# Humor Me - Steam Idea



## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

I don't know anything about calculating energy, so this is probably a stupid idea. So don't worry about hurting my feelings by pointing out all the flaws.

I have city water so it is under pressure. I don't know how much pressure so I don't know how high I can get it without a pump, but I'm guessing at least 10' and 20'.

So 2 parts to this.

1) What could I do with water that is stored at 20'? Is that enough to power a generator?

2) Once the water reaches the ground tank, could I use the sun to boil the water and create steam to run a generator? 

The idea is I could condense the steam back into water and repeat the cycle.

I'm trying to make a perpetual motion machine. :help:

This is one of those ideas inspired by a bottle of my own wine.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

You have the basic concept of some things, but don't have the understanding of scale.

For example, in your #1: 

*1) What could I do with water that is stored at 20'? Is that enough to power a generator?*

Yes....if you have water stored 20' above your generator, you can produce power. 
But now examine the scale.....how much power ?

1 horsepower = 550 foot pounds per sec.

1 gallon of water weighs roughly 8 pounds...if you could drop a gallon 20' ( assuming no friction in the pipe ) every second, you would have 160 ft/lbs of energy...about 1/4 horsepower potential.

1 horsepower is also about 750 watts.....that means a gallon per second from 20' has the energy potential of about 200 watts....IF you had a 100% efficient way to convert the energy to electricity....you don't....best case, you'd probably get half, so one gallon would light a 100w light bulb for one second.

Want the bulb to burn for a minute ? You'd need 60 gallons per minute.

What does your water pipe put out ? Maybe 5-10 gallons minute ?

What do you pay for the water ?

How are you going to store it at the 20' level ?

What are you going to do with 60gal/minute at the bottom ?

What does the storage, the piping, the water turbine, the generator, etc/cost ?

Do you start to see why you can't do this on a small scale ? ( There are plans for storing VAST amounts of water at elevation using cheap power, like tidal power, then releasing it later to generate.....but you're talking utility SCALE.....not a small deal )

A similar exercise on your #2 would show you the same thing....that yes, the concept is valid, but the practical application requires a LARGE scale project to be cost effective.

That is NOT to discourage your thinking, but to give you a better understanding of scale and cost. 

Sometimes people who have no idea something can't be done come up with interesting ways of doing it anyway.....but there are certain laws of physics you simply can't get around......that is HOW they became a law ( scientific law, not legal )

I'm reminded of the story of Bill Lear (of Lear Jet fame ).....his formal education went only to the 8th grade, and in 1930, he invented the car radio at a time when conventional engineers said you couldn't put a radio in a car.....wouldn't work due to the vibration ( vacuum tubes back then ), but Lear didn't know that, and did it anyway....ahahahaaaa.....the Motorola ( Motor for car, ola for sound ) was invented. He also invented the 8 track tape and lots of aviation devices/improvements.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

First off read up on how dangerous live steam is.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

Do you realize the volume difference between water and steam is ~1 to 1200?


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

OK, in 3 posts you have made it clear it can't work. 

Now open a bottle of wine or beer and think about how we could make it work. I just have this nagging feeling that the answer to energy is solar, but not in solar panels. That there is a better way to harness the sun's power.

If a giant steam locomotive worked, it seems like solar should be able to fuel a steam turbine. Then we just need a way to recapture the water.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Google is your friend.

Enter this: *Solar powered steam turbine*, and start reading.


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## Windy in Kansas (Jun 16, 2002)

MoonRiver (good moniker, our Junior/Senior banquet theme based on the song). For starters water seeks its own level. The city water pressure is mainly generated by the height of the water tower. So therefore you could get water to that level without using a pump, unlike how the city fills it with one. 

Steam locomotives were external combustion engines meaning that they required vast amounts of fuel (coal or wood), just as internal combustion engines do, i.e. autos, trucks, tractors, etc. 

Rather than steam I'd like to aim you in a different direction, that of temperature differential engines. Modern technology and materials have made them much more efficient. They are now being used via solar heating to power commercial power generators. 

