New technology for fully eco-friendly electricity generation
We all many times thought about where the electricity comes from, thanks to which the work of your computer, the Internet, a huge amount of all kinds of equipment, and, of course, Habrahabr is possible.
Now we have CHP, NPP, HPP and a rather large number of other energy generation technologies. Most of these technologies have very significant drawbacks - this is either significant harm to the environment, or the consumption of slowly renewable natural resources, or low efficiency. Some technologies seem almost perfect, but only until they know their value.
But what if we had the opportunity to find a way to get energy that would not have all these shortcomings? And what if he also gave additional benefits, such as, for example, clean drinking water? And if it cost about one hundred dollars (about three thousand rubles) per person and all the necessary equipment at the same time would have a very long service life (that is, paying $ 100 once you could not have thought about electricity and water bills for many years) could such a complex be installed anywhere on earth?
')
We have this way. And we will soon be ready for production. Therefore, if you are interested, read on.
(The girl in the picture disapprovingly looks at those who do not want to hear anything.)
So, our country has a huge, unimaginable scale deficiency. It is firmly planted on a narcotic oil and gas needle, and this destroys it, and ruins its people. As long as the whole world is dependent on oil, and its prices are only constantly growing, there are no real prospects for tearing off this leech by admonitions and peaceful protests of the few conscientious intelligentsia. It's time to stop - which we want to do. Bring down energy prices, i.e. save humanity from hydrocarbon energy dependence.
It is known that solar energy reaching our planet is about 20,000 times greater than the needs of mankind (see Energy. Problems and Prospects. —MAStyrikovich, E.E. Shpilrain, M: Energiya, 1981, p. 38) . About a quarter of it goes to the evaporation of water and, in fact, constantly more or less evenly accumulates in the atmosphere over any part of the world. Standard hydropower is fundamentally capable of using only a small part of this energy, since all precipitation loses most of its potential energy on its way to the ground to overcome air resistance and hit the ground. In order to use this potential energy more diligently, it is necessary to collect water at the height where it is condensed, and the entire height difference in the hydroelectric station is triggered. This is the essence of this decision.
Interestingly, when the solution was already invented, when searching for similar ideas on the Internet using keywords, it was unexpectedly discovered that as early as 1919 in one of the articles, the ingenious Nikola Tesla was almost half a step before implementing this idea, correctly assessing the necessary resource, but without finding a scheme for its implementation, for which everything was ready a hundred years ago. It's a shame. If he then screwed up this idea, then we would all live in a completely different world - clean, environmentally friendly, abundant, without wars for oil, without the power of oil barons and so on ... alas, humanity has lost a hundred years!
How to implement a solution - Aero Hydro .
The scheme of one of the solutions is shown in the figure. Aero HPS contains downstream 1 , upstream 2 , conduit 3 , turbogenerator 4 , mesh, woven or film surfaces 5 , airship 6 and fixing cables 7 .
The airship 6 raises surfaces 5 to a height near or above the dew point for given atmospheric conditions (usually 2-3 km). There, the supercooled atmospheric moisture begins to actively condense on surfaces 5. The drainage system on surfaces 5 diverts this water to a small reservoir (upstream 2), from where water under the pressure of the entire height difference (2-3 km) enters through a pressure or pressureless conduit 3 into the lower pond 1 on the ground, producing electricity in a turbo-generator 4.
The entire installation can be easily mounted in any place convenient for the consumer of electricity and water, simply by lifting and moving it entirely using the same airship 6.
If constant steady winds blow at this point, or it is a portable installation (for example, for tourists or military), then you can do without airship 6 and use surfaces 5 as a paraglider to hold the whole structure in air (as it happens when you launch a kite) .
Also, the surfaces 5 can be made with full or partial metallization (for example, interweaving of metallic conductors). This will increase the strength of the structure, reduce solar heating, increase the condensation of water vapor due to the supply of an electric field (for example, there are experiments using the corona discharge for this), and if necessary, reduce icing due to the supply of current.
