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Pancake electricity for all!!!!!

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,738 ✭✭✭mawk


    braaaainns!!

    *shuffle slowly


    (though the field of microgeneration and renewable sources has certainly moved on a lot since 2006. I even built a wind turbine)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭gar32


    What book of web site did you use pleaase?

    Can small ones be made :)

    mawk wrote: »
    braaaainns!!

    *shuffle slowly


    (though the field of microgeneration and renewable sources has certainly moved on a lot since 2006. I even built a wind turbine)


  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    Solar / wind is OK for the small stuff

    but things with heaters and big motors need serious power
    - washing machines
    - vacuum cleaners
    - steam irons
    - microwave ovens
    - hair dryers
    - pumps for central heating

    It's hard to justify the resources needed to power them compared to connecting to the ESB.

    so check out if there is a local Laundrette if you want to go off-grid

    otherwise plan to invest as much in low power devices as you do in your solar panels / turbines / battery backup


  • Registered Users Posts: 373 ✭✭desertstorm


    If you're really interested in how to deal with energy problems, I really recommend reading this book

    http://www.withouthotair.com/

    you can either read it online for free from that website, or buy it

    Small scale windmills don't work, they were implemented in Japan in one city, but it wound up using more power than it made as the company that made them were so embarresed they started sending power to the turbines to make them look like they were turning

    PV isn't efficient or cost effective enough yet

    I pretty sure that the energy from your body idea won't become a reality any time soon

    I don't think small scale energy is a good idea at all, generally the bigger the better. Also if you wanted to develop wind or wave energy more to a point where it can meet our current demands, you'd have to go county/counties-sized

    Even going nuclear wouldn't be a total answer as nuclear power plants can't vary their outputs to keep up with the population's wildly varying power demands (energy storage systems like at Turlough Hill would have to be incorperated)

    Whatever the answer is, it's not going to be any one energy source.

    A much better aim is to change the way people use energy, it's crazy how much energy is dumped out of the average house for example.

    Definetly give that book a read, it's recommended reading for us students and it's probably the only one I've read the whole way through (also it's a pretty easy read!)

    Personally I'm waiting (a long time no doubt...) for the day DD fusion comes around


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭gar32




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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,129 ✭✭✭pljudge321


    Simple answer to the original OP's proposition.

    We could, it would just be massively expensive and less efficient.


  • Registered Users Posts: 12,948 ✭✭✭✭bnt


    I've been wondering about Combined Heat & Power (Cogeneration) for a while, and I've heard there are some working installations in Germany, for example. The basic idea is that you generate electricity from natural gas (usually) and feed it in the grid, with the waste heat from the process heating the house & water as normal.

    Looking at the big picture, I can see a much larger role for renewable energy, with fossil fuels & nuclear taking up the slack. The major criticism of renewables is that they're unreliable; the wind dies down, clouds cover the sun, and so on. But that's not a deal-breaker if you can vary the fossil fuel use to compensate, and have better control over loads (the "smart grid" idea). If renewables can meet 50% of the global energy requirements, we'd be doubling the life of the remaining non-renewables, and that's not to be sniffed at.

    From out there on the moon, international politics look so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles out and say, ‘Look at that, you son of a bitch’.

    — Edgar Mitchell, Apollo 14 Astronaut



  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,537 Mod ✭✭✭✭Capt'n Midnight


    bnt wrote: »
    I've been wondering about Combined Heat & Power (Cogeneration) for a while, and I've heard there are some working installations in Germany,
    Calor do it here http://www.calorgas.ie/calor-for-business/innovations/chp/

    1 KW electricity.
    the waste heat from your electrical appliances will also heat your house so it's nearly free electricity, no idea of costs though


    Note if considering powering your life from something like this consider replacing you electric gadgets with more efficient ones


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,621 ✭✭✭Turbulent Bill


    Calor do it here http://www.calorgas.ie/calor-for-business/innovations/chp/

    1 KW electricity.
    the waste heat from your electrical appliances will also heat your house so it's nearly free electricity, no idea of costs though

    I worked for a company about a decade ago involved in this, was connected to Bord Gais. The basic idea was to install large natural gas-powered IC engines in industrial/commerical buildings to generate electricity, with the waste heat from the engine and exhaust used to heat water. There might have been a grid connection too for redundancy/electricity export, but I can't remember.

    It worked efficiently once the required ratio of heat:electricity matched that of the engine (much more heat produced than electricity). For something like a swimming pool or pharma plant it would be perfect.

    I've lost touch with the technology but it was ahead of its time, at least in Ireland.


  • Registered Users Posts: 738 ✭✭✭crazy cabbage


    i think it would be a much better idea to become much more efficient with our energy use before realisticly trying to do anything stated here (have the debate and bash ideas around though. they can only help)

    rant mode on
    when you go to boil an egg you are using gas that has proberly been gotten from the middle east. it is minned with alot of energy losses and put abord trucks or trains (more energy) to be trainsported to a ship. while then is shiped to ireland (more energy). then put on more trucks to go to distributers to go to retailers (more energy loss). you then drive up in your car (more energy loss) to buy your bottle of gas. you then turn the knob to turn on the heat under your pot. There is alot of losses there too. heat then goes into heating up your pot. then goes into heating up your water. finaly it goes into heating up your egg. from what i remember only about 9% of the total energy used ascully goes into the egg.
    Then all that hot water we spent so much energy heating up goes down the kitchen sink
    rant mode off

    What i am trying to say is that we can have all the windmill and solor things we want but we need to become much more efficient first. When we are efficient prehaps renewables will have a realistic chance of providieing our energy needs


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  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭gar32




  • Registered Users Posts: 3,612 ✭✭✭Dardania


    10 years since you started this thread?! You have staying power - respect!


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭gar32


    https://billionsinchange.com/solutions/free-electric-past/

    Yet again my dream from over 11 years ago coming to past :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,024 ✭✭✭gar32




  • Registered Users Posts: 1,884 ✭✭✭SlowBlowin


    In the 1940's some one living near Droitwich built a scaled up version and was able to power the lights in his house :eek:

    The BBC were a bit upset as be ruined the transmission pattern for the "light" (I think) program broadcasting on 200KHz (1500m), when they caught up with him, he showed them his radio license. :p

    The BBC had to ask him politely not to "listen" so intensely... :D

    As a young lad I realised I could draw a small current from the phone line for free. Draw too much and the line would activate, but keep it at 15 ma and all was good. I used this to trickle charge batteries and run LEDs for free, as far as I know this still works.

    I am extremely tight


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