Temperature differential engines are most often referred to as Stirling engines, note Stirling with an i not an e. Here is a link to the Wikipedia page for them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

Stirling engines will operate from the heat of your hand or from a cup of coffee, albeit do little work other than show that they do still operate. American Stirling Company has models for sale and there are also numerous YouTube videos showing the process of making your own rudimentary version. http://www.stirlingengine.com/

Hot Air Engine Society site here: http://www.sesusa.org/
Research group page: http://www.mech.canterbury.ac.nz/research/stirlingcycle.shtml


NASA has done a fair amount of research with them. 

Companies in New Zealand have as well and produce a generator unit for use on boats and for remote locations. Those operate on gasses. http://www.whispertech.co.nz/main/PRODUCTS/

YouTube videos. Here is a nice one. [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xF15NA4vR2w[/ame]
Quad-rocker, twin cylinder unit: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtbbeLe2CjM&feature=related[/ame]
One doing a little work: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LOcyjZthsg&feature=related[/ame]
Solar powered home unit: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNWNqeL4dxQ&feature=more_related[/ame]
Another: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AsnE9kwyDw&feature=channel[/ame]
A nice well machined and balanced German made unit: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AsnE9kwyDw&feature=channel[/ame]
Comments tell it like it is--efficient but not a lot of power:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UwT0TEv5co&NR=1&feature=fvwp[/ame]

I tend to remember that this power plant has finally come on line:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTQ4cFn5sXs&feature=related[/ame]

Have fun with whatever you work with.


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

Thanks everyone for the ideas. I don't know anything about electricity or engineering, so let's hope I don't create too big a disaster.

Sounds like this might be a good hobby though. Lots of research, stuff to build and tinker with, etc. Best way to learn something is to do it wrong and then figure out how to fix it.


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## Jim-mi (May 15, 2002)

I for one did not say it would not work.
It bothers me that people say lets use steam . . . . .before they have done any in depth study on the subject. Live steam is down right dangerous.
I'm a fan of the old railroad days of steam . . . .glory days !!!!!


Come up to Mich. and go observe the monster power station where they pump Lake Michigan water way up hill into a darn big reservoir.
Then when the "grid demand" calls for it, gates are opened and the hydro generators hum.
Water availability------- millions of gallons.
mighty big operation..........

don't stop thinking
(that wine or beer does not make for clear thinking)


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## texican (Oct 4, 2003)

MoonRiver said:


> I'm trying to make a perpetual motion machine. :help:
> 
> This is one of those ideas inspired by a bottle of my own wine.


Simply put, there's a Law against it. Physical law, not subject to human whims, or vino inspirations...


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## Big Dreamer (Aug 6, 2010)

I always like to say âThe impossible only take a little longerâ you never know what might spawn for your idea or a few cold ones!


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

Big Dreamer said:


> I always like to say âThe impossible only take a little longerâ you never know what might spawn for your idea or a few cold ones!


Sometimes those ideas after a few cold ones can cost quite a big chunk of money. They are always interesting though.


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## Ross (May 9, 2002)

I once wondered how big pond one might need to make useful power at the top of a hill. (I forget the numbers but too big for the average person ended the thought. Acres by deep) Much as Jim mentioned run water to a genny when needed and out into a tailings pond (Again you need too much land) Then use multiple wind powered pumps to put it back at the top of the hill. It is a wind power system really. OK too many pumps too or at least the hdro part can only be useful part time.....which wasn`t really the problem. There`s a reason hydro systems use streams, just to make up the evapouration water losses meant you`d need a run off collection system; not everyone has a stream! So isn`t it easier and cheaper to use a good quality wind generator and store electricity.... well yeah if you need to pump the water for reuse because you do not have a stream. (I do not as it happens have a stream) 

Now a solar powered steam gennerator might have potential but again as stated steam generators are dangerous machines that are annually cerified for a reason. (even all those old antiques you see at shows) You don`t have to be a professional to run a boiler but you do have to learn the limits. I`m going to gues the smallest useful boiler would have to equate to an oil fired unit using 1 gph which is around 138,000 btu. How much solar collector coverage that would equal I do not know.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

texican said:


> Simply put, there's a Law against it. Physical law, not subject to human whims, or vino inspirations...