In general, icing can be used as a standard mode, since the system has automatic stability - with the accumulation of ice, the entire structure will independently decrease to the region of higher atmospheric temperatures, and after the ice melts, it will rise to the required height.
From the point of view of electricity generation, everything works in the same way as in conventional hydroelectric power plants, but conventional hydroelectric power plants have fundamental general shortcomings: they require considerable capital expenditures on the construction of the dam, occupy significant areas under the reservoir, cause environmental damage and are usually removed from the consumer. In addition, there is always the potential danger of possible destruction of the dam. To a certain extent, all these shortcomings are the result of relatively small elevation changes with huge volumes of water, typical of most lowland rivers.
Nevertheless, elevation differences of 2 km, as in the Aero Hydroelectric Station, are not extraordinary. There are several power plants in the world working with such differences. It uses very simple bucket turbines , invented back in 1889 by the American engineer Allan Pelton.
The principal difference of the Aero Hydroelectric Station is the condensation of moisture from the air, which at first glance seems like a funny and practically impossible curiosity. Nevertheless, there is nothing unusual here. There are several perfectly working installations called mist collectors . For example, the installation for collecting drinking water in Chile was tested back in 1987 and is perfectly described with all the technical characteristics .
A workable installation may even be portable. For example, a tourist or a summer resident can build it simply in the form of a paraglider or a kite, and in dank St. Petersburg, where we come from, it will start to give water from a height of half a kilometer. :)
In fact, there are sites and design models that even allow you to calculate the height of the dew point at any real time in any place on the planet using upper-air diagrams . In addition, there are excellent theoretical models developed in Gatchina by our physicists VG Gorshkov and AM Makareva. To calculate the turbine, you can use the site M.N. Rozina.
According to the Chilean installation, such mesh surfaces gave from 3 to 13 liters per square meter per day. Considering that in Chile the installations were completely passive, and we can actively control the Air Hydroelectric Station, changing the position of surfaces 5 in height (for maximum condensation) and orientation to the wind (for maximum flow of atmospheric moisture), it is hoped that the water output will be significantly increased . But even accepting it for simplicity at the same level of ~ 10 l / m 2 / day, we get that just a piece of nylon mesh 10 x 10 m (100 m 2 ) fully meets one person’s water needs (~ 1000 l / day ) and household electricity (~ 150-200 kWh / month).
Let us estimate, for example, the technical and economic data of a small Aero Hydroelectric Station for a settlement of 100 people. Such an installation will give water up to 100 m 3 / day (1.16 l / s) and have a power of 20-50 kW (depending on the lifting height).
Let the minimum - the height of 2000 m, 20 kW - 10,000 m 2 network (100 x 100 m)
Price nylon nets from $ 0.5 / m 2 , weight from 10 g / m 2 - $ 5000, 100 kg
A balloon of 500 m 3 (hydrogen, approximately as in besieged Leningrad) lifts 500 kg - a shell of let it be $ 2000, hydrogen is only $ 10 (at $ 2 / kg) - helium would cost about $ 5000.
The hose needs an internal diameter of only 3 mm, the water velocity in it is 200 m / s (approximately the same as on the above-mentioned Swiss hydroelectric station), the weight of all the water in the hose is 10-20 kg (depending on the geometry).
The total weight of water in the hose, on the nets and in the upper reservoir is even 100–200 kg
The simplest bucket turbine + 20 kW generator + nylon cables and so on - let it be another $ 3,000
Total even with such extremely low power we have:
The total price is ~ $ 10,000 ($ 100 per each inhabitant of the village), the weight is 200–300 kg with the capacity of the balloon up to 500 kg. The specific capital intensity is $ 500 / kW. Costs are close to zero.
For comparison :
It is clear that with increasing power, performance should only improve. For typical capacities of hundreds and thousands of MW, we can expect a decrease in the specific capital intensity to $ 200–300 / kW.
