/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>123603
>mfw someone saved the picture I made

>>123603
>SOLAR, WIND, GEOTHERMAL, ETC. WHICH IS BEST?

Depends on your location and available materials.

Geothermal will be more constant, but in non-hot zones may need an active system to pump with.

Solar is great, especially passive solar, but night and clouds hinder it.

Wind is rather predictable in most areas in that is if you are on a hill/mountain face on the prevailing wind side you'll have lots of wind; if you are in a valley there won't be as much wind. The distance from the ground up to the air stream is also a fair constant, but changes depending on your location.

Methane generation from human waste, food waste, animal waste, and general farm waste is a constant and gives your both methane and fertilizer which can grow food, make heat, and electric respectively. Since it is bacteria based the bacteria is where all the work is coming from so you actually don't put much energy into it and you get gobs of energy out of it (kind of like planting a seed for a tree). It's draw backs are...not too sure since it depends on the type of system you use. Ah, I know, in areas of extremely low population that do not have farms or much waste won't be able to fuel the methane digester as well as an area with more throughput of wastes.

If the there's a methane plant then the outgoing fertilizer should be sanitized using the methane from the plant, otherwise there is always a slight chance of bacteria making it onto your plants later on that you don't want there.

The environmental impact for a methane biogas generator is actually negative, if it is designed correctly and it's influx of waste and outflux of usables are managed correctly. This is because the bacteria are so fucking efficient and taking into consideration fuel costs to truck in wastes, manufacturing costs of the trucks and the plant, etc. Germany and India are way ahead of the rest of the world in this one.

Homebrew wind turbines.
Micro hydropower (pelton wheel)

While solar cells aren't great, solar water heaters are.

>>123627
It is an engineering nightmare to harness methane.

Plus, most estimates I see for it are about 10 to 15 c/kwh. Wind is typically about 5 c/kwh, solar cells are about 25 c/kwh.

>>123628
>pelton wheel

A hybrid Tesla Turbine and impluse turbine is better. a pelton wheel is an impulse turbine.

>>123632
No, it is not.

You can literally poop in a bucket, seal it from open air, stick an exhaust tube to it, wait a month for the anaerobic bacteria to really get going and start bottling raw biogas. You can then use it in modified engines that once ran on gasoline, like an electric generator for instance.

Also, you can't go by estimates on cost per kwh with methane because there are far too many ways to do it, unlike solar cells and wind turbines. This is because only in the past couple of decades has it really been starting to become an interest. I know I can make methane for pennies on the Mwh. It's dead simple.

>>123639
But it's not under pressure.

You'll exhaust the methane supply in a few hundred milliseconds.

>>123626
Some quality art you got there, batman.

>>123639
>I know I can make methane for pennies on the Mwh. It's dead simple.

Then do it and become a gorillionaire, because the cheapest energy in the world is coal at about 4 c/kwh.

Although the LFTR is supposed to come in at 3 c/kwh. Take that, hydrocarbons!

>>123642
>start bottling raw biogas

Missed that part.

>>123627
Let's say... Mojave Desert.
>>123632
Yes, but read this post in which someone suggested I use biogas (95% CH4) to produce energy.

http://archive.installgentoo.net/diy/thread/95002#p95184

>>123645
And that is where the engineering nightmare begins.

>>123644
Truth be told, methane digester plants are the wrong way to do it. It needs to be segregated up into far smaller plants than those in Germany. Their designs are also wasteful in lots of areas.

>>123651
There's a horse owner several miles from where I live. She has 5 horses. They produce enough manure to feed her biogas digester to power her house and 2 neighbor's houses. She uses a compressor that runs on methane to pressurize tanks and to feed lines.

I've made digesters myself on several occasions. It's simple technology that for some reason people want to make as complicated as possible. People like you for instance.

>>123628
How do I keep the water hot in the 6° weather overnight? Do explain
>>123634
Pics or I'm massively confused.

>>123651
>engineering nightmare

Flunked math class and can't work a calculator?

>>123657
>pics

I honestly can't find any. I think it has to do with the spacers between the Tesla Turbine's discs being shaped like scoops. Every hybrid I find doesn't have internal pics. Last one I saw was on eBay for about $399.

