The simplest free energy system ever overlooked

[d3adp00l]

Transmission of power for 50 miles actually isn't really that far when it comes to distribution systems, an added bonus is that the cable on the ocean floor can be cooled much more effectively with the ambient water. Plus if the oil guys can make money drilling for offshore oil then a rig converted for a maintanance base station. on board deep sea driving equipment sub docks and the likes. It doesn't seem too practical to pump oil up then pipe it to shore but some how it is. in the past i believe you would be right about it not working too well. But with the plastics and carbon fiber tech we now have I think this one may have come into maturity.

Still waiting to see if angry can show us some numbers I would think by a lack of a resent post he may be working on it.

Heck isn't the promblem with plastic is it doesn't corrode in the ocean and fish are dying from that?I saw a study on small plastic particles in the ocean, scary stuff.

[Dingus Mungus]

You're kinda right about the palstics... It usually won't corrode, but it does errode.
My worry is about the errosion of its moving components, and the worst part of all
will be the anode... I promise even a SS electrolysis anode will oxidize in the ocean.

As for the "50 mile" thing... It has nothing to do with oil! My point was that we, as
in the consumers, buy energy products on a $/kWp or $/kWh basis. Unless you can
make power CHEAPER than a coal plant, than chances are no one will take the idea
seriously. So again my point was NOT that its an impossiblity, but that its more
expensive to run power 50 miles before it hits the first relay station. The only way to
recoup this loss in our $/kWh equation is to make it more efficient. So any and all
losses in power make this idea less and less feasible. I merely trying to help you find
a ballance between practical and unrealistic.

Speaking of which, you never addressed what you plan on doing with all the hydrogen.

~Dingus Mungus

[kentoot]

I had a similar idea a while back, but instead of an underwater pipe running deep into the ocean, I was thinking of 3 pipes going vertically upward very high from ground level. At ground level we have an electrolysis unit, making hydrogen & oxygen. The two gases then goes up the 2 pipes. At the top of the pipes there's a fuel cell, recombines the gasses into water. Then water at the top will be stored in a tank and goes back down to ground level through the third pipe, turning a turbine on the way down.

The idea is that to make use of gravity, you will have to turn any substance to a lighter form (gas) when going up, and then turn to a heavier form (liquid / solid) when going down.
If we use water, I know it takes energy to convert it to gases (H2+O2), but you can recover back some of that energy when you recombine it back to water (using fuel cell) and also get some energy from gravity when the water is coming back down (using turbine).

Now the question is, will the energy from the fuel cell & turbine enough to run the electrolyser ? If it's not enough can we increase the pipe height to gain some more energy ? if not using water, any substance that can turn from 1 form to another without much energy ? what do you guys think ?

[d3adp00l]

@ dingus, in all reality the hydrogen is a by product, I would say burn it in a furnace to power another generator (ice would proply be no good because all the stuff with the hydrogen, but a striling would proly do just fine) to power the maintanence shack. As for the materials, yes things will and always will breakdown, but with the ocean going industry that exists I am sure there are some materials that exist, no I haven't checked into that far. As far as costs go off the hip a generation station that needs no fuel delivered to it and has basic simple parts, should be able to keep up with current power generation plants that have to have a continuos stream of fuel, have complicated mechanical parts (turbines aren't that easy to build). Just the infra structure to keep fueling those beasts is a serious endeavour and costs considerable amounts, the precision manufacturing facilities to maintain and rebuild the turbines/boilers is a big deal too. I am just proposing that the simplicity of the system would more than makeup for its possibly higher maintainance.

@ Kentoot one possible issue would be that 1 litre of water turns into 1800 litres of hho, there wouldn't be much going down the third pipe unless you pump a lot of hho up the other two. But the idea seems sound, in that the energy of the system is increased by its natural lifting effect and therefore putting the water at a higher kinetic energy state by increasing its elevation. It any idea of this kind could work that would be the one, steam would cool down before it got to a high enough possistion to be useful.

Does anyone know if depth increases electrical demand from an hho cell?

if you produced 6 litres per bucket at 500 feet you would ave 1056 lbs of lift and it would expand to 100 litres of hho at the top. depending on gearing and the like a lot of energy would be there. But 500 feet X2 is alot of mass to move.

[Dingus Mungus]

Well that is a lot of lift, but its also a whole lot of hydrogen... Maybe its time for a small scale prototype. You can get small chain and sprockets off the shelf, and use a 6" pvc vessel 10 feet tall. Use a small 12v electric motor to collect and measure the output. Using that collected wattage and the input wattage we can figure out roughly what you can recover, then we can make some sound assumptions on minimum power recovery from the hydrogen. Good luck on this project, it sounds like quite an interesting undertaking. I should restate though, I still think the real source of power in this whole equation is to harness the heat differential of a ocean vent directly. Every time you convert energy you lose some, and losses brings up the $/kWh.

Great research thus far!
~Dingus Mungus