New Mars Forums

SpaceNut,
Wow, yes I can see why you are looking for a way to reduce electricity costs. Looking at your numbers I can see you're paying 22 to 23 cents per kilowatt. I guess I'm spoiled by living here in the midwest. Per the link below, the average cost per kilowatt in Kansas was 13 cents in 2021. This year it's 15 cents. Up 14%. The states surrounding Kansas are Missouri 14 cents, Oklahoma 13 cents, Colorado 15 cents, Nebraska 12 cents. The link below shows your surrounding states Maine at 23 cents, Vermont 20 cents, and Massachusetts at 24 cents.

Electric rates by state

Your artesian well sounds interesting. Being that deep (280 ft) the water in the well should be relatively warm year round. I wonder if there is some way to hook up a geothermal heat pump to it? I did a quick Internet search and came up with the link below. One of the problems with using well water with a heat pump is that you'd have to run the well pump which would cut into your savings. What are you using for heat?

How Does a Water-Source Heat Pump Work?

Tahanson43206/SpaceNut,
Hello gentleman, good to see you again, as well as everyone else (Greetings Caliban). I got very busy right after I started to post, then Covid hit and I got double busy. I work for an aerospace company in the Kansas City metro area. When Covid hit we had many layoffs. I'm lucky to still have a job, I'm not complaining, but when co-workers were laid off the rest of us had to fill the giant void left behind.

As far as my background/interest, I have a BS in electrical engineering from Kansas State. My first job out of college I moved out of State and worked for the Navy as a manufacturing engineer, working on aviation equipment. I've also worked in Cryogenics, Telecommunications, and the Wireless industry. I also have experience in agriculture and an interest in history. I try to do volunteer work when I can. Something I encourage everyone to do. When I moved back to my home State of Kansas, I had an aunt that volunteered at a history museum. The museum wasn't far from where my aunt lived, and I was asked if I could help with the model train at the museum. It didn't run and no one knew anything about electricity. I got the train going, and later designed and built some digital circuits that made lights blink, and built an intersection controller that kept two different trains from crashing. So I have some experience designing digital circuits and writing low level software (machine/assembler code). I'm not a rocket scientist. My interest is primarily on what to do when we get to Mars, not so much on how to get there. There are plenty of people a lot smarter than me that can figure that out.

I have a proposal on how to store energy on Mars. It's a long story. I'll need to draw some diagrams and write a lot of text. I'll work on getting it together and posting it on this forum. I might have to wait until Thanksgiving or Christmas break before I can get to it. I still work a lot of hours and it'll take some time for me to put the proposal together.

In the meantime, Tahanson43206 stated in #127

[highlight]It seems possible that SpaceNut's idea would be most productive, if the amount of material required is taken into account.[/highlight]

(I can't seem to get the "highlight" command to work. I'll leave it in so you can tell me what I'm doing wrong)
...

[highlight] If I understand SpaceNut's idea correctly, he is proposing to collect the maximum amount of electrical energy using the minimum amount of material and the least possible flow of water. [/highlight]

I have a suggestion. I don't know if it's any good, it's not the same as SpaceNut described, but I'll throw it out there anyway since my idea doesn't have very many parts. It sounds like you are trying to convert electrical energy into potential energy. Then at a later time, convert the potential energy back into electrical energy. Remember that energy is equal to force times distance. That is:

Energy = (Force) x (Distance)

A gallon of water weighs about 8 lbs. Suppose 8 lbs of water is raised 8 feet in the air. The amount of potential energy is equal to the force (8 lbs) times the distance (8 feet). The amount of water used could be cut in half, if the distance is doubled. That is to say, 4 lbs of water lifted to a height of 16 feet, has the same amount of potential energy as 8 lbs of water lifted to 8 feet.

Force x distance = ( 4 lbs ) x (16 feet ) = ( 8 lbs ) x ( 8 feet) = 64

The amount of water used could be cut in half again, if the distance is doubled again. For example, 2 lbs of water lifted to a height of 32 feet would have the same amount of potential energy as 8 lbs of water lifted to 8 feet.

Force x distance = ( 2 lbs ) x (32 feet ) = ( 4 lbs ) x (16 feet ) = ( 8 lbs ) x ( 8 feet) = 64

The takeaway is that the higher the water is lifted, the less water is needed to store a certain amount of energy. If a large amount of water is lifted, is does not have to be lifted very high to store the same amount of energy.

