Haven't had any time for sketching for a while now and our scanner won't be unpacked for a few months yet so I'm sorry but you'll have to visualize this one.

Picture an ordinary hoop greenhouse. Two layers of air-filled plastic provide insulation and the greenhouse is elongated and inclined slightly up-hill.
Both ends of the greenhouse are geodesic half-domes.

To one side of the base of the greenhouse entry is an insulated chicken coop, and to the other is located the compost-heap shed.
Both of these structures give off a lot of heat which will be amplified during the day by housing them in black plastic, (no, I'm not going to cook the poor chickens in their coop), and it is this expanding air which inflates the double-layered walls of the hoop section of the greenhouse body.

The triangular panels comprising the geodesic half-domes are also double layered, but their faces are held apart by a Tesla valvular conduit system. Each panel feeds into the one below it causing the air trapped between them to expand forcing heated air downwards beneath the ground without fans or moving parts in a reverse chimney effect to be expelled into a bed of crushed rock above a rubber bladder beneath our feet.
As this bladder is not level, heat will collect and moisture will condense on the surface area of the rocks cooling the green house and trickling water down-hill to a small fish pond at the base while also acting as a heat-sink when the sun goes down.

Nitinol bi-metallic actuators will keep a constant temperature throughout the greenhouse by releasing excess heat into the double-layer walls of the hoop.
Since the entire structure is inclined, any heated air will want to rise up-hill towards the back end.
Here is where the chimney I haven't mentioned yet forces all of that heated air we haven't already trapped upwards and outwards turning a Tesla Turbine running up its length.

,but I don't want to just throw that heat away so...

The top of the chimney is curved back on itself just past ninety degrees pointing back towards the base and deep within the opening is a stretched taut elastic bladder. A small portion of the mechanical energy of the turbine is used to draw back and release this bladder which is designed to not allow any of the heated air escape without being launched in vortex rings back to a collection port on the side of the compost-heap shed.

In this manner the heat of the day will be trapped in a continuous cycle inflating the walls of the greenhouse, providing electricity to run lights, and turn the whole structure into a passive dehumidifier pulling its own running water supply right out of thin air and keeping it fresh by recirculation.

Other systems such as curved plexi trough mirrors flash-steam water in pipes to raise it filling upper collectors for the passive drip systems, and the framework of the hoops themselves can retain this water acting as a secondary heat-sink.

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that such a system should work even in a desert climate by condensing water out of the air and trapping it in a closed system.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 30 2017

3d Tesla valve https://lh4.googleu...Tesla%2BValve24.JPG
[2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 31 2017]

//Architechture//

Pevsner? Is that you?
-- pertinax, Dec 30 2017


What do the chickens eat ?
-- 8th of 7, Dec 30 2017


Whereabouts on this greenhouse is the entry? I'm not sure whether this makes a difference, but it will help me to picture it.
-- pertinax, Dec 30 2017


If we consider this as a closed system, will the plants benefit from having water dripped on them if the air around them is correspondingly drier? I mean, won't the extraction of the water from the air mean that the plants dry out faster?

If you wanted to operate this somewhere arid, would there be a way to capture external water by condensation overnight and trickle it into the greenhouse valvularly, so that it didn't leak out again during the day? After all, this closed system is going to lose water every time you harvest a cucumber. Or are you already doing this with rocks, in a way I haven't quite grasped?
-- pertinax, Dec 30 2017


Surprisingly, " valvularly" turns out to be a proper word, and not just some gratuitous pertinacious neologism.

Who knew, huh ?
-- 8th of 7, Dec 30 2017


//use of the leading comma.//

Trailing commas are just so last week.

//What do the chickens eat ?//

Free range in the summer and whatever bugs and scraps they can find in the greenhouse during the winter plus their regular feed.
My thought is that using the waste heat from the coop and the compost to inflate the walls will let the chimney effect remove odors from the system.

//Architechture//

Woops... leaving it for posterichty.

//Whereabouts on this greenhouse is the entry?//

The lowest point would be the main entry so that heat and moisture won't escape, there can be several access points though. Every entry will have an antechamber.

//won't the extraction of the water from the air mean that the plants dry out faster?//
//would there be a way to capture external water by condensation overnight and trickle it into the greenhouse valvularly, so that it didn't leak out again during the day?//

Sorry if I didn't explain that well. That's the whole point. The water is extracted from the external environment and collected internally. Since the moisture is not allowed to leave, as it would given existing ventilation techniques, there should be a surplus of water collection over and above the water consumption needed for the plants.
The goal would be to condense so much water that you would need to allow some to escape to keep your fish-pond/cistern from overflowing.

If a greenhouse can produce more water daily than the plants need to grow, while powering itself off-grid, 'and' creating more electricity than the farm and greenhouse themselves need to run... then most of our food production and power requirements can be met by a cottage industry effort once the infrastructure is in place to allow people to sell excess power back to the grid.

Electricity is what I want to farm.