The wine is clouding his thinking. Since it would have a solar input to boil the water it would not be a PMM.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

There is actually a website somewhere, of all the perpetual motion machines that obviously don't work. Some of the ideas are fascinating, some a few hundred years old.


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## NVSmith (Aug 12, 2010)

-Moon River actually goes into two different realms. 
1) Water with 20 feet of vertical drop, or "head", could POSSIBLY be used for a micro hydropower project. Unfortunately he has to take into account what is required to get the water up that 20': if it is coming from a municipal system then he and his neighbors are paying for it. If Moon River pays a bill for the water he uses each month and that will probably cost more than he can recoup. Third, what does he plan on doing with the water after he uses it? It has to go somewhere...
2) Steam energy is alive and well. Nuclear, coal, gas and other power generating plants are all steam powered. As has been noted, steam, even low pressure steam, is dangerous. It is possible that focusing solar collectors may someday be a somewhat practical source for generating (probably) low pressure steam but I haven't seen any yet. I played with the idea myself some years back; even with access to a real, honest to goodness, experienced steam engineer the cost/benefit/functionality just wasn't there.
-By the way, Bill Lear, mentioned above, put steam engines into cars and busses. I saw one of the car engines. I think the bus engine would have worked but the test cycle designed guaranteed that the experiment would fail.
-That doesn't mean we should stop looking.


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## byexample (Aug 28, 2009)

I've been doing research on ways to harness solar thermal energy for several years now. I still have some things to finish up round the homestead and then I'll be working towards my first, small-scale, solar steam engine. Can't wait.

The stirling engines are also quite interesting. You might want to have a look at that concept. There's even a company in Canada (I think) that makes a wood stove that has an integrated stirling engine to generates power.

I'm personally interested in thermal-based power systems because of the potential of having multi-fuel capable power generation. Wood, sun, coal, biogas, propane, etc.. Seems the most sustainable approach to self-produced power is to be as flexible as possible.

I also really like the simplicity and dependability of some of the early industrial-age technology. In my own personalized quest for sustainability I've often found the answers to my needs in the past and not the future.


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## MoonRiver (Sep 2, 2007)

NVSmith said:


> -Moon River actually goes into two different realms.
> 1) Water with 20 feet of vertical drop, or "head", could POSSIBLY be used for a micro hydropower project. Unfortunately he has to take into account what is required to get the water up that 20': if it is coming from a municipal system then he and his neighbors are paying for it. If Moon River pays a bill for the water he uses each month and that will probably cost more than he can recoup. Third, what does he plan on doing with the water after he uses it? It has to go somewhere...
> 2) Steam energy is alive and well. Nuclear, coal, gas and other power generating plants are all steam powered. As has been noted, steam, even low pressure steam, is dangerous. It is possible that focusing solar collectors may someday be a somewhat practical source for generating (probably) low pressure steam but I haven't seen any yet. I played with the idea myself some years back; even with access to a real, honest to goodness, experienced steam engineer the cost/benefit/functionality just wasn't there.
> -By the way, Bill Lear, mentioned above, put steam engines into cars and busses. I saw one of the car engines. I think the bus engine would have worked but the test cycle designed guaranteed that the experiment would fail.
> -That doesn't mean we should stop looking.


The idea was that I would condense the steam and restart the cycle. Basically a closed loop system. I only need to get the city water pressure to load the tank the 1st time and after that the steam would do it. At least in my daydream that's how it works.


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## OntarioMan (Feb 11, 2007)

There was someone somewhere working on a 6 cycle gasoline/steam engine. Basically, a conventional fuel powered engine with another power and exhaust stroke.. which used water to create steam to power the engine. The engine had no radiator or cooling system since it converted that excess heat to steam energy during the one cycle. 

I suppose technically its not a steam engine... more of a hybrid gas/water engine.

Not sure whatever happened to that... but it was a very interesting idea.


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## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

6 stroke engines

Bruce Crower (Crower CAms) has been the latest one working on them.


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

moonriver....check it out..a bug not far south of us working on it right now


[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv8S_aHkoYU[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrYAfBixTdw[/ame]


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## elkhound (May 30, 2006)

http://www.otherpower.com/steamengine.shtml


I am going way of steam if ironhead41 gets it all figured out for us.


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