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Greenwood
I think I know a way to revitalize an entire region and hoped you guys might have input on making it better. | |
When Westinghouse and Tesla built the Cascade Power Company's dam and power plant here it put direct current out of business by having long enough transmission lines to prove the superiority of Alternating Current for the entire planet while Edison was travelling around America electrocuting elephants
and draft horses. Edison got his panties seriously in a bunch, built a dam and plant upriver, a dam and plant downriver, and forced the sale of the Cascade Power Company from Westinghouse to better transmit electricity to the area but instead tore the plant apart and denied the residents of boundary country power basically fragging the entire region.
Greenwood was one of the towns hardest hit as their smelters took the lions share of the power generated at Cascade.
It has been more than a century now and the place, although idyllic and pretty never recovered.
You can buy property there for a song because there is no industry to support growth.
The abandoned sub-station, the 38 meter smoke stack, and acres of meters deep black slag cover the area at the base of the stack and are a constant reminder of what used to be a growing city.
So... many... negatives...
Perfect!
When you look at all of the negatives together, as a whole, and flip the whole thing on its head they all become positives.
I need to remove a few irons from the fire before I can find the time... but I would like to put together a proposal which would resurrect Greenwood from the ashes of its former glory and show them how they can show the rest of the world how it's done.
Those acres of slag are a gigantic thermal mass right at the base of the smoke stack.
If covered in shade cloth and channelled properly to the base of the stack the entire dead-zone can become one gigantic solar updraft facility.
If the rising hot air entered the chimney at angles to the curve it will naturally tornado up the shaft.
So we retrofit the entire length of the stack with a Tesla turbine and place my Coanda Tornado design at the top to recoup heat energy, which would normally be lost, to run secondary systems.
Those residents on board with the project could opt to either buy shares or agree to a small increase of their individual property taxes to become part owners of a completely green power generation scheme which should provide far more than the energy requirements of their small town and also profit from feeding excess energy to the grid.
The place could just pull itself up with its own bootstraps.
So...
What do you think?
Solar Updraft Tower
https://en.wikipedi...Solar_updraft_tower
[sninctown, Jun 17 2021]
Greenwood smelter images
https://www.google....Aw&biw=1017&bih=489
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 17 2021]
Wind Turbine
https://en.wikipedi...g/wiki/Wind_turbine
...efficiency half-way down the page [Frankx, Jun 17 2021]
example 50kW wind turbine
https://www.earthmi...-50kw-wind-turbine/
...but 50kW at 10m/s [Frankx, Jun 17 2021]
Satellite map view of slag pile.
https://www.google....8955!4d-118.6780998
Anaconda [2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jun 17 2021]
Solar Chimney
https://www.dw.com/...down-under/a-597381
Never Happened [AusCan531, Jun 18 2021]
Magnetic fields to treat malaria
https://www.washing...w-researchers-find/
Research study from year 2000 [sninctown, Jun 19 2021]
Solar Tower Vortex Generator
Solar Tower Vortex Generator
//Nobody has yet tried to make this rising air tornado. That tornado effect will keep the air flow within the chimney for a much longer duration than if allowed to simply race to the top// This was kind of where I was heading with this idea - does "tornadoing" deliver a bigger punch for your solar tower? Instinctively, I would tend to agree. [zen_tom, Jun 22 2021]
Mean daily solar energy flux (insolation) - Canada
https://fgp-pgf.map...6a19dd1909fd93645d3
The total solar input for your site can be found from this [Frankx, Jun 22 2021]
Nevada Wind Map
https://en.wikipedi...rce_map_50m_800.jpg
[bs0u0155, Jun 22 2021]
Solar updraft power generator with radial and curved vanes
https://aip.scitati...f/10.1063/1.5022912
curved vanes in the collector space induce vortex [Frankx, Jun 23 2021]
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How warm is the slag (deep with-in) on a cloudy day in the
middle of winter? Drill some test holes & chuck a
thermometer in each. A couple of years data (with
atmospheric temp too for control) should be enough.
Or would it be better to polish the slag to a mirror finish &
focus it somewhere? |
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Slag kind of conforms to the contours of the land it is poured on. |
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The slag is not needed though, normal earth itself acts as a heat-sink at night when under shade cloth all day.
Solar updraft towers work better at night because of the increase in overall temperature differential, and work better in winter for the same reason.