>>123659

dont even respond to LMJ, he is either really stubborn or dumb as fuck

>>123655
>high pressure gas cylinders
>high pressure compressor
>high pressure lines and fittings

This is the failing with Light Water Reactors. Pressure puts strain on components and eventually causes failure. I dislike the idea of fuels under pressure, as it invites potential disaster. Plus, the mechanical complexity of the system is intense.

I'm sure she has tens of thousands of dollars of capital invested.

>>123657
>How do I keep the water hot in the 6° weather overnight? Do explain

Not him, obviously, but passive solar water heating and hone heating is simple for night time. You use a large tank of water. It acts as thermal mass through the night storing the days' heat. It is insulated too. Need more heat, use a bigger tank.

>>123659
How many parts are there in a compressor?
Fittings in the lines?
Lines?
In your combustion engine?
In your harnessing tank?

>Wind
A motor, PVC pipe cut into fan blades, and a tail.

>Micro hydro
A motor, an impeller, and PVC pipe ran down to some small nozzles.

Added complexity invites failure. KISS is the name of the game for "off-grid" setups. Plus, the idea of a BLEVE scares the shit out of me.

Consider the self-contained bio system:

Graywater goes through a gravel filter and then into your flush toilet.

Food waste goes into a grinder and into the digester.

Flush toilet feeds blackwater into the digester.

Digester is a pressure vessel containing anaerobic microbes. It produces heat, biosludge, and biogas.

Heat: Run pipes between it and the pond to keep fish warm.

Biosludge: Clean(er) compost. Grow mushrooms in a closet. Raise black soldier flies and worms in a vermiculture box to feed the pupa/worms to the fish. Use as fertilizer.

Biogas: Water scrubbing cleans it up to 95% methane.

Methane: Operate any natural gas appliances. Home heating, air conditioning, water heater, and cooking. Recharge your batteries with excess gas via a gas engine (45% efficiency). Do this at night when its cold, so the 55% heat loss warms the house.

Edison cell: Nontoxic, will last 50 years, 6.6 Watts/$, and 80% efficiency. Use for lighting, pumps, and your computer.

Solar cell: You've already bought a 300 Watt panel; it comes with the air-to-water package. When you're not using it to make water, recharge the batteries.

Combining vermiculture with aquaponics creates a self-contained system. If you chose not to use your compost to grow fly pupa or worms for your fish, you will have to supplement your fishes algae diet with fish food or duckweed. Fish food costs money; duckweed costs space in your hydroponics you would have grown food for yourself.

If you chose to raise goats for milk and chickens for eggs, and use a dog to protect the animals from themselves and pests, you will have more poop to feed into the digester.

Note the standard 6-8 m^3 digesters used in India are $500 and release 300 m^3 biogas a year. Each m^3 of biogas, being 50-75% CH4, holds 5-7.5 kWh of energy. This averages to about 5 kWh a day. Compare to solar cells, which produce approximately 1 kWh per day per m^2 (a 150 Watt unit is about 1 m^2).

>>123664
My own home has methane from the natural gas company running right into my kitchen for my stove. It's under pressure too. What kind of fear mongering world are you living in? do you drive a car? It has a fuel tank strap to your ass and you drive down the road passing other people with 15-30 gallons of highly flammable fuel strapped to their asses with only a few inches between the passing vehicles. How is that any worse than methane?

>>123668
She uses a compressor because she has a truck that runs on the methane (CNG equivalent) and come to think of it she doesn't have it hooked to the main lines. The digester creates enough pressure itself to feed the lines to the houses. That I misrepresented on.

>>123669
>Consider the self-contained bio system:

Check out my flow chart. You got mah closed loop respect.

>>123673
Even with the flammability of gasoline, explosions are rare.

Versus propane, CNG, hydrogen, or other compressed gasses.

They either turn into high pressure flame rockets or explode when exposed to fire.

>>123676
Troll confirmed. You may now leave the thread.

>>123668
Yes. While there is no water there, The wind is vicious. So I'm thinking Solar, Biogas, and Wind. Does anyone have specific plans for a diy wind turbine?