Aero HPS can solve all the energy problems of mankind and at the same time solve the huge social problems. Approximate market: at least 7 billion people on the planet for $ 100 = 700 billion. If someone wants to start production, make mankind happy and at the same time become the richest person on Earth, please write to us .
The English text is posted on airhes.com . Also there is a text field in which you can enter your email address so that we can write to you when we have ready devices.
In 2013, a patent was obtained - RU 2500854 .
The comments sounded a very large number of different questions and opinions. Some of them are very surprising. And some are quite useful on the contrary.
One way or another, let's break down the main arguments point by point.
1. "Hydrogen is explosive, it is necessary to use helium."
This is not true. Hydrogen itself is safe; only so-called detonating gas, which is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, can explode. However, in order to form a similar substance inside the airship, you still have to try hard. Even if deliberately firing it, and even when using projectiles that cause burning. The fact is that the whole airship will not explode anyway - it can only burn on the surface.
During the war, hundreds of such airships flew over Moscow and St. Petersburg at about the same height, and they were filled with hydrogen. And yes, of course, everyone understood that they would be fired upon by enemy aircraft.
The point here is that even if the airship burns and falls, then, in fact, it cannot cause damage due to the very small weight (the main weight is made up of nets that collect water). It is like worrying about a curtain that could tear itself away from a resident of the upper floor of a skyscraper and not fall the ground.
2. "But what if a hurricane rises?"
Rises, and that. Did anything happen to those winds over Moscow and St. Petersburg? They were tied to the ground with ropes and perfectly held around a certain point. And the materials now, it should be noted, are much better than in those times. Regarding whether the cables will stand - yes without problems. This is not a theory, it has been tested many times. And the airship keeps these cables perfectly.
But in general, we can lower them in the event of a hurricane - this is the normal state for airships, lowering and lifting are always foreseen. The text of the article says that the system is absolutely manageable - we can not only lower the airship down, but also orient the structure in such a way that the wind does not cause any damage to it, just as it does with sails on ships.
By the way, then, during the war, in order to prevent the formation of a detonating gas inside the dirigibles (it is assumed that oxygen in any case penetrates in some quantity), they were periodically snapped down, hydrogen was released from there, and pumped in again.
But now other solutions are possible. We can supply gas analyzers and check the level of oxygen. As soon as it reaches a certain point, we send a message to the ground, and the standard procedure of hydrogen transfer is applied.
By the way, for this purpose it is possible to foresee the use of the same hose, transferring hydrogen in the opposite direction.
But you can make it even more interesting - for oxygen there is a catalyst, palladium. If we place it inside the airship (it is possible from below, it is possible on the sides, you can even hang it in the center - oxygen molecules will collide with it in any case) a palladium lattice, then oxygen with hydrogen can be connected, but without fire. So we get water. This water under the action of gravity accumulates at the bottom of the airship, and nothing prevents to provide an automatic drain mechanism (this is, of course, absolutely safe, ordinary water).
Thus, part of the hydrogen will simply be spent on the formation of water, and the airship will gradually decline. As soon as you need to raise it back, it will be enough to pump additional hydrogen into it.
We can also use the simplest electrolyzer, which will separate part of the water taken from the grid into oxygen and hydrogen. Accordingly, we can immediately pump hydrogen into the airship, and release oxygen into the air. Then we can significantly simplify the maintenance of the installation, since regular procedures to ensure an adequate level of hydrogen will not be needed at all - hydrogen will be produced by the installation itself.
By the way, the low cost of hydrogen is not its only advantage for such an installation. Hydrogen is in a molecular state, unlike helium, which exists in the form of atoms. This means that the permeability of the species is much less. In other words, hydrogen will not leak through the airship as easily as helium would.
3. "Lightning can strike your design!"
Can. But if metal is woven into the cables or they are completely metal, and, of course, the cables are grounded, the electric charge will simply go to the ground, just like on any ordinary lightning rod. Therefore, in practice, the installation is not only protected from lightning, but it carries lightning protection in itself, since the lightning will hit the cable rather than anything else (thereby protecting what is on the ground near the installation). As for the lightning strike on the airship surface - just as the lightning does not cause damage to airplanes, so our design can be fully metallized and grounded to be a lightning conductor for the entire surrounding area.