The slag would just provide a better heat-sink. |
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sounds like a good cause but consider getting an engineer
who's built solar updraft towers before to check the numbers
before buying, and also consider trying to own it all (100% of
shares) to ensure the project is run the way you want. |
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What [sninctown] said. But [+] for the idea in principle. |
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Whoa, I'm not buying anything.
I just see a way for the town itself to change its own future and can maybe nudge it in the right direction, later. |
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I just want to plant the seed... not raise it. |
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Tell that to the Child Support Agency ;-) |
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Love the idea of regenerating a disused industrial
wasteland. Maybe I missed something in the description
though - this used to be a hydroelectric plant? That hints
at a region of relatively high rainfall & terrain, well
suited to hydro, less so solar updraft.
Community-owned micro-hydro is an exciting possibility
though.
Also - not sure a tesla turbine would be any good in a
solar chimney. I think air's low viscosity and the low flow
speed of an updraft chimney probably make a wind-
turbine-shaped turbine the most efficient. |
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Is slag-mining a thing yet? I imagine the wastes from
aluminium smelting might be high in heavy metals etc. -
perhaps there's some value in that? |
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I've though for many years how a canny investor with a
long-view should buy up landfill sites. In say 30 years, the
(non-renewable) minerals will be much more valuable,
and the unpleasant biomass will have decomposed. You
basically have a "diverse mineral" mine - and the gold,
platinum, copper, tungsten content would probably
exceed virgin ore. |
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+ The world needs more people like you [2fries]! |
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//Maybe I missed something in the description though - this used to be a hydroelectric plant?// |
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Ah, no. Greenwood was the smelting town, the cascade falls are a good 45 minute drive away from there. |
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//can you show me where the tower is?// |
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I can certainly try, give me a sec. Okay, [link] |
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//I’d ask first what do the residents of Greenwood think?// |
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Of course I just wanted to get a few ducks in a row before approaching their town council. |
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My guess is that power output of a solar tower is going to
be dictated by collector area, available sunlight
(insolation), and tower height. |
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Given the fairly northern latitude and the 38m tower
height, I think it's going to be marginal commercially.
It would be interesting as a small-scale project though -
and great idea to re-use the existing on-site resources.
Have you any rough figures for the kind of power output
that you're hoping for? |
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I see Greenwood has a population of 665, so say 300
households. Typical energy consumption (UK) is
10kWh/household-day, so you're looking at of the order of
125kW (continuous), although Canada probably has higher
heating demand. And it'll mostly (only) work in the
summer/daytime. A prototype in Spain had an output of
50kW, but had a 195m tower and 46Ha collector area (and
suspect that's 50kW peak). |
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I know the maths for fluid-in-fluid buoyancy is quite
complex. I seem to remember the beautifully-named
Churchill-Chu equation was the one. You're going to need
a big greenhouse! Also, I think if you seriously do go with
this idea, using an existing homestead-scale wind turbine
for it's generator and perhaps-modified blades might be
the most economical approach. |
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A cubic metre of air at the bottom of your tower, at
temperature (say) 10 degrees above external air temp. |
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1.225kg/m^3 at 15 degrees |
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So buoyancy is roughly 0.4N |
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Which accelerates the air through 38m |
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That gives an airspeed of 5.5m/s at the top - roughly
11mph |
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Say your tower has an internal diameter of 10m |
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Efficiency of turbine - say 0.45 [link] |
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That's based on maintaining a 10 degree (C/K)
temperature difference inside your greenhouse over the
outside air. |
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//Have you any rough figures for the kind of power output that you're hoping for ...And it'll mostly (only) work in the summer/daytime.// |
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I'm sorry, I...
math... not even once.
The prototype version in the Netherlands runs better at night than in the day because the ground becomes a heat sink and the lower air temperature amplifies the effect. Same with winter. It takes far less sunlight to achieve the same power output so it is actually more efficient than if it were to be built closer to the equator. |
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//Main reason I wanted to see the tower was to pinpoint the exact location on the map, relative to the slag pile.// |
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Ah, that I can help with. Here's a [link] to a satellite map of the area.
Zoom in on the area called Anaconda and the enormity of the slag pile will be quite apparent.
The tower is that swirly smuge-looking thing near the middle left of the slag. |
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//tower is that swirly smuge-looking thing near the middle
left of the slag//
Not that I don't trust your local knowledge, but there's
(also?) a tower to the north of the slag; it's shadow gives it
away. Directly due north of Hells Bells. |
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//lower temperature amplifies the effect//
Ooh, that’s interesting! I wouldn’t have thought of
that. |
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This is overcomplicated, inefficient, oversized, unecessary, and bizarre. BIG bun. |
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// there's (also?) a tower to the north of the slag; it's shadow gives it away. Directly due north of Hells Bells.// |
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<shrugs>
Remember when the resolution on satellite maps used to be much finer?... I do. I live here and that's as close as I can tell from driving by it all the time. The image link I posted gives you a better approximation of how far the tower is above the enormous amount of slag.
