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I just watched a video on how EV's will not be a green solution. The rage all the big engine manufacturers are starting to develop is......... HYDROGEN fueled engines. It is the likely source I will pursue for clean energy. It is quite simple, erect a windmill, get a source of water, build electro winning cell, capture and compress gas for storage. Apparently Hydrogen has the energy equivalent 1kg. Hydrogen to 1 gallon of diesel (3kg.) if I heard the engineer state it correctly. Imagine if a 10kw (household size) ran 24 hours a day. Yes I know, the wind doesn't always blow. But, no batteries = less pollution for environment, no scrapping problems, just a big old propane tank to fill up out of. You can use it to heat homes, power your car, equipment, generator, furnace, whatever. Then it converts back to water. No more rabid price increase from big oil, energy independence for all. with enough money for start up. Money to be made in the future is with a hill, and a water source.
 
Actually there is no real clean (no CO2) solution, at least while the human kind is not able to recycle, at very low cost, over 95% of a solar cell or whatever device able to generate electric current or voltage difference. This is the reason why nuclear energy (fission) is still in the game. Another solution could be genetically modified organisms that digest CO2 but i will not go in detail.
CO2 is not an harmful gas but absorbs some IR band , heating the atmosphere. It is strongly correlated with the current global warming together with the periodic temperature fluctuations that occur along long time interval (thousand of years)
 
Any draw backs to Hydrogen you can think of? Other then initial Carbon footprint for constructing such apparatus? Seems like it is considerably better than PVs. Still haven't ran the actual numbers yet, to see what the carbon footprint versus longevity , maintenance, and other hidden costs, etc.are.
 
goldshark said:
Any draw backs to Hydrogen you can think of? Other then initial Carbon footprint for constructing such apparatus? Seems like it is considerably better than PVs. Still haven't ran the actual numbers yet, to see what the carbon footprint versus longevity , maintenance, and other hidden costs, etc.are.
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Well you have to start with electricity to get Hydrogen.

And today's conversion factors are at best horrendous, I doubt one can reach much higher than 25% over all efficiency.

In the future though there are a lot of promising research going on.
They still have many of the same challenges, among them storage.
Hydrogen is a nightmare to store, if you don't go the cryogenic route, it will demand massive tanks for storing relatively little fuel.
Expensive at best.
One can go the ammonia route with its own issues like toxicity and corrosive properties.

Maybe in a not to distant future.
 
I would add to @Yggdrasil comment that hydrogen as energetic vector has also safety problems for obvious reasons
 
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The one advantage I can see right off, is the lack of need for a braking system to keep blades/rotors from over spinning in a high wind situation. Connect to a DC generator, doesn't need to sync with power grid, modulate to 50/60 hertz, could put electric cell close to generator so not much in way of conductor, etc. I am seeing a bunch of densely clustered wind mills using something like a Natural gas distribution line, connecting with either a large low pressure vessel, then a compressor when filling. The largest man made natural gas repository, is in Delta, Utah. They drilled into a large salt dome that formerly held natural gas. They then pump incoming NG back into the dome. At this site, they then have a cracker for separating the NG into Butane, Propane, Pentane, etc. There are a number of said facilities throughout the US, and many salt domes can be converted for such use, without much infrastructure change. A rail siding is connected to such sites for bulk distribution. Old large mines could be utilized as well. Just saying, Hydrogen will be the new fuel of the future. Windmills work at night, while PVs don't. Seems like a no brainer to me for electric production. All fuels have an inherent danger, we will have learn to deal with it, and the safety side will be part of the learning curve. I don't know if you've ever seen a Lithium battery fire. They are something to witness, and fight on the Firefighters side. Not as rapid burning as Hydrogen, but none the less, quite a bit of energy to deal with.
 
goldshark said:
The one advantage I can see right off, is the lack of need for a braking system to keep blades/rotors from over spinning in a high wind situation. Connect to a DC generator, doesn't need to sync with power grid, modulate to 50/60 hertz, could put electric cell close to generator so not much in way of conductor, etc. I am seeing a bunch of densely clustered wind mills using something like a Natural gas distribution line, connecting with either a large low pressure vessel, then a compressor when filling. The largest man made natural gas repository, is in Delta, Utah. They drilled into a large salt dome that formerly held natural gas. They then pump incoming NG back into the dome. At this site, they then have a cracker for separating the NG into Butane, Propane, Pentane, etc. There are a number of said facilities throughout the US, and many salt domes can be converted for such use, without much infrastructure change. A rail siding is connected to such sites for bulk distribution. Old large mines could be utilized as well. Just saying, Hydrogen will be the new fuel of the future. Windmills work at night, while PVs don't. Seems like a no brainer to me for electric production. All fuels have an inherent danger, we will have learn to deal with it, and the safety side will be part of the learning curve. I don't know if you've ever seen a Lithium battery fire. They are something to witness, and fight on the Firefighters side. Not as rapid burning as Hydrogen, but none the less, quite a bit of energy to deal with.
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There is world between Hydrogen and any other fuel gases.
Hydrogen will leak through pores too small for the other gases, and the only one worse is Helium which will leak straight through most materials.
Another thing is the energy density of Hydrogen, it is unpractical unless in liquid state or bound by other elements like Hydrides or Ammonia.
The ratio when Hydrogen is explosive is between 18% and 60% which is not too bad,
since it is so light it will in any open application dissipate long before the mix is explosive.
In cars, boats and planes the story is slightly different since the Hydrogen will be kept in closed spaces.