4. "Are you going to place it above the city and create a giant shadow?"
Of course not! Installations are supposed to be placed primarily above the ocean, lakes, in the desert, and so on. It is not a question of lifting them into the air directly above residential points (except, possibly, portable options, if necessary).
The surfaces are supposed to be made vertical in order to collect the horizontal flow.
Therefore, there are no shadows in the city.
5. "It violates the natural circulation of water in nature."
A very large amount of rain is not used by nature. For example, water collects over the ocean, and falls back as rain. What will happen if we collect 1% (and we are talking about these figures) from this moisture? Nothing. This water will eventually evaporate just as it would have evaporated if it fell in the form of rain.
In order to understand this topic, you need to learn more about the scientific literature on the subject of ecology. But the bottom line is that the effect here is many orders of magnitude lower than the effect of burning oil. If at least part of the energy is obtained in this way, we will already reduce the negative impact on the environment, and the more such technology will gain popularity, the less will this influence become.
6. "The water line will not withstand such a large pressure!"
The conduit can be pressure and non-pressure. In a pressure conduit, the water velocity is usually small, but the potential energy of the height difference forms a significant pressure below (2 km - 200 atm) and only in the nozzle does this pressure transform into a water speed of 200 m / s (kinetic energy) that hits the Pelton turbine bucket . In our case, a non-pressure water line is more suitable. It may not even be a pipe at all, but a tray through which a jet of water accelerates by gravity immediately transforming the potential energy of the height difference to the kinetic energy of the jet (like a jet waterfall) striking a shovel. Of course, certain speed losses will occur from the contact of the side surface of the flow with the pipe, but these are much higher speeds than those that a drop of water can reach, since the water in the jet does not experience air drag. Theoretically, this speed can reach the speed of sound in water (1348 m / s) and even higher when using a Laval nozzle .
7. “Condensation generates heat. To remove this heat, you need a powerful refrigerator. ”
In fact, there was no question of any kind of fridge. Perhaps commentators have not noticed that surfaces should be near or above the dew point. For a physicist, this means that it becomes energetically more favorable for water at this point to be in the liquid phase instead of gaseous, i.e. the process of microcondensation has already begun, but the drops are still insignificant. Actually, this is what happens in nature - as the droplets become larger, fog forms (which we see from the ground as a cloud). Of course, this condensation releases tremendous heat energy, which is simply carried away by the surrounding air, but with this we will just have to put up with it - by the way, it is this energy that creates upward flows under the emerging cumulus clouds that are actively used by the delta and simply gliders. Nevertheless, the condensation process itself can be greatly accelerated by various methods, for example, by corona discharge (due to the dipole properties of water molecules) or by artificially creating microcondensation centers (by introducing a small amount of dust or carbon dioxide, which is actively used to control precipitation - the so-called " dispersal of clouds "). In our case, the role of these condensation centers is played by the nylon net, which simply assembles this micro fog. Without it, we would simply end up with ordinary rain, and so we can at least convert this potential energy into electricity.
Now we have CHP, NPP, HPP and a rather large number of other energy generation technologies. Most of these technologies have very significant drawbacks - this is either significant harm to the environment, or the consumption of slowly renewable natural resources, or low efficiency. Some technologies seem almost perfect, but only until they know their value.
But what if we had the opportunity to find a way to get energy that would not have all these shortcomings? And what if he also gave additional benefits, such as, for example, clean drinking water? And if it cost about one hundred dollars (about three thousand rubles) per person and all the necessary equipment at the same time would have a very long service life (that is, paying $ 100 once you could not have thought about electricity and water bills for many years) could such a complex be installed anywhere on earth?
')
We have this way. And we will soon be ready for production. Therefore, if you are interested, read on.
(The girl in the picture disapprovingly looks at those who do not want to hear anything.)