>>123677
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl-JgyQA7u0
>enjoy

>>123678
Treadmill motors!

>>123682
>Treadmill motors
>Treadmills cost like $500
>Most junk treadmills are junk because the motor blew
>shit.

>>123682
>posts HAWT instead of a VAWT

It's like you want a 200 foot pole looming ugly over everything.

I also recommend making a 3-phase dynamo for a wind turbine. They last longer and you can get 1,000 watts from a HAWT. All you need is some N50/N52 magnets and coils of wire.

>>123682
>posts more fear mongering BS

Want me to post car wrecks where the vehicle and occupants burned to death? Herpa derpa.

>>123685
Not always!

Craigslist free section. Most exercise equipment goes unused. Some get junked because they're outdated.

It IS possible to fix motors. Rewinding them is a bit too hard, but other parts can fail as well...

>>123688
It would be expected that a metal shell with a plastic bowl of fuel underneath it, utilizing controlled combustion would catch fire.

However, while the vehicle may catch fire, they do not explode like compressed fuels do.

>>123693
More people have died in fiery car wrecks than from home methane biodigesters exploding. You are just being a fucking idiot fear monger. That is all.

Shit, I'm saying this and I had 5 family members and 4 of their friends (1 adult, 8 kids) all die in a propane explosion/fire. Not sure which came first the fire or the explosion, but it was a huge fucking funeral.

Still, I'd rather have methane.

>>123700

How many people have "home methane biodigesters"?

By your reckoning, pet chimpanzees are also perfectly safe. Only two have gone nuts and eaten people's faces recently.

>>123700
Even though studies show wind turbines are an average 1/3 as much in cost?

Your money!

I'm merely pointing out the huge safety problem. Plus, the hugely complex system required to maintain everything.

Versus a wind turbine which is some replaceable blades, a few bearings, a coil, and a tail. Hence the reason why wind power is so cost effective. It is mechanically simple.

>>123703
>Your money!

Sure takes lots of money to poop in a jar.

Pretty good troll you have going in this thread.

>>123704

Be sure to wipe thoroughly with your dignity.

>>123704
Except you're forgetting the vastly complex system required to compress, store, and harness it.

I will give it the perk that it is a base load power source, not peak.

>>123706
YES, DON'T FORGET THE MASSIVELY BRAIN CRUNCHING VAST EXPANSIVE ENGINEERINGLY COMPLEX SYSTEM OF TUBES THAT CAN BLOW YOU AND TEN FAMILIES UP IN A FIERY BALL OF DISINFORMATION.

>>123706
You've never actually done any methane stuff have you? Also, are you an apartment dweller who has never had a gas stove before?

Methane fuel centres are being used in India with public toilets, but what led them to doing this was the massive amount of pollution from wood fires in cities, not a need for power. People use the methane to fuel their stoves and the air is a bit clearer.

However that would be a sizable community using them, to say the least. A small system doesn't seem anywhere as useful, without knowing the specific mechanical details. A composting toilet would be a way better use for your shit.

>>123716
A digester is a composting toilet. There's people that actually convert a normal composting toilet to one that makes methane.

Here, try this methane digester calculator out,

http://biorealis.com/wwwroot/digester_revised.html

Make sure to set values to 0 first.

I say we cover Australia with solar panels.

>>123724
Centralized power creation is not good. The power transmission is where the problem is. You can make a billion mwh power plant and it won't do diddly for anyone that lives in the next state. Maybe we'd need to use Tesla's earth battery system to get that to work for everyone?

>>123727
I was kinda joking, and mocking bill gates ted talk at the same time.

>>123727

Uhhhh... you mean like exactly how it's done right now?

>>123733
uhhhh.

>>123739

Power generation is shipped thousands of miles just fine. Like, most of our power here comes from Hydro Quebec. Like almost 1000 miles away.

>>123724
http://www.energymatters.com.au/government-rebates/

We're working on it. Has anyone else got a situation like this with government rebates and buy back schemes? For us the choice is obvious.

