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Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,433

Going Amish: Non-Electrical Power

The economy is an energy system, in which everything that humans consume as wealth, is the result of energy acting on matter.  Any consideration of how the human economy will develop in the future, is basically a discussion about energy flows.

It has become clear through our collective discussions on this forum, that a future based upon an electricity dominated energy system is unlikely to be sustainable.  This is especially the case for proposed energy transitions that combine extensive power generation from intermittent renewable energy sources with electrochemical battery electric energy storage for power buffering.  Our analyses here suggest that this development model places unprecedented demands upon the Earth's supply of rare metals.  In many cases, mining of metals such as copper and rare earths, would need to increase multiple times to accomodate the energy transition to a renewable-electric energy resource base.  Given the declining demographics and limitations to oil supplies in much of the world, this does not appear to be an achievable ambition.  It also fails to address the problems around oil depletion and greenhouse gas emissions, given the quantity of fossil fuel consumed in mining and materials processing.

Whilst electricity is the most appropriate power source for many applications, such as lighting, computing, aluminium and magnesium production; there are many applications that can avoid the use of electricity and consume energy in some other form.  This thread is raised to explore options for non-electrical energy delivery for suitable applications.  Some prospective non-electrical options for power transmission:

1) Pumped heat, via hot fluids.
2) Direct mechanical transmission.  This includes rotating shafts, linear rods, wire and rope drives.  Appropriate when power transmission distances are short.
3) Hydraulics.  The transmission of power through non-compressible liquids like water and oil.
4) Compressed gases, most commonly air.
5) Combined approaches.  Examples: (a) Pumped heat can provide a lot of the expansion energy for compressed air.  Adiabatic expansion from ambient temperature results in extremely cold air, because internal energy is converted into kinetic energy; (b) Energy transmission can use a train of processes in series.  For example, a wind engine could transmit power using a shaft or linear rod (attached to a crank) to a hydraulic pump at ground level.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-01-03 09:24:10)

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"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

tahanson43206

Moderator

Registered: 2018-04-27

Posts: 17,198

Re: Going Amish: Non-Electrical Power

For Calliban re new topic ....

Best wishes for success with this time honored approach to harnessing natural forces

You have already given us posts along these lines, in numerous topics.

This is a topic where all those posts can be collected, and (hopefully) other members will contribute as well

A **real** Amish person would be a valuable addition to this topic, but I'm assuming someone would have to act as an intermediary.

(th)

Calliban

Member

From: Northern England, UK

Registered: 2019-08-18

Posts: 3,433

Re: Going Amish: Non-Electrical Power

A complete transition to renewable energy is not compatible with the centralised urban way of life and living standards that we are accustomed to today. Renewable energy sources suffer from low power density and intermittency.

The abundance of wind and solar energy also vary considerably from place to place. In the UK, wind power is abundant enough to provide industrially useful quanties of power, at least some of the time. In Germany, it is not. Across most of eastern and central Europe, it is not. Texas is blessed with abundant sunshine. Scotland is not. Solar power could be used to generate electricity with a reasonable energy paybackntime in Texas. In Scotland, it cannot, because the resource isn’t there in the same abundance. Solar power is not a practical proposition for most of Europe outside of the mediterranean states.

Renewables suffer temporal as well as geographic variation. There are days in autumn, spring and winter, when the wind can provide a large fraction of the UKs power. There are periods lasting days or weeks, where it provides almost nothing due to ‘Dunkelflaute’. There are few if any technological solutions to this that don’t involve capital intensive redundancy. It is a limitation of the resource that has to be accepted. There will be days where you won’t have power.

None of this means that renewable energy cannot be part of the solution. But we cannot expect it to slot into a grid based energy system that was designed around centralised coal fired powerplants that can follow load. The sort of economy that RE will support will be different to what we have now.

Here is an example of a renewable powerplant that actually works. The link below is the wiki article on the Thelnetham windmill near Diss in Norfolk.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelnetham_Windmill
https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/5028370

The windmill was built in 1819 and was used to grind grain continuously for 105 years, before being abandoned in 1924. In 1979, it was restored by enthusiasts and has been grinding grain ever since. This device has stood for 205 years and has ground grain for 150 years. It may continue doing so for at least another century.

How does the windmill deal with the fact that windpower is only available in certain areas? Answer: It was built in an area where the wind was available.  The industry that uses the windpower moved to where the wind is available.

How does the windmill transmit power to distant consumers? Answer: It doesn’t because that would be stupid. Instead, the grain mill is built into the tower and powered by direct shaft power. We move the energy consuming activity to the source, rather than attempt to transmit power.

How does the windmill cope with the low energy density of the wind? Answer: It is made from low embodied energy materials, like brick, stone, wood and limited quanties of steel and cast iron. It contains no copper, or rare earth elements or aluminium. Just basic, highly abundant and recyclable materials. It lasts for centuries, so its already modest energy cost is amortised over a long period.

How does the windmill deal with the problem of intermittency? Answer: Work rate at any point in time, is proportional to the energy provided by the wind. There is no energy storage for low wind periods, because none is possible. The windmill works when wind is available. Its operators use duldrum periods to maintain equipment or take time off.

This gives us an idea of how a real renewable energy economy needs to work, at least in the UK. Our only abundant RE source is the wind. If we are to turn the UK into a wind powered economy, we must adapt that economy to the limitations of the resource. Trying to use storage, back up, electrification and long distance power transmission, is like trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. The wind can provide mechanical power for local power consumption, using very simple mechanical systems. I would be willing to bet that the future of renewable energy production looks a lot more like the Thelnetham windmill than the giant offshore steel structures that our politicians have in mind.

Last edited by Calliban (2024-01-03 17:03:47)

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"Plan and prepare for every possibility, and you will never act. It is nobler to have courage as we stumble into half the things we fear than to analyse every possible obstacle and begin nothing. Great things are achieved by embracing great dangers."

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 28,891

Re: Going Amish: Non-Electrical Power

I saw this article earlier in the workday but had to go find and its unique for sure.

Bill Gates-backed startup develops ‘HAWT’ turbines that reduce cost of wind power to new lows — here’s how they work

The startup’s unique wind power system — simply called AirLoom — comes in at just under $225,000 for a 2.5 MW system. It estimates an entire 20 MW AirLoom wind farm would cost less than $6 million — only about 25% of what conventional wind farms normally cost.

The cost savings can be attributed mostly to the AirLoom’s vastly smaller size and intuitive design that resembles a racetrack, with several 82-foot poles suspending the track in the air. A number of 33-foot blades, or wings, are placed evenly along the oval-shaped track, propelled by air currents to generate energy.

Standard “pinwheel” turbines reach staggering heights of 500 feet or more, with the average tower now more than 320 feet tall, holding up massive 210-plus-foot blades, per the U.S. Department of Energy.

Though the wings on the AirLoom are much smaller, they still could reportedly generate the same energy as HAWT blades in part due to generators connected to the system that spin at 5,000 RPM, compared to 12 RPM for traditional turbines, according to a video on the Airloom website.

https://airloomenergy.com/

Founded in 2020, the startup plans to use the $4 million it received in seed funding led by Bill Gates’ investment firm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, for the research and development of its 50 kW prototype.

In the future, Airloom aims to scale up the system, building tracks up to 1,300 feet long (per the website video) for 1 MW systems, and generating hundreds of megawatts in industrial-scale wind farms.

depending on flight paths of planes this might be a problem