aligned with the Earth's axle.
Then you only have to deal with the minor adjustments up/down from day to day, and well...
As long as you're within a degree or so of target, I doubt it matters that much, so it shouldn't take a very large table for that, either. (It probably won't need adjustment more than once or twice a week)
So, yes, the BS2 should be capable of handling this.
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Don't visit my new website...
Jim Richey
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Thanks, Parallax!
Just wish to make something very clear....... there is no "inherent energy" of any sort in magnets of any kind.
Cheers,
Peter (pjv)