>>123743
>Power generation is shipped thousands of miles just fine.

lol no it isn't just fine. It's horribly inefficient. which is why solar power plants like Solar One and Solar Two can't get power to neighboring states. Also your Hydro Quebec isn't a single power station, its a company that owns and run about 60 or so power stations spread out over a massive area.

>>123976
Here's a map of their 2008 power grid. Note that there's no more than 300 miles or so between power plants. that's a far cry from your "Like almost 1000 miles away." and especially, "Power generation is shipped thousands of miles just fine".

At least you are no longer ignorant of the subject now.

>>123710
I use a gas stove and furnace, but you won't find a single pressure vessel on my property. Aren't city utilities great?

The main problem is compression for storage. While you might be able to get by for a little bit with a one or two stage compressor, they won't produce high enough pressure for storage.

For storage, you would need anywhere from 1000 to 5000 psi of methane. For that you need a 3 stage compressor. The starting price for them is about $3000. They go up radically from there. They are NOT something you can /diy/ easily either.

>>124059
>I use a gas stove and furnace, but you won't find a single pressure vessel on my property. Aren't city utilities great?

There's thousands of miles of natural gas pipelines here and no "pressure vessels" needed. It's 50 miles to the nearest city.

Compression is not a problem unless you need it liquified like LNG. CNG is really easy. Tank size is key for usage. You must be thinking of 5 gallon tanks trying to power generators that create 10kw or something. You're thinking poorly from the ground up on that. It's a result of the mentality of energy waste in your daily life without realizing it.

>>124059
>pressure vessel of CNG
Thought I would clarify that.

Yes, I do have a bottle of 75/25 Argon/CO2 in the garage. Maybe 3 fire extinguishers, and 2 LPG tanks in the shed.

That's about it though.

>>124063
How else would you store methane on the kw level? There's obviously economics of scale working here.

>>124069
>kw level

That's just it. There's where you are messing up. It's the same for solar, wind, hydro, etc. you start asking, "How do I power my 20kw a day life style with solar?" The real question is, "How the hell am I fucking up so bad as to be wasting 20kw a day in electric?"

Okay, besides that point, it should be rather easily to do depending on the size of your system and amount of biomass you have for it. Like all the other alt energy systems you will need a battery bank. You then convert the methane to electric to charge the battery bank. The conversion can be a NG generator, a Stirling engine, a steam turbine/Tesla turbine, etc. Things like a Stirling engine can run off the continual flame you get from the digester process without needing to compress and store the methane in the first place. That can be done only a few feet away from the digester thereby reducing the amount of gas to that which is in the pipeline and the top of the digester as it exist the digester. If you need compressed and stored methane for cooking or other things you simply do so as you would a propane tank. I get a lot of mileage from my old propane tank, 90PSI pancake compressor ($79 from harborfrieght), and putting NG in it for my outdoor gas grill.

Come on man, use your head, I think we've been abrasive towards each other enough. It's time for constructive ideas and knowledge sharing.

>>123675
The flow chart I just made is not nearly as detailed, but shows some simple parts of the process. I think I'm going to elaborate on this and make a massive flow chart; one that will encompass more detail about individual things like electric creation, farming, and bioremediation.

This one could have been a bit better had I even remotely tried.

You fags still haven't figured out how to combine solar and wind into the same structure?

Quit arguing and perhaps you guys could.

>>124279
Been done before. A wind turbine using covered in solar panels along the support pole. Though it'd be cool to see one with solar panels as the blades. lol A bit inefficient though.

>>123675
Beautiful. Why isn't this in the louvre?
>>124253
You too. Saved both.
>>124080
In my scenario, I would be recharging a laptop and powering two 12V lights for about 2 hours a night max.

I gave that example to think outside of my scenario.
>>124069
TRUE. FORGET I SAID kW.
>>124064
I searched for LPG and CNG on wikipedia. Fuck. I assume it's Propane gas/Natural Gas, but what is L and C?
Pic is a potential hydroponic set up for the self-contained bio system. I'll reply to more tomorrow, but hold on.

>>124059
The point is to go off the grid completely for my scenario.

>>123749
lucky aussie bastards. I've heard of buyback and rebates for solar panels in the US, but I'll have to get back to you on that.

