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| They aren't in the physics group, maybe | | |
Sponsor |  soopergrape | May 2, 2007 4:57am | Here?
I am looking for people to thank in the introduction of a book I am working on.
While reading James Canton's "The Extreme Future" I thought that the conversion to the use of Hydrogen as fuel that he predicts was all fine and dandy, but that the carbonless isolation of enough of it is still a bit of a pipe dream. So, are there any means of generating such massive amounts of power to produce it that are not being utilized, I wondered? I realized that there are sources for tremendous amounts of power that are being completely ignored-as a power source. I envision projects of the scale we see in science fiction movies, massive structures that dwarf things we would consider to be large, like super tankers, yet are merely adequate for the tasks they are designed to do. A vast simplification follows. The numbers are taken from an article I read that said the takeoff weight of the new Airbus is about 1.2 million pounds, and that the wings are about 9000 square feet. I imagined that exposure of a structure of similar strength and size to winds of 120 mph or so would generate a "sail" loading of 300,000 pounds or so, which would be well within design limits. I have found patents that detail the use of similar devices for generation of electrical energy, at much lower wind speeds. All that remains is to determine the size of the platform that will carry them and their support and track structures.
For instance, if a "sailboat" could take a sail load of 30 million pounds, how much displacement would it have to have and how big would the keel have to be for it to be stable? (That would use 100 "sails" figuring a spacing of about 100 feet between sails, using two tracks-each with an inboard and outboard side. A two hundred sail configuration would increase the ship length to around a half a mile-not so large in this environment.) If you could use most of that much energy to drive generators, what kind of output would you get? Assuming that, say 90% of their output would be used to generate hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis, how much would it generate and how deep could it be generated before the power requirements exceeded those of traditional pressurization pumps, or electrolysis itself became impossible? 8000 feet should produce about 3600 psi, but that depth may not even be practical. I'm looking for detailed depth charts to determine exactly what the maximum depth of the Atlantic side and gulf side track would be, I haven't even started on the Pacific. And I do not know what would happen if you attempted electrolysis at any depth.
If there is anyone bored enough to consider consulting me on this, I would thank you now, and hopefully in print later. |
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| They aren't in the physics group, maybe | | |
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