The crop that doesn't go bad and is in constant demand.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 30 2017


// Electricity is what I want to farm. //

<contemplates roadside sign offering "Organic Free-Range Electrons">
-- 8th of 7, Dec 30 2017


"... Pick your own!"
-- pertinax, Dec 30 2017


// The water is extracted from the external environment and collected internally.//

Thank you.

So, where does new water enter the system, and where does overflow water (if any) escape?

Is the bend in the chimney meant to prevent evaporated water from escaping? If it is, then I'm imagining at least some of the water condensing in the bend, trickling down the wrong way (surface tension) dripping on to the outer surface of the greenhouse and making its escape into the wild blue yonder, thereby defeating our intentions.
-- pertinax, Dec 30 2017


New water enters the system via the compost-shed, chicken coop, and entry points as the chimney effect draws in cooler exterior air and evaporation from the decomposition and animal respiration as they are drawn toward the stack.

The bend in the chimney is only there to direct the vortex rings towards the collection chamber.
Almost all of the water vapor will be trapped within the vortices. A vortex ring launcher needs a lip to create a proper ring so any water vapor which condenses on the inside of the chimney can be collected internally.

Sorry, I didn't really explain that very well either.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 31 2017


No no, don't apologize - there was obviously a lot of material to get through.

I'll have to go and look up vortex rings now, and tie some new knots in my synapses. If I'm not back in time for tea ... then I'll be late for tea. :-)
-- pertinax, Dec 31 2017


// Sorry, I didn't really explain that very well either. //

[marked-for-tagline]

// vortex rings //

Some volcanos emit huge, spectacular, highly persistent rings - many examples on YouTube,
-- 8th of 7, Dec 31 2017


Excuse me while I scratch my botnical. Ha
-- xenzag, Dec 31 2017


OK, next question: how can a Tesla turbine run the length of the chimney? I mean, you extract energy from a tt through some sort of spindle or drive shaft, but if *that* runs the length of the chimney then the discs driving it are horizontal, and, if I've understood the tt correctly from wikiP, you're meant to turn those disks by squirting fluid at them whose direction of squirtage is somewhere in the plane of those discs. Now, I think the only direction in which you have fluid squirting is up the chimney, because of convection.

So, were you thinking of somehow diverting the direction of the convection current? Or maybe using that part of it at the top, where the fluid starts to move out and down again? Or are some of my assumptions wrong?
-- pertinax, Dec 31 2017


// Or are some of my assumptions wrong? //

At least two major ones, based on the available evidence.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 31 2017


Go on then ... ?
-- pertinax, Dec 31 2017


No, no; no clues ... you can work it out easily enough.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 31 2017


//So, were you thinking of somehow diverting the direction of the convection current?//

Exactly.
The expanding air from the inflated wall layers meets the base of the chimney travelling almost horizontally.
If it is shunted so that it enters the stack hugging one wall then the air within the chimney will tornado.
Perforations in each disk section align slightly off-kilter allowing convection to continue to carry the air upwards while still imparting spin to the disks horizontally.

This has the added bonus of causing rotation as well as inversion within the vortex rings as they are launched and, although I can't be sure of this part yet without some experimentation, I believe will keep the vortex rings much more coherent and able to withstand stronger winds after being launched.

If the bend at the top of the chimney were physically connected to the lower intake port by a clear plastic conduit then I estimate that more than ninety percent of the heat would be retained and even more water could be condensed out of the air.

On a side note;
I've seen a circular 3d Tesla conduit, [link], which could possibly create a chimney which would work in reverse by drawing hot air downwards.
If this valvular shape were created within the negative spaces carved out of the disks of a Tesla turbine then that design could also be given a cork-screw shape. The core of this negative chimney would then rotate as heated air was vented underground bypassing the entire heat sink normally needed to run a solar updraft tower just by painting the tower black.

ooh, or vantablack...

title fixed
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Dec 31 2017


// able to withstand stronger winds //

<silent evil anticipatory glee as [2fries] blithely wanders onwards towards deep pit filled with sharpened spikes >

Are you referring to the issue of the vortex ring retaining its structural integrity, or the problem of wind-induced lateral deflection ?

<sits back to consider if there might be a god of schadenfreude, and if so, what form of lavish oblation might be sufficiently pleasing so as to ensure the delivery of [2fries] roasted on a platter, with an apple conspicuously inserted into an appropriate bodily orifice>.
-- 8th of 7, Dec 31 2017


//Are you referring to the issue of the vortex ring retaining its structural integrity, or the problem of wind-induced lateral deflection ?//

Um... both I think. I'd thought that spinning the vortex ring would have a rifling effect but I can't find any experiments on this.
Today I wonder if it might not be possible to direct exhaust in a smoke ring directly downwards using the chimney itself as the core of the vortex within an outer sleeve. Can't miss the target that way.

The god of schadenfreude and I are on a first name basis with each other.
Ol' Murphy is a real asshole.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 01 2018


Won't the architectural plans look a bit rude if the compost and chicken shed are larger geodesic halfdomes? The neighbours might be offended at the Google maps aerial view.
-- wjt, Jan 01 2018


When I add the secondary coop and the Quonset hut it will look like I'm giving the finger to satellite maps.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Jan 01 2018



random, halfbakery