Formulation of the problem
So, our country has a huge, unimaginable scale deficiency. It is firmly planted on a narcotic oil and gas needle, and this destroys it, and ruins its people. As long as the whole world is dependent on oil, and its prices are only constantly growing, there are no real prospects for tearing off this leech by admonitions and peaceful protests of the few conscientious intelligentsia. It's time to stop - which we want to do. Bring down energy prices, i.e. save humanity from hydrocarbon energy dependence.
Essence of the decision
It is known that solar energy reaching our planet is about 20,000 times greater than the needs of mankind (see Energy. Problems and Prospects. —MAStyrikovich, E.E. Shpilrain, M: Energiya, 1981, p. 38) . About a quarter of it goes to the evaporation of water and, in fact, constantly more or less evenly accumulates in the atmosphere over any part of the world. Standard hydropower is fundamentally capable of using only a small part of this energy, since all precipitation loses most of its potential energy on its way to the ground to overcome air resistance and hit the ground. In order to use this potential energy more diligently, it is necessary to collect water at the height where it is condensed, and the entire height difference in the hydroelectric station is triggered. This is the essence of this decision.
Interestingly, when the solution was already invented, when searching for similar ideas on the Internet using keywords, it was unexpectedly discovered that as early as 1919 in one of the articles, the ingenious Nikola Tesla was almost half a step before implementing this idea, correctly assessing the necessary resource, but without finding a scheme for its implementation, for which everything was ready a hundred years ago. It's a shame. If he then screwed up this idea, then we would all live in a completely different world - clean, environmentally friendly, abundant, without wars for oil, without the power of oil barons and so on ... alas, humanity has lost a hundred years!
How to implement a solution - Aero Hydro .
The scheme of one of the solutions is shown in the figure. Aero HPS contains downstream 1 , upstream 2 , conduit 3 , turbogenerator 4 , mesh, woven or film surfaces 5 , airship 6 and fixing cables 7 .
The airship 6 raises surfaces 5 to a height near or above the dew point for given atmospheric conditions (usually 2-3 km). There, the supercooled atmospheric moisture begins to actively condense on surfaces 5. The drainage system on surfaces 5 diverts this water to a small reservoir (upstream 2), from where water under the pressure of the entire height difference (2-3 km) enters through a pressure or pressureless conduit 3 into the lower pond 1 on the ground, producing electricity in a turbo-generator 4.
The entire installation can be easily mounted in any place convenient for the consumer of electricity and water, simply by lifting and moving it entirely using the same airship 6.
If constant steady winds blow at this point, or it is a portable installation (for example, for tourists or military), then you can do without airship 6 and use surfaces 5 as a paraglider to hold the whole structure in air (as it happens when you launch a kite) .
Also, the surfaces 5 can be made with full or partial metallization (for example, interweaving of metallic conductors). This will increase the strength of the structure, reduce solar heating, increase the condensation of water vapor due to the supply of an electric field (for example, there are experiments using the corona discharge for this), and if necessary, reduce icing due to the supply of current.
In general, icing can be used as a standard mode, since the system has automatic stability - with the accumulation of ice, the entire structure will independently decrease to the region of higher atmospheric temperatures, and after the ice melts, it will rise to the required height.
How it works
From the point of view of electricity generation, everything works in the same way as in conventional hydroelectric power plants, but conventional hydroelectric power plants have fundamental general shortcomings: they require considerable capital expenditures on the construction of the dam, occupy significant areas under the reservoir, cause environmental damage and are usually removed from the consumer. In addition, there is always the potential danger of possible destruction of the dam. To a certain extent, all these shortcomings are the result of relatively small elevation changes with huge volumes of water, typical of most lowland rivers.
Nevertheless, elevation differences of 2 km, as in the Aero Hydroelectric Station, are not extraordinary. There are several power plants in the world working with such differences. It uses very simple bucket turbines , invented back in 1889 by the American engineer Allan Pelton.