Anyway you can see the amount of slag compared to any sort of facility.
That stack would just be the tip of the total chimney created by the landscape itself. |
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Wind would howl up that stack 24/7. |
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A Tesla turbine with a tornado intake would out compete conventional generators through shear efficiency. My coanda tornado design would raise his turbines' 99.7% efficiency to 99.9% |
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[Voice] I do not see how it is overcomplicated, inefficient, oversized, or unnecessary.
Bizarre I'll give you. |
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A solar wind chimney turbine tower was touted for
construction near Mildura in Australia in the early 2000s.
[link] Governments were looking at tipping in money and
my business was looking at supplying salt to be turned
molten through solar radiation during the day to release
heat during night time to keep the turbines spinning
around the clock. |
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Much noise was made about it and I was interested in
seeing it in action. Eventually the proponents said "Well,
admittedly it won't actually produce energy economically
- but will be a 'demonstrator' of the technology." It died
there and all funding dried up. Still an interesting idea to
me. |
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//his turbine’s 99.7%//
Tesla turbines are ingenious, but I don’t think it
would be the best choice for this application. They
only approach that kind of efficiency with viscous
fluids and very high speeds. With a solar tower
you’re at the other end of the scale: low speed air.
Trial and error (and science and engineering) have
produced turbines optimised for those flow
conditions - mostly wind-turbine-like things. You’re
kind of limited in diameter by the chimney so my
guess is you’re going to need two or three quite
broad blades and a low rotation speed, so you’ll
also need a gearbox to drive the generator |
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hmmmm, that's just it though, this will produce very high wind speeds.
A gentle breeze comes from all directions and then combines into one howling torrent of air up the chimney. Nobody has yet tried to make this rising air tornado. That tornado effect will keep the air flow within the chimney for a much longer duration than if allowed to simply race to the top. Having to navigate the holes of the tesla turbine will further retard its upward progress causing a sort of bottle-neck which will somewhat pressurize the incoming air as it will not be allowed to escape as quickly as it would if just rushing past conventional turbine blades and this will create wind speeds far in excess of what you derived your numbers from. |
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A Tesla turbine does not require a viscous fluid and I see no reason for it not to spin at a high rate of speed. The more disks running the length of the stack, the more wind gets captured. |
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A lot less, probably. You're going to have a good amount of
drag on the inside of a relatively narrow unfinished old
chimney. It's a lot of trouble to go to to compete with a
medium diesel generator or small water wheel. Actually,
could you use generator waste heat as a booster? Cooling
air is nicely above ambient, and exhaust has flow and
additional temperature. You could even use exhaust flow
to power a venturi blower or "Air Multiplier" if you listen
to Mr Dyson's marketing. |
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Maybe you're right, you guys know more than I do that's why I post my brain farts here, I just think it would be poetic justice if one of Tesla's ideas could undo Edison's fuckery is all. |
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I swear I think I'm flitting between universes at an increasing rate though. |
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Okay, I can't find any proof whatsoever of this on the internet so you'll just have to take my word for it; in whatever universe I just arrived from a Tesla turbine isn't just flat disks separated by gaps. Each disk has at least one offset hole through it, and each disk's hole is slightly offset from the hole in the next disk creating a negative-space spiral around the axis like a barber pole.
The size and spacing of the offset holes can be adjusted for varying speeds of fluids... including compressed air. Thus a rising hot air tornado can ascend through the gaps while surface tension and the coanda effect drag the disks around without needing much viscosity. The incoming air pressurizes itself as much as you want by restricting flow if the hole size and spacing change. |
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The inner surface drag of the old chimney won't matter much if the stator, (un-moving shaft), is sectional and lowered down the chimney from the top. It would then have a smooth unchanging diameter and the original stack would just provide support and shielding from the elements. Only the height and number of disks matter. |
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Even without gear reduction excessive rotational force causing deformation of the disks can easily be averted by manufacturing each disk to be lined along its periphery with permanent magnets.
Wired brushes kept at a distance can be made to close around the exterior of the stator causing Eddy current drag to slow the rpm's while creating electricity at the same time.