>>123723
will do!

>>124655
In that kind of hydroponics, the plants feed on the fish fertilizer. (poop) Neat setup but hard to balance.

There is no such thing as renewable energy.

Entropy is a cunt.

===========================
HOW DO I CONTAIN THE SMALL AMOUNT OF BIOGAS I GENERATE?
>>123669 suggested to use a gas engine to convert the gas to electricity and heat. .. how do I contain it though? Cheapest and safest, considering I won't be producing very much methane really.

Solar is the best lowest cost

Aluminum foil, sun windows, solar oven.

Geothermal is expensive as feck. You can literally solar with stuff in your house. Enough to cook food, heat small amounts of water etc.

>>124668
I'm not adding anything to this thread till the text is uncensored (Fuck SOPA), but here's a blump.

This is by far the best renewable source of energy we can tap. LFTR technology.

Good god, i've been looking for this thread forever since I didn't "watch" it and here someone had bumped it. lol

>>124655
> >>123675
> Beautiful. Why isn't this in the louvre?
> >>124253
> You too. Saved both.

Both are mine. I'm actually about to make a third one based on both with even more detail of course.

>LPG and CNG

Liquid Natural Gas = LNG
LP = Liquid Propane
CNG = Compressed Natural Gas

I assume LPG is Liquid Propane Gas.

>>124660
You're viewing things on too large of a scale and time frame for this conversation.

>>124661
Rubber inner tube. You can also take 2 big containers, one slightly smaller than the other and fit them together. Both containers have one end cut open. The smaller container fits down into the larger container. The larger container's open end faces up the smaller container's open end faces down. You have a hole in the smaller container's closed end for your extraction hose. You filler your large container with biomass slurry that will produce methane. You slip the smaller container down into this and allow air to flow out the extraction tube so you can actually get it in there. Once in properly, you shut off the extraction tube.

Then when the biogas is being produced it slowly raises the smaller container up. When it has raised x amount and you are ready to use it you simply open the extraction tube and use it however you want.

These that the cheapest common methods.

>>124668
>Solar is the best lowest cost

I agree to that passive solar is certainly the lowest cost. I have several solar ovens.

>>125139
You can remove the spoilers by using the Stylish plugin for Firefox or any other CSS script plugin for your browser. You'll need to use this script to remove the spoilers,

.spoiler {
background: 0 !important;
color: black !important;
}

>>125149
>>125151


What about LFTR? See my above post.>>125148

>>125148
Thorium is not renewable. Even though it is one of the best nuclear isotopes we can use, it's still wasteful and non-renewable. The mining process for it is also quite wasteful.

>>125152
I was getting to it. lol

>>125153

Search thorium remix on youtube and watch the 2011 one. I think you haven't looked into it at all. The process is hardly wasteful at all and even though it is technically non-renewable it will last for thousands of years with the amount we have in the Earth's crust. Not to mention the tons already mined while we mine for rare Earths.

Renewables will never be able to generate even close to what we actually need in terms of energy, they will be used in the background to help supplement systems but it's simply not feasible with the technology we have now. And even if it is further developed it will never reach what nuclear with thorium can do.

>>125156
>Renewables will never be able to generate even close to what we actually need in terms of energy,

With an attitude like that you are correct. We need to stop using so much energy individually. It's a wasteful mindset. However, yes, renewables can easily exceed our power needs as they are right now. This is because they are renewable.

You must remember, you are living in a society built on the fundamental principles of growth through waste. As such, nearly every facet of modern society has been geared to that mindset. This is why we have crap like hand lotion warming devices and using petroleum-based fuel and consider nuclear a good power source.

>technically non-renewable

Meaning wasteful.

>hardly wasteful at all

That's a misnomer statement, meaning it is wasteful.

Most of the down sides to thorium is glossed over and quickly bypassed.

>>125159

But there are downsides to all the renewables too.

You need to mine for the materials to make solar panels just like you need to mine for thorium. And solar takes up such a large amount of space to produce energy that similar sizes nuclear installations would put to shame. Yes I do understand that we can weave it in to daily life and use and I fully advocate that, but even with every renewable churning I know we won't produce enough energy to meet demands. And thinking people are going to be less wasteful is a pipe dream you can convince some of them but the majority of countries out there are gonna continue with fossil fuels until they run dry.