The principal difference of the Aero Hydroelectric Station is the condensation of moisture from the air, which at first glance seems like a funny and practically impossible curiosity. Nevertheless, there is nothing unusual here. There are several perfectly working installations called mist collectors . For example, the installation for collecting drinking water in Chile was tested back in 1987 and is perfectly described with all the technical characteristics .
What does it give
- practically eternal and unlimited free electricity and clean water for drinking and irrigation, and in any part of the world where the consumer needs it
- minimum space consumption on the ground (both for power plants and power lines), as well as the possibility of using any surfaces (including vast territories of deserts, seas, oceans, etc.)
- modularity (it is possible to assemble systems of any capacity from standard modules, for example, 1 MW each)
- mobility (including for use in transport, for example, for the supply of electricity and water to ocean vessels)
- cleanliness and environmental friendliness due to relatively small local hydro flows compared to conventional hydroelectric power stations and the complete absence of thermal, chemical or nuclear emissions into the environment
- increasing the specific power of a hydroelectric power station (i.e. power per unit of water flow) by using the maximum possible height difference between the upper and lower pools (from the height of the condensation of atmospheric moisture to ground level)
- significantly lower capital costs per unit of power and costs compared to any other known types of renewable and non-renewable energy
- the possibility of additional use for network communications, video surveillance, high-altitude advertising, lightning protection, climate protection (for example, against hurricanes and tornadoes in the US along the Gulf of Mexico), climate control (for example, by cutting off rain in St. Petersburg along the dam with the prevailing south-west wind rose) , Air defense (for example, for Israel), shading in hot countries and much more ...
Feasibility calculations
A workable installation may even be portable. For example, a tourist or a summer resident can build it simply in the form of a paraglider or a kite, and in dank St. Petersburg, where we come from, it will start to give water from a height of half a kilometer. :)
In fact, there are sites and design models that even allow you to calculate the height of the dew point at any real time in any place on the planet using upper-air diagrams . In addition, there are excellent theoretical models developed in Gatchina by our physicists VG Gorshkov and AM Makareva. To calculate the turbine, you can use the site M.N. Rozina.
According to the Chilean installation, such mesh surfaces gave from 3 to 13 liters per square meter per day. Considering that in Chile the installations were completely passive, and we can actively control the Air Hydroelectric Station, changing the position of surfaces 5 in height (for maximum condensation) and orientation to the wind (for maximum flow of atmospheric moisture), it is hoped that the water output will be significantly increased . But even accepting it for simplicity at the same level of ~ 10 l / m 2 / day, we get that just a piece of nylon mesh 10 x 10 m (100 m 2 ) fully meets one person’s water needs (~ 1000 l / day ) and household electricity (~ 150-200 kWh / month).
Let us estimate, for example, the technical and economic data of a small Aero Hydroelectric Station for a settlement of 100 people. Such an installation will give water up to 100 m 3 / day (1.16 l / s) and have a power of 20-50 kW (depending on the lifting height).
Let the minimum - the height of 2000 m, 20 kW - 10,000 m 2 network (100 x 100 m)
Price nylon nets from $ 0.5 / m 2 , weight from 10 g / m 2 - $ 5000, 100 kg
A balloon of 500 m 3 (hydrogen, approximately as in besieged Leningrad) lifts 500 kg - a shell of let it be $ 2000, hydrogen is only $ 10 (at $ 2 / kg) - helium would cost about $ 5000.
The hose needs an internal diameter of only 3 mm, the water velocity in it is 200 m / s (approximately the same as on the above-mentioned Swiss hydroelectric station), the weight of all the water in the hose is 10-20 kg (depending on the geometry).
The total weight of water in the hose, on the nets and in the upper reservoir is even 100–200 kg
The simplest bucket turbine + 20 kW generator + nylon cables and so on - let it be another $ 3,000
Total even with such extremely low power we have:
The total price is ~ $ 10,000 ($ 100 per each inhabitant of the village), the weight is 200–300 kg with the capacity of the balloon up to 500 kg. The specific capital intensity is $ 500 / kW. Costs are close to zero.