As well excess speed could be controlled mechanically by engaging the rotor to pump water to a tower where it can turn Peltin generators when released. |
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I'm serious about the whole offset-holes-in-the-disk thing.
Wherever I just came from we'd not only eradicated Malaria with magnetic fields, the Tesla tornado turbine is a thing. |
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If none of you can find any evidence of these things either... then one of you with the skills to prove me wrong needs to call me on my bullshit and check it out because... |
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...well because, y'know... I didn't think this shit up. It exists where I come from, and when you find out I'm right and I'm too dead to thank... |
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The tesla turbine exploded views I see on the internet
have
holes near the middle shaft so that fluid can exhaust
next to
the shaft after it has lost its velocity. Maybe holes in
the discs
could allow the fluid to flow into the discs instead of
using a
manifold outside the case. I want to believe. |
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//in whatever universe I just arrived from// |
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Hey! I've been to that universe. While you were there, did you
try the crab-flavoured ice cream? Surprisingly good. |
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Just common knowledge where I come from, and not here... well maybe not exactly 'common' knowledge because my interests are weird, but known-by-others stuff for sure. |
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What the hell do I know about malaria and magnets, or tweaks on Tesla's designs?
Only what I stumbled across... somewhere other than here apparently. |
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No crab-flavoured ice cream there. |
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[2fries], What is this going to cost? A untested system
setup is usually a money pit unless you are going wing it
with a team of skilled, resourced, bodgers. Councils aren't
really development sources of money , they have to worry
about
basic services. |
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Extra croissant if any miscreant placed near the
base of the chimney gets sucked up by the updraft
vortex then shredded by the apparatus before
exiting at the top in the form of a fertilizer cloud. |
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I have a question about the shade cloth. |
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In my imagination, the original source of the energy in this
system is sunlight striking slag - right? So, you don't want
anything getting in the way of that. So what is the shade cloth
doing? |
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//[2fries], What is this going to cost?// |
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No idea. The infrastructure is in place so I would guess the cost would be less than other places without the existing infrastructure. |
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// the original source of the energy in this system is sunlight striking slag - right?// |
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No. the black shade cloth collects solar radiation, (even when overcast), and this heat is channelled towards the tower.
The entire area beneath the shade cloth heats up because... well just because it does. not all of the heat rushes up the chimney, some tries to stay put. At night it radiates and the difference in temperature between night and day make the system more efficient at night... and more efficient in winter. |
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The slag is just a mega-efficient heat-sink that just happens to be spread out for acres at the base of an enormous tower... that just happens to be sitting there, and I thought, hmmmm that should be more than just a museum piece. |
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OK, so is the function of the shade cloth to channel the heat?
Should I imagine a gentle upward gradient in the cloth, towards
the tower? |
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Modest proposal: get investor funding for a vaguely
defined updraft tower, then build a Project Babylon
orbital-launch cannon instead. |
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//OK, so is the function of the shade cloth to channel the heat? Should I imagine a gentle upward gradient in the cloth, towards the tower?// |
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Yes, but the upward gradient is not necessary, even if the shade cloth was level the chimney effect would cause the hot air to be pulled towards the tower. |
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//then build a Project Babylon orbital-launch cannon instead.// |
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shhhhhhhh! Don't jinx it. |
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//sucked up by the updraft vortex then shredded by the apparatus before exiting at the top in the form of a fertilizer cloud.// |
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Is there a reason that turbojet aero engines don't have intake-mounted mincers to reduce the problem of birdstrike? |
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I presume it's due to it seeming disgusting and offputting, but any birds getting that far will be killed anyway. |
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Depending on the rotational speed of the turbine anything small enough to enter the first hole in the first disk will have that portion of itself sheared off. |
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Just some netting far enough from the intake where the breeze is still gentle will keep solids from getting sucked in. |
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//Is there a reason that turbojet aero engines don't have
intake-mounted mincers to reduce the problem of
birdstrike?// |
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You can't do this without significant compromises. A
structure that can stand up to a 400mph strike from a
goose will be fairly substantial, and as such will be extra
weight and flow restriction for the whole flight envelope.