The thorium reactors produce thousands of times more energy then fossil fuels do, and they do it while polluting a rate so minimal compared to that source that it might as well not even be pollution. My point is that the next logical step is to tap thorium for a good thousand years because that is the only way we're going to advance as a species. And during that time I hope renewables are used to their fullest extent to supplement our needs and further reduce pollution but to have them supply even half of our demands is silly. It is simply impossible you would have the globe covered in solar panels and windmills, every river dammed for hydro, geo taps all over, methane cycling/biomass/etc. and it is never going to beat out thorium reactors in terms of pollution produced or energy produced.

>>125149
Here's a pic of the two container method.

>>125159

And yes I agree there are downsides to thorium: it makes radioactive waste, takes up space, you need to mine for it, etc. etc. But the renewables all have that same aspect. Solar takes up far too much space, hydro dams rivers, wind takes up space and is too intermittent. They all have flaws, the best option is to choose the best producer.

>>125164
>>125166
>solar panels

Horrible devices really. Terribly inefficient. Passive solar is far better. I personally do not advocate them at all. Especially so for large scale power. For tiny things like personal devices, powering small batteries on the go, they are okay.

>solar space taken up

Agreed. It takes up a shit load of space. However, so do our roof tops, which we already have. We can put passive solar units on every rooftop and make more power than ever made in the history of man.

>using nuclear

Centralized power transmission is a dinosaur that needs to become extinct. While LFTRs are the smallest of nuclear, they are still centralized. Transmission of power is one of the biggest pratfals of centralized power. This is why there's so many large power plants scattered everywhere.

>They all have flaws, the best option is to choose the best producer.

The best option is the one that is most renewable, creates the least amount of waste, and can be decentralized and integrated into existing spaces and systems.

>hydro

Yeah, I'm with you on hydro. Damning up stuff is not a good thing to do. Using hydro rams would be far better since they don't need to damn up stuff, but they do need really long pipe lines to function properly.

Bio mass, it may be expensive but we will always be producing waste materials.

>>125168

I am all for passive solar I think that is definitely the way of the future but will it be able to handle all the demands? Can it store enough? There are a lot of places in the world the don't get enough direct sunlight, and what happens when you have night? You're gonna need some awfully juicy batteries, but you might need the same with thorium so I concede it's not a great point.

But, the LFTR can be commercialized. It doesn't need to be a plant, although I'm sure plants will exist to do ~50% or hopefully less. If they find a better way to extract electricity or energy from the thorium cycle the possibilities are endless. For now all you need space for is a small reactor and turbines and you could have neighborhood reactors that take up the space of a home or two.

And when they do find a way for better energy extraction you'll see reactors in each home powering all your needs. Fossil fuels will never be used again, ever.

>>125170
It's not expensive because bacteria are doing all the work. It also depends heavily on what kind of biomass and how you are using it.

For instance, there's a place in Florida with tons of horse owners. There was a shit load of manure. It was a huge problem. Then someone had the bright idea to burn it to make electric. Sure, turning manure into electric is a great idea. However, burning it is rather inefficient. They should have made a methane bioplant. Then they'd have electric, heat, and fertilizer. The fertilizer could have gone to the fields where they food for the horses are grown.

Then there's wood as a biomass. Wood gassification, wood burning, etc. It is renewable, but it too has a lot of problems.

>>125172
On the extreme power plant side, molten salt is used to transport and store the heat during the night.

In home units, there's a large water or oil tank that does this. Some use a heated salt and dry air system.

>handle all the demands

I don't think there is anything that can handle all of the demands. Humans are too wasteful and expansive-minded. It's more, more, more, growth, growth, growth. I get your point though.

>You're gonna need some awfully juicy batteries, but you might need the same with thorium

It depends on many factors. There are lots of ways to store energy, but few ways to transport it efficiently. Perhaps we need to use Tesla's Earth Battery? Transmission problems would not be a problem then. lol Though all tech would need to stop using grounds and start using it for power. Otherwise, you'd blow out everything that was grounded in the old tech.