For comparison :
- the cheapest in today's energy CHP with gas turbines ~ $ 500-700 / kW at the highest cost ~ 5 cents per kW-hour,
- conventional CHP ~ $ 1500 / kW at a cost of ~ 2.5 cents per kW-hour,
- HPP ~ $ 1000-3000 / kW at a cost of ~ 0.5 cents per kW-hour,
- NPP ~ $ 5000 / kW at a cost of ~ 2.5 cents per kW-hour.
It is clear that with increasing power, performance should only improve. For typical capacities of hundreds and thousands of MW, we can expect a decrease in the specific capital intensity to $ 200–300 / kW.
Total
Aero HPS can solve all the energy problems of mankind and at the same time solve the huge social problems. Approximate market: at least 7 billion people on the planet for $ 100 = 700 billion. If someone wants to start production, make mankind happy and at the same time become the richest person on Earth, please write to us .
The English text is posted on airhes.com . Also there is a text field in which you can enter your email address so that we can write to you when we have ready devices.
In 2013, a patent was obtained - RU 2500854 .
Answers to your questions
The comments sounded a very large number of different questions and opinions. Some of them are very surprising. And some are quite useful on the contrary.
One way or another, let's break down the main arguments point by point.
1. "Hydrogen is explosive, it is necessary to use helium."
This is not true. Hydrogen itself is safe; only so-called detonating gas, which is a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen, can explode. However, in order to form a similar substance inside the airship, you still have to try hard. Even if deliberately firing it, and even when using projectiles that cause burning. The fact is that the whole airship will not explode anyway - it can only burn on the surface.
During the war, hundreds of such airships flew over Moscow and St. Petersburg at about the same height, and they were filled with hydrogen. And yes, of course, everyone understood that they would be fired upon by enemy aircraft.
The point here is that even if the airship burns and falls, then, in fact, it cannot cause damage due to the very small weight (the main weight is made up of nets that collect water). It is like worrying about a curtain that could tear itself away from a resident of the upper floor of a skyscraper and not fall the ground.
2. "But what if a hurricane rises?"
Rises, and that. Did anything happen to those winds over Moscow and St. Petersburg? They were tied to the ground with ropes and perfectly held around a certain point. And the materials now, it should be noted, are much better than in those times. Regarding whether the cables will stand - yes without problems. This is not a theory, it has been tested many times. And the airship keeps these cables perfectly.
But in general, we can lower them in the event of a hurricane - this is the normal state for airships, lowering and lifting are always foreseen. The text of the article says that the system is absolutely manageable - we can not only lower the airship down, but also orient the structure in such a way that the wind does not cause any damage to it, just as it does with sails on ships.
By the way, then, during the war, in order to prevent the formation of a detonating gas inside the dirigibles (it is assumed that oxygen in any case penetrates in some quantity), they were periodically snapped down, hydrogen was released from there, and pumped in again.
But now other solutions are possible. We can supply gas analyzers and check the level of oxygen. As soon as it reaches a certain point, we send a message to the ground, and the standard procedure of hydrogen transfer is applied.
By the way, for this purpose it is possible to foresee the use of the same hose, transferring hydrogen in the opposite direction.
But you can make it even more interesting - for oxygen there is a catalyst, palladium. If we place it inside the airship (it is possible from below, it is possible on the sides, you can even hang it in the center - oxygen molecules will collide with it in any case) a palladium lattice, then oxygen with hydrogen can be connected, but without fire. So we get water. This water under the action of gravity accumulates at the bottom of the airship, and nothing prevents to provide an automatic drain mechanism (this is, of course, absolutely safe, ordinary water).
Thus, part of the hydrogen will simply be spent on the formation of water, and the airship will gradually decline. As soon as you need to raise it back, it will be enough to pump additional hydrogen into it.