Comment #128 SpaceNut wrote:

[highlight] Water wheels and turbines in the dam or reservoir as well as the constant flowing stream is why there is no water as its not getting the assist of gravity over the slope as it's just a short fall is a very bloated system of power creation. [/highlight]

You are correct. Hoover Dam for example, is about 700 feet tall. Suppose the water level behind Hoover dam were 700 feet high. If 8 lbs of water were to pass through a turbine in the dam, the distance the water fell is 700 feet. Now suppose that the water level at Hoover dam has gotten down to just 100 feet high. If 8 lbs of water passed through a turbine, it will have only fell 100 feet, or one-seventh the distance.

Therefore only one-seventh as much energy (electricity) is being generated. There are a couple ways to look at this. In this scenario, for each gallon of water that passes through the dam, only one-seventh of the energy (electricity) is being generated when compared to the water level before (700 feet). Or to look at it another way, it takes seven times as much water (7 gallons instead of 1) passing through the turbines to generate the same amount electricity as was generated before. You can see how the low level of water at Hoover Dam is not only a water problem but is also causing an energy problem.

Here's my idea... In comment #113 SpaceNut posted a picture of a wooden tower (2nd picture). Suppose a water tank were placed at the top of this tower. I think an inexpensive submersible pump could be used to pump the water up to the tank.

I bought a submersible pump from Amazon about 15+ years ago. (The one I bought is no longer available, the link below is one similar to the one I bought). At the time my dad was having problems with water in his crawl space. I used the submersible pump to pump water out of his crawl space until I could get a sump pump installed. A few years later, I had a neighbor that was having some foundation work done. The foundation people had dug a trench about 3 feet deep and it a filled with water after a storm passed through. I thought I'd do my neighbor a favor and pump the water out for them. I used the submersible pump to pump water up to a PVC pipe, which I had propped up about 2 feet above the ground. I had several PVC pipes plugged in together, (About 8' lengths each), to let the water drain a long way from the trench. The water was being lifted about 5' total, and I was surprised at how fast the water ran out. It was about like having a garden hose with the water turned halfway up.

The link below is a pump similar to the one I have. Mine came with 3 different adapters, the adapter allows different size hoses to be used. One of my adapters allows a garden hose to be screwed onto the pump. The specs of the pump below has a "7.2 ft high lift". I'm pretty sure mine could lift water much higher than that. If you're willing to risk a few dollars on the pump, and assuming it has a garden hose adapter that comes with it, it would be easy enough to determine the pumps maximum lift height. Just screw a garden hose into the pump, drop the pump in a bucket of water, then climb a ladder with the other end of the hose to test how high you can get before the pump cannot pump water any higher.

Submersible pump for fountains   $20

If it turns out the pump can move water up high enough, the link below is to a generator that can make electricity when water is running the other way. I've never used one of these. I have no idea how well they work. It looks like a garden hose can screw on to the end of it. Although I was unable to verify that in the specs.

Water flow generator turbine   $12

Only one garden hose would be needed to move water up and down, to and from the water tank. A "Y-connector" could be put on the bottom of the hose. (See link below). One side of the "Y" would go to the pump, and the other "Y" would go to the generator. The "Y" can be switched to the pump side, or to the generator side. There would be some connections to figure out, but it looks do-able.

Hose splitter   $7

As far as a water tank is concerned, all you need is to build a wooden box on top the tower and insert a plastic liner. I know thick plastic liners are available at a reasonable price for building water fountains, or small ponds. Here is an example:

Pond Liner Pond Skins PVC for Ponds, Streams Fountains and Water Gardens,9.8ft x 9.8ft   $25

I'm not sure how much energy could be stored this way.
But this is the simplest solution I can think of at the moment.
I'm not advertising for Amazon.
I just used their web-site because it was convenient and they have pictures.
There are many places that sell the hardware I mentioned.
Good luck. I'll be posting more stuff later.

I thought I'd point out there is a paper in the Mars Society's Papers section about making concrete on Mars. The paper is written by Brandon Larson and Dr. David Naish. Brandon Larson did a presentation Concrete on Mars at the 15th Annual Mars Society Convention in 2012. His presentation can be seen on YouTube at the link below. In the paper and presentation, Brandon Larson mentions the problems with portland cement (As many of you have noted), and proposes using magnesium oxychloride cement instead. See the following links for more information:

MarsPapers
http://marspapers.org/#/
Click on Papers (Middle, toward the top)

Link to paper A Concrete For Construction on Mars (PDF Format)
(Category is MarsResources)
http://www.marspapers.org/paper/Larson_2012_pres.pdf

Presentation Concrete on Mars by Brandon Larson at the 15th Annual Mars Society Convention in 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmC3NZoiMzQ