# ideas for alternative energy and energy storage



## -justin- (Sep 7, 2014)

there are a few ideas ive had for alternative energy that do no require expensive solar panels or a tall wind turbine, id like to know what others think about these ideas or discuss other ideas people may have

first idea uses sunlight, but not solar panels, the idea here is to focus the sunlight to a single point, most likely by constructing a parabolic mirror which reflects the sunlight to a single point, this single point could be the water tank for a steam engine, or a stirling engine which takes the heat from the focused sunlight and converts it to electricity

another idea i've had is using a steam or stirling engine to power a generator using flammable sources for the energy, such sources can be material you grow yourself, depending on the location, reed cane which is similar to bamboo grows incredibly fast and provide a very large amount of energy per acre per year, wood can be grown and the wood gas could be used in a generator as well

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for storage mediums i feel its best to not rely on batteries, batteries are not a great medium for storing energy, certainly not if you dont plan on spending a lot of money regularly to replace them.. so one idea ive had was to use a cistern to store hydrogen split via electrolysis from water which can be used in a fuel cell or converted gasoline engine generator to take the energy back out of it.. this wouldnt be the most efficient and would require you to generate a lot more power than you need at any given time to make up for it

another idea is to use gravity itself.. now, i thought of hey, why not use a big concrete piston that could be lifted off the ground by using the generated electricity to turn a winch.. when power is needed you let the piston fall pulling on the wheel of a generator to take power out of it.. however, this piston would need to be astronomically HUGE and travel a fairly great distance.. im talking tens of thousands of pounds worth if not more

so i had another idea of having the electricity pump the water into an uphill reservoir, a valve can open to release the water through a turbine to take power back out of the system.. but this would require a very large area for storing water, and could freeze

lastly, the last option i must admit is a very high tech one, but could be a superior solution to batteries, its a technology ive just started experimenting with and intend to build a prototype unit soon.. this is flywheel energy storage... now the way flywheel energy storage works is a cylindrical weight, it can even be a light carbon fiber disc, is suspended inside a cylinder, in a vacuum suspended by simple magnetic bearings (these never wear out)

you have a means of adding energy into the system.. what works is having copper coils buit into the inside of the cylinder, magnets on the outside of the flywheel, or this could even be a more compact mechanism beside the flywheel itself on a shaft all contained within the cylinder, when electricity goes into the system, it causes the flywheel to spin up to tens if not hundreds of thousands of revolutions per minute, theres really no limit to the amount of energy you can put into it, since its a vacuum theres nothing to slow it down, since its magnetic bearings theres nothing to wear out.. you can leave the flywheels in this state for days or a week and not lose any noticable amount of energy

then to get energy out, the magnets with the copper coils built inside the unit will act like a generator to pump out energy when you need it, of course the drag of the system drawing energy from the magnetcs will slow the flywheel down as you take energy from the system

advantages, a flywheel storage unit is very compact, can even be made the size of a AA battery (if you had the technology to do this), it can store enormous amounts of power, store it for a very long time, no degredation of the system since there are no moving parts touching, zero friction, really no need for replacement parts... thats why im building larger prototypes of this system soon

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any other ideas, questions, or comments on either energy creation or energy storage?


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

You're re-inventing the wheel. Everything you mentioned is already being used, or has been, or is flat more expensive than those "expensive solar panels" you mention. 

Go study what has already been done.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

I've been trying to think of a way to use the energy of a flywheel to split wood. An electric motor or possibly gas engine would spin the flywheel made from a 50 gallon drum filled with sand then there would be a way to divert the energy and 'fire' the splitting wedge.

The purpose would be to speed up the process since every splitter I've seen is slow.

I suppose a guy could run some gears to slow down the spinning energy through a few gears then the splitter could be activated by a large egg shaped rotor similar to those used to activate the valves of an engine.


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## TnAndy (Sep 15, 2005)

Yep. Several companies already make them. 

DR Rapidfire, uses a pair of 75lb flywheels with a rack/pinion shaft. Non hydraulic, very fast cycle time.

Another company called Super Split makes a similar version.

There are others. Go to YouTube and enter "Flywheel log splitter" to see dozens of versions.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

Thanks. That should really cut the time it takes to split a cord.


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## -justin- (Sep 7, 2014)

i plan to build a larger flywheel power unit for storing electricity soon.. a prototype roughly the size of a large truck battery so i can start running some experiments on it.. my goal is to find a solution that people can replicate themselves and build with a small machine shop at as little cost as possible


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## Harry Chickpea (Dec 19, 2008)

Whenever you have energy change state - rotational energy to electricity, wood to gas to rotational energy, etc., you are going to have losses. 15% is a good starting figure, some are more, some less.

Flywheel storage is intriguing. If you want to be amazed, look online for articles about real Faraday generators. In essence they are spinning solid copper disks rotated at extreme speeds. if you have sliding contactors at the outer edge and closer to the center, they express a voltage. More importantly, the rotational energy can express as current, allowing _massive_ current flows. They were used in scientific experiments up through the 1960s or so IIRC.


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