We can also use the simplest electrolyzer, which will separate part of the water taken from the grid into oxygen and hydrogen. Accordingly, we can immediately pump hydrogen into the airship, and release oxygen into the air. Then we can significantly simplify the maintenance of the installation, since regular procedures to ensure an adequate level of hydrogen will not be needed at all - hydrogen will be produced by the installation itself.
By the way, the low cost of hydrogen is not its only advantage for such an installation. Hydrogen is in a molecular state, unlike helium, which exists in the form of atoms. This means that the permeability of the species is much less. In other words, hydrogen will not leak through the airship as easily as helium would.
3. "Lightning can strike your design!"
Can. But if metal is woven into the cables or they are completely metal, and, of course, the cables are grounded, the electric charge will simply go to the ground, just like on any ordinary lightning rod. Therefore, in practice, the installation is not only protected from lightning, but it carries lightning protection in itself, since the lightning will hit the cable rather than anything else (thereby protecting what is on the ground near the installation). As for the lightning strike on the airship surface - just as the lightning does not cause damage to airplanes, so our design can be fully metallized and grounded to be a lightning conductor for the entire surrounding area.
4. "Are you going to place it above the city and create a giant shadow?"
Of course not! Installations are supposed to be placed primarily above the ocean, lakes, in the desert, and so on. It is not a question of lifting them into the air directly above residential points (except, possibly, portable options, if necessary).
The surfaces are supposed to be made vertical in order to collect the horizontal flow.
Therefore, there are no shadows in the city.
5. "It violates the natural circulation of water in nature."
A very large amount of rain is not used by nature. For example, water collects over the ocean, and falls back as rain. What will happen if we collect 1% (and we are talking about these figures) from this moisture? Nothing. This water will eventually evaporate just as it would have evaporated if it fell in the form of rain.
In order to understand this topic, you need to learn more about the scientific literature on the subject of ecology. But the bottom line is that the effect here is many orders of magnitude lower than the effect of burning oil. If at least part of the energy is obtained in this way, we will already reduce the negative impact on the environment, and the more such technology will gain popularity, the less will this influence become.
6. "The water line will not withstand such a large pressure!"
The conduit can be pressure and non-pressure. In a pressure conduit, the water velocity is usually small, but the potential energy of the height difference forms a significant pressure below (2 km - 200 atm) and only in the nozzle does this pressure transform into a water speed of 200 m / s (kinetic energy) that hits the Pelton turbine bucket . In our case, a non-pressure water line is more suitable. It may not even be a pipe at all, but a tray through which a jet of water accelerates by gravity immediately transforming the potential energy of the height difference to the kinetic energy of the jet (like a jet waterfall) striking a shovel. Of course, certain speed losses will occur from the contact of the side surface of the flow with the pipe, but these are much higher speeds than those that a drop of water can reach, since the water in the jet does not experience air drag. Theoretically, this speed can reach the speed of sound in water (1348 m / s) and even higher when using a Laval nozzle .
7. “Condensation generates heat. To remove this heat, you need a powerful refrigerator. ”
In fact, there was no question of any kind of fridge. Perhaps commentators have not noticed that surfaces should be near or above the dew point. For a physicist, this means that it becomes energetically more favorable for water at this point to be in the liquid phase instead of gaseous, i.e. the process of microcondensation has already begun, but the drops are still insignificant. Actually, this is what happens in nature - as the droplets become larger, fog forms (which we see from the ground as a cloud). Of course, this condensation releases tremendous heat energy, which is simply carried away by the surrounding air, but with this we will just have to put up with it - by the way, it is this energy that creates upward flows under the emerging cumulus clouds that are actively used by the delta and simply gliders. Nevertheless, the condensation process itself can be greatly accelerated by various methods, for example, by corona discharge (due to the dipole properties of water molecules) or by artificially creating microcondensation centers (by introducing a small amount of dust or carbon dioxide, which is actively used to control precipitation - the so-called " dispersal of clouds "). In our case, the role of these condensation centers is played by the nylon net, which simply assembles this micro fog. Without it, we would simply end up with ordinary rain, and so we can at least convert this potential energy into electricity.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/143099/
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