That envelope is worth thinking about, there aren't many
birds above 5000ft, and none at all above 20,000ft and
most planes cruise 15,000ft above that. |
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//Just some netting far enough from the intake where
the breeze is still gentle// |
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There's no gentle breeze at 200-600mph air speed,
especially in front of a jet intake. |
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There are aircraft with intake screens, variants of the
Mig29 and Su27, but these aircraft have specific
vulnerabilities to debris ingestion. They're designed to
operate from partially prepared/damaged runways and
they have their nose landing gear in such a position that
it may throw debris directly into the intake. |
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//There's no gentle breeze at 200-600mph air speed,// |
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I don't think the chimney will be cruising at that sort of speed. |
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Ha! I got a little carried away with the jet engine talk.. |
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[+] for finding a spot that would lend itself to
building something like this. Solar Towers are
cool, particularly considering the lack of moving
parts (except the turbine). I remember thinking
that if you combined the collection mechanism with
some kind of greenhouse arrangement, you could
potentially dual-use your tower as a garden too.
Plus, the vortex element I think could be passively
encouraged with a few gentle channeling
architectural features that encourage more twist as
the air approaches the centre. |
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Ha! If somebody had to beat me to the punch I'm glad it was you. (+) right back atcha. |
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//I remember thinking that if you combined the
collection mechanism with some kind of greenhouse
arrangement, you could potentially dual-use your tower
as a garden too// |
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It's possible that the sort of areas that you want to build
these towers, super-hot deserts mainly, are going to be
too hot for plants. Especially when you encase them in a
greenhouse, and funnel hot, dry air past them all day at
high speed. The opposite might be a better choice, an
evaporative downdraft tower would take 50C dry Nevada
desert air and turn it into 30C humidified air. |
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Again, I'm most surprised none of these tower designs
specify anything to harness the prevailing winds. Shirley
that's a big free boost? My main memory of standing by a
highway in the Nevada desert was a constant hairdryer-
like hot wind. |
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[bs0u0155] oh yeah that's a good idea, prevailing winds probably come about as a result of
pre-existing geography (or in your example, traffic?) it would make sense to further
harness anything like that. For me the elegance of this idea is to see what small nudges
are already available in the environment, and then nudge them a little bit more, in some
unifying way to result in some tangible output. The dark-slag-heap as heat-sink/radiation
attractor is a nice starting point (there are probably thermals already in evidence here -
maybe scout out the local gliding/air club to see what information pilots might have about
the prevailing conditions) |
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//winds probably come about as a result of pre-existing
geography (or in your example, traffic?)// |
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There's some interesting stuff going on, the great basin
(large area covering a lot of nevada, colorado, california)
is the origin of the Santa Ana katabatic winds that blow
through southern California so maybe I was caught up in
one of those events. I just remember a remarkably
consistent ~40mph 45C wind. Although the wind power
map <link> suggests Nevada is pretty dreadful as a region
for wind power. |
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//It's possible that the sort of areas that you want to build these towers, super-hot deserts mainly, are going to be too hot for plants.// |
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These towers are more efficient farther from the equator, not located in super-hot deserts. Please lose that assumption. |
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"If" you wanted to build one of these in a super-hot area like the desert then shade cloth would provide what you are missing for growing plants in such an area instead of a greenhouse. |
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[link] for "insolation" for your location.
Do you have a rough idea of the area of your solar
collector? From Google Maps, I'm guessing about 5Ha =
50,000m^2 |
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The limiting factor (for whatever type of
turbine/collector) is the temperature difference between
your heated air and the surrounding airmass - that's what
drives buoyancy, which in turn drives the air movement |
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The Paper "Solar updraft power generator with radial
and curved vanes" [link] provides lots about the efficiency
of these systems, and looks at the use of curved vanes in
the collector space to induce a vortex flow in the tower -
which does show potential to increase efficiency and
power output. |
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So *yay* for an idea to re-use existing infrastructure to
generate electricity, *yay* for a solar updraft tower, *yay*
for vortex-generating vanes. |
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It might be useful to do an experiment - do you have a
greenhouse? Measure the internal and external air
temperature (in shade) in different conditions
(day/night; sunny/overcast; summer/winter). It's not
going to be definitive data, but it'll give some idea of
temperature difference achievable. |
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"It's not going to be definitive data" |
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//So *yay* for an idea to re-use existing infrastructure to
generate electricity, *yay* for a solar updraft tower, *yay*
for vortex-generating vanes.// |
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It's official - this is a three-yay idea! <rings-bell> |
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{glances up reproachfully at the noise of the bell} |
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<Dick Dastardly> Dratt and double dratt! - out-threed again
by [pertinax] and his infernal triangle! </dd> |
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Three yays,must be a good‘n. Here comes the devil.
Manufacturing and discs mounting designs are going be fun.
Modelling might help; it seems to be getting better and better |
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Well at least the town mobile crane will get some use. |
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