Alternative Energy Forums

Dear Alternative Energy Forum Members

I am a 71 year old retired engineer and for nearly 40 years I have mused over the idea of a novel renewable energy device, whilst never having the wherewithal to pursue to a conclusion its worth or worthlessness. I would hate to take the notion to my grave without a professional in the field carrying out some form of assessment.

To this end, I lay out the principles below, along with some thoughts as to applicability and suspected advantages over other methods. Any member/s technically and commercially capable of assessing its potential, or otherwise, can do with this as they will; I have no financial interests in any developments going forward. If nothing else, it might represent an opportunity for members to chew over the pros and cons of a novel idea on the crazy inventions forum.

Kindest Regards,

cwm66.

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Renewable Energy Generator, capable of operation from multiple energy sources.

As a little lad, in the 1940’s, we used to play on ‘Tom Puddings’ in the local canal at one of the coal loading stations. From memory, these must have been 16 ft. long x 12 ft. wide x 8 ft. deep. When empty, the top rim was 6 ft. above water level & not of much use to us. However, when they were full, with 40 tons of coal, the rim was only 12” above the water, with a very inviting mound of coal to play on. You could push one of these & as far we were concerned, it would have gone on forever if nothing got in its way. The nearest the human brain could conceive as perpetual motion.

20 years later, I was a qualified, practising engineer, & the first murmurings of climate change & the desirability of energy generation from renewable sources, were being heard. I mused about joining up hundreds of these loaded tom puddings, into a huge circle & floating them in a circular ‘canal’.

This is the premiss of my novel idea, with the ‘rotor’ designed as a flywheel, turbine wheel or circular ‘windship’. Over the years, my musings have taken me into the realms of the following possibilities:

o Use as a generator for low-head river sites, where river flow is taken into the ‘canal’, to drive the rotor, which, complete with turbine blades, becomes a sizeable turbine wheel; or, if you prefer it, a latter-day water wheel. Since the number of low-head sources are a few orders of magnitude greater than conventional hydroelectricity sites, modest sized installations may be particularly valuable in remote locations in the developing world.

o Use as a wind energy generator, by the application of computer controlled sails. Such sails are currently under consideration on Knud E. Hansen experimental windships. At ¾ kW/sq.m, designing for a few megawatt of sail area does not seem unrealistic. The low profile of an installation should be much more environmentally acceptable than wind turbines and at the speeds involved, birds would probably be able to nest on them

o Use as a generator, combining the previous two modes of energy input.

o Offshore wind/wave/tidal consideration of all of the above.

o Use as a massive flywheel for on-site electrical energy storage, to optimise the efficiency of an individual power stations. Energy input at off-peak hours from motors through friction or hydrodynamic drives to ‘wind-up’ the rotor to full speed and capable of returning energy output at peak demand through generators similarly coupled, to decelerate the rotor.