BTW, have you ever researched the solar paint? It's a paint being developed that acts like a solar PV cell. However, you simply paint your house with it (with wires under the paint) and hook wires to a battery array. You only need to repaint as often as you normally would for a painted house. It's a very neat concept.

>biomass

Oh and biodiesel made from corn. Worst idea ever, on every single level.

>>125179

I've heard about the paint, seems like a great idea to me.

Just look at some of the Earth battery info. What would that entail? Large installation? Or would we do it on a per household basis?

I think LFTR is a necessary step because of our wastefulness now. People hate going cold turkey. This would be like weaning us off fossil fuels. It's the only way I can see demands being met.

I think a combination of LFTR, solar (all passive no more solar farms), geo, and biomass cycling would be the best thing for us. Very low impact, low emissions, low waste. And combined all of those will definitely meet our energy needs.

>>125183
Bio fuel/energy can be made of anything and for anything such as heat, gas, and electricity

>>125190
Yes, I know that. However, the current biodiesel/ethanol trend is taking corn and using it. I'm referring to the current megafarms that once grew corn for food (bad to begin with) are now growing it for ethanol and biodiesel (from bad to far worse). People are completely crazy if you ask me.

>>125195
in all honesty biodiesel made of corn is a shitty idea but made from other shit has great potential.

>>125189
Eh, make sure you are researching the right Earth battery. There's tons of Earth batteries that use electrolytes or bacteria in soil to get power from and those are not what I'm referring to.

Tesla found a way to use the entire Earth as one giant battery with the ability to actually charge it up. It can also be used as a weapon now because nearly all modern electronics are grounded. You can black out an entire country with the technology and do it from your country for instance. However, you can transmit power into the Earth, from one location, and harness it anywhere else on the planet.

>>125198
That depends on many factors, but you are correct about the corn. Biodiesel is not a very good non-polluting source of energy for instance. You still have it creating pollution, less than petroleum based diesel though.

>>125200
>>125200

So the Earth becomes a conduit for the energy? Sounds crazy a bit but who knows.

That kinda sounds like a doomsday weapon in the hands of crazy people though. i.e. middle east

>>125202
From what I understand, the "Russians" are trying to do it.

>>125203

Do you have any relevant links I wanna check it out.

>>125204
Searching....for one that is not nutters. For some reason people studying Telsa are off their rocker and into lunatic fridge shit. It's tedious to get reliable info because of that crap clogging up google searches.

>>125204
>>125205
Meh, here's the best I can find in a few minutes,

http://www.electroherbalism.com/Bioelectronics/Tesla/Tesla_greatest_hacker.htm

Very interesting reading though.

I'm researching Tesla turbines right now and how I can best use one.

>>125206
Oh, and that REALLY is [citation needed] type of reading.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla%27s_oscillator

lol best mad scientist ever and Mythbusters are always full of shit. lol

>>125206
>>125206

Thank you, it was indeed a great read. Interesting way to store up energy. Combine that with LFTR and one could charge the Earth up forever.

>>125215
That is exactly what I was going to say in favor of LFTR, but I had like 50 tabs open and 6 conversations going and I forgot to mention it in this >>125200 post.

Though, we may never know just how practical that sort of energy storage would be or what the consequences would be. Tesla bragged he could split the Earth in two pieces and topple the Empire State Building with 5lbs of air pressure and vibration frequency.

>>125211
>Mythbusters

To reiterate, Tesla's oscillator was properly tuned to the vibration frequency of his lab building where it would multiply on the return wave. Mythbusters' device wasn't tuned properly to anything. They were just making a thumping device.

bumping damn it

>>125224
Telsa was a brilliant man, but he often let his enthusiasm overcome his reasoning.
The amplitude of the oscillations in the building structure would not continue to increase beyond a certain point because there are frictional losses created by the movement which increase as the amplitude of the movements increase. When the power dissipated by the frictional losses equals the power input from the oscillator the system stabilizes.

>>125936
What about wave multiplication?

