Hello Everyone

I recently came across an article about a new sustainable alternative to generating electricity by using kinetic energy. The concept is a pressure generator is attached to the bottom of a massive tube that consists of buoys and this essentially drives an alternator that generates power for a generator connected to the top of the tank. The details are based on this website.

Kinetic Power Plants (rosch.ag)

My question is why is this technology not being implemented on a larger scale?

 

Their description of “how it works” leaves me scratching my head. I cannot make any sense of it. Sure, you can use buoyancy to turn a generator, but the energy is coming from moving the water in and out. What is powering that?

 

The system functions by a pressure generator, that injects pressurized air into the tube thus causing the tube to move.

 

That's very likely an organization trolling for investment money. If you look deep enough, it will be top heavy with plenty of management personnel and very few actual engineers or technicians. They've got lots of pretty 3d renderings of potential products but I doubt they even have prototypes of any of them.

The system functions by a pressure generator, that injects pressurized air into the tube thus causing the tube to move.

What builds the pressure in the "pressure generator"? What energy is used to increase the pressure? It has to come from somewhere.

 

What energy is used to increase the pressure? It has to come from somewhere.

Let me guess. It comes from the alternator? .

 

Yep, this has the distinct odor of a scam.

 

The answer to the question posed by the TS is economics. To be deployed on a large scale any technology has a couple of prerequisites:

1. The method or process actually has to work
2. It must follow certain immutable laws
3. Enormous amounts of capital are required manufacture and assemble the components.

#1 is the usual impediment.

 

Sounds like an underwater version of Bhāskara's wheel to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#/media/File:Overbalanced_wheel.svg

 

Or simply a re-thinking of the water wheel
If it is fed by water at a higher level than it is released, there is no magic here. I doubt that it would be an improvement over modern turbines.

 

Hello Everyone

I recently came across an article about a new sustainable alternative to generating electricity by using kinetic energy. The concept is a pressure generator is attached to the bottom of a massive tube that consists of buoys and this essentially drives an alternator that generates power for a generator connected to the top of the tank. The details are based on this website.

Kinetic Power Plants (rosch.ag)

My question is why is this technology not being implemented on a larger scale?

I have seen a rather successful version of a similar scheme elsewhere. Look at the generator system at Niagra Falls! Water enters a tube and by falling generates enough kinetic energy to spin generators and produce useful amounts of power.
The problem with using waves instead is finding a reliable source of 50 foot waves that arrive constantly.

 

I must have missed where it said waves.

 

I have seen a rather successful version of a similar scheme elsewhere. Look at the generator system at Niagra Falls! Water enters a tube and by falling generates enough kinetic energy to spin generators and produce useful amounts of power.
The problem with using waves instead is finding a reliable source of 50 foot waves that arrive constantly.

Unfortunately, the geography surrounding Niagara Falls is actually kind of rare which might explain why the use of hydro power is not as widespread as it would be if that were not the case.

 

Sounds like an underwater version of Bhāskara's wheel to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion#/media/File:Overbalanced_wheel.svg

 

I was wondering where the water got up to the top of the tube. And " The complex pneumatic filling system" mentioned in the "how it works" looks intentionally vague, indicating perhaps that it depends on some magic to cause air to be compressed.
I did see a scheme to capture wave energy published in "Design News" magazine a long time ago, and certainly there is a lot of kinetic energy present in waves much of the time. That system used bouys floating up and down on the water surface to pull up cables that would somehow keep generators spinning thru a mechanical arrangement. The difficulty is always in achieving an arrangement that will survive for any length of time. The ocean environment is rather brutal most of the time.
The concept of capturing energy from waves splashing over the edge of a pipe and falling some distance to establish a pressure head is interesting but there appears to be a flaw in the concept as far as capturing that kinetic energy.

 

You can't take three from two​

Two is less than three​

So you look at the four in the eights place ​

-- Tom Lehrer (ca. 1965)

 

A friend of mine brought this system up questioning whether it would work.
I don't know if I still have the paperwork I did then. I calculated the work needed done to pressurize the air for a certain water column and the energy it could theoretically generate. Leaving aside friction it added up to zero Watts being generated. Not much of a surprise there.

 

The one challenge I see that becomes rather obvious is that after the water falls that 50 feet and spins the turbine, it needs to go away to make room for more water to fall. So if there happens to be an open drain just below then it will work. Otherwise, no, it can not possibly work because there is no open drain for the water to exit by.
Of course the simple solution is to capture the waves at the top of a big hill, and then the falling water can easily spin the generator's turbine. The problem then becomes finding a big hill with waves breaking over the top..

 

Did you watch the principle? There is no falling water, only rising air in 'buckets' on a conveyer belt using buyeoncy as the power source.
It's an obvious scam like Invelox windturbines was, they try to sell licences and a dutch firm apparently did just that ( google 'zilverstroom')
The 'working' Rosch demonstration model claimed a power output that would be quite impossible if that power had to be transferred via the used bicycle chain at the rpm observed.
They claim the company's secrets will not be public. It's a miracle they weren't killed yet by the fossil fuel industry

 

Did you watch the principle? There is no falling water, only rising air in 'buckets' on a conveyer belt using buyeoncy as the power source.
It's an obvious scam like Invelox windturbines was, they try to sell licences and a dutch firm apparently did just that ( google 'zilverstroom')
The 'working' Rosch demonstration model claimed a power output that would be quite impossible if that power had to be transferred via the used bicycle chain at the rpm observed.
They claim the company's secrets will not be public. It's a miracle they weren't killed yet by the fossil fuel industry

NO!! I did not watch the video. Rising air trapped by falling water. A much bigger stretch indeed. I had read the whole thing as it was originally posted, not sure why I missed the posts after that.
Capturing "Free Energy" from falling water is actually simple, just build a dam and then install turbines to be driven by the falling water. Except that it is not free, it is complex and expensive.
And why would a fossil fuel company feel threatened by some obviously faked competition's claims.

 

It's a miracle they weren't killed yet by the fossil fuel industry

Why would they bother? They know it is nonsense.