The draw backs of wind turbines is that they do not produce in high winds and low winds and they spread a significant amount of micro plastics from their blades. Besides being veritable slaughter machines for birds.
And I'm not convinced that braking it by putting a load on the turbine will let it continue production during high winds.
The dynamic forces can still be too much for the design.
If they want truly all weather turbines they need to have vertical rotors not horizontal as today.

Then there is electrical losses and electrolytic losses and so on.
In today's technology the usable rate is a round 25-30% ish which is worse than combustion engines.
Things are improving though.

For a proper transition we will need to learn how to coach bacteria and/or algae to do the conversion for us.
This is alredy done in small scale, but scaling up has so far (as always) been less than easy.
 
We have a lot of property on mountain tops. The wind frequently peaks at 100 + MPH. Way too much for a. standard horizontal shaft wind mill. I am thinking more along the lines of a horizontal shaft, but more like a Pelton wheel, or steamboat paddle. They could be installed at a ridge line, where ridge lift is most prevalent. Also the benefit of the winds predominating from a reliable direction, which is fairly constant (13,000 ft.) in elevation. Hence, the shaft does not need to rotate along its horizontal axis, due to the prevailing wind.
 
goldshark said:
We have a lot of property on mountain tops. The wind frequently peaks at 100 + MPH. Way too much for a. standard horizontal shaft wind mill. I am thinking more along the lines of a horizontal shaft, but more like a Pelton wheel, or steamboat paddle. They could be installed at a ridge line, where ridge lift is most prevalent. Also the benefit of the winds predominating from a reliable direction, which is fairly constant (13,000 ft.) in elevation. Hence, the shaft does not need to rotate along its horizontal axis, due to the prevailing wind.
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It is expensive (not economical) to design your own turbine, but there are many kinds available already.
 
goldshark said:
We have a lot of property on mountain tops. The wind frequently peaks at 100 + MPH. Way too much for a. standard horizontal shaft wind mill. I am thinking more along the lines of a horizontal shaft, but more like a Pelton wheel, or steamboat paddle. They could be installed at a ridge line, where ridge lift is most prevalent. Also the benefit of the winds predominating from a reliable direction, which is fairly constant (13,000 ft.) in elevation. Hence, the shaft does not need to rotate along its horizontal axis, due to the prevailing wind.
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Run horizontal giromills on the back of the mountain top out of the direct wind. The uplift eddies on the back will protect from shear winds
 
Darkthirty said:
mounted horizontally, the eddy current or uplift isn't as violent as straightline wind.
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Can't do that without a significant redesign of the bearings.
And vortices might need bespoked design for that particular position, depending local diameter and force.
Better put it in the direct wind.
Any vertical turbine will take stronger wind than these monster propellers of today, I believe.

But mirrors is a good idea if one have the opportunity and can design a practical system around it, with strict safety protocols of course.
 
Yggdrasil said:
Can't do that without a significant redesign of the bearings.
And vortices might need bespoked design for that particular position, depending local diameter and force.
Better put it in the direct wind.
Any vertical turbine will take stronger wind than these monster propellers of today, I believe.

But mirrors is a good idea if one have the opportunity and can design a practical system around it, with strict safety protocols of course.
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Agree on the vertical turbines. The pin wheels on a stick I got as a kid were better designed
 
Darkthirty said:
Agree on the vertical turbines. The pin wheels on a stick I got as a kid were better designed
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The bearings on vertical turbines are probably designed to take the axial forces from the weight and not very suited for the radial forces of a horisontal turbine.
 
Yggdrasil said:
The bearings on vertical turbines are probably designed to take the axial forces from the weight and not very suited for the radial forces of a horisontal turbine.
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Saw a heater fan that was a long squirrel cage type, moved a lot of air. Simplicity is the best, unless you can build a turbine the automatically trims the blades when wind gets high.
 
Darkthirty said:
Saw a heater fan that was a long squirrel cage type, moved a lot of air. Simplicity is the best, unless you can build a turbine the automatically trims the blades when wind gets high.
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Most AC/heater units have those.
No problem, but as far as I know you can not buy wind turbines like that.
Anyway the up/down draft behind a mountain rigde is easily exploited by the ordinary standing vertical turbines anyway.
You do not need to build/invent the wheel again.
 

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