>>125942
There's no magic there. It's like striking a tuning fork and touching it to another identical tuning fork. Some energy will be transferred, but you don't get more out of it than you put into it.

>>125947
But, his tuning fork kept adding to it by increasing the power. He never finished the experiment.

>>123603
Ill answer it by acting like a troll.

>only having 1 source of energy
>2012

>>125950
I'm familiar with his assertion. He stated that by adding energy to a tuned system at a fixed rate over an arbitrarily long period of time he could induce arbitrarily large oscillations in that system. That could only be true for a system in which the frictional losses do not increase as the amplitude of the oscillations increases. No building or planet meets that requirement. In fact, I can't think of any physical system which would meet that requirement.

In terms of ease and self sufficiency for electricity, wind is best. There's plenty of relatively cheap wind kits, and they don't use much area. It tends to work well out in the middle of nowhere.

You can use a cheap sub-100w solar kit as a bare-minimum backup for extended calm periods, but you want to be using wind for your heavy lifting.

If you can get the methane setup working, more power to you, but wind will work out of the box, and from your original thread, I recall that there's plenty of wind on your hill.

Oh, and definitely have a solar water heater. Most effective use of solar.

Geothermal can be great if you're lucky enough to tap into a serious hotspot. But that's unlikely.

I did not read any of this thread because I already know the answer and anyone who disagrees is wrong.

NUCLEAR: fuck start up costs, the potential outweighs it by far. a little plutonium can power a satellite for around a million years. We could power a ton of shit with just a little bit.

SOLAR: If we could get a solar panel in space facing the sun, and somehow collect and use that energy, we could power THE ENTIRE WORLD no problem. keep in mind light/solar energy spreads out exponentially, so getting significantly closer without the atmosphere blocking would allow us to collect far more than solar panels on Earth.
However, returning this energy to Earth is near impossible right now. a cable/string is pretty much out of the question and converting the light to radio waves to send the energy would be complicated, and energy would be lost. but there are people working on this.

>>126075
For solar energy power transmission you can use laser or microwave beam. That's a favorite among scientists and sci-fi writers that come up with this.

Though, I can see a hacker taking control and writing/burning memes all over Earth with it.

>>126078
i was under the impression that at one point they would need really big waves to get through the atmosphere, but i could be mistaken. they would probably need to use microwave as well.

>>126075
>However, returning this energy to Earth is near impossible right now
No. We do have the technological know-how to transmit power back via microwave.

>>126078
>I can see a hacker taking control and writing/burning memes all over Earth with it.
No. Even if a hacker were able to take control of it, changing the orbits to burn shit would take a lot of propellant that the satellite is unlikely to have.

One thing that I've noticed is a lot of people seem to be concerned with it burning a bunch of stuff. If you are using a lower frequency, the receiver on the ground does not have to be continuous. It would be much more like a mesh, or even a series of cables. This means that the antenna could be fairly large without significant cost.

If you allowed a power density of 100W/m2 at the surface, an antenna the size of an aircraft carrier would receive 1MW with a 50% efficient antenna. 1 MW isn't very much compared to most power plants, but if you allowed higher power densities at the ground or a larger antenna, you could make much more.

What I would like to see is a feasibility study of a large scale antenna placed off-shore. If it is placed a several miles offshore in a marked off area, the chances of someone blundering into it would be very slim.

>>126131
At about 0.001% efficiency.

Transmitting energy via RF is stupid, and would set anything that traveled through the beam on fire.

Not to mention the satellite would have to be the size of the moon with the amount of cooling it would need.

Meet the Hyperion fast neutron reactor.

They were just granted a license to operate in 2010.

Prototype will be finished in 2020.

Cost estimate is 10 c/kwh.

It requires almost no staff to operate.

Estimated price tag is $25 million.

Not really a renewable solution, but it is perfect for remote locations.

>>126131
> changing the orbits to burn shit would take a lot of propellant that the satellite is unlikely to have.

They always have emergency fuel. Besides, they don't use fuel to change their angle. They use gyroscopes. You don't need to change the orbit to do something like that, only the angle. Besides, I was joking.

Also, read up,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

>>126165
>size of the moon

That's no moon!