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Forget Oil - Contest: Find a substitute for oil.


Axeil

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Ok, like the title says let's forget using oil, natural gases, etc. Though forget "substitue" in the title - let's turn oil into a last resort substitute. I challenge everyone on this forum to find a better, more ecofriendly and efficent resource. If you can figure this out...well...you've helped alot of people.

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All natural gas is not non-ecofriendly! If we could build engines that run on hydrogen (Although prices must come down) we'd be a lot better of ecowise.

 

However, what about solar cells, wind power, hydropower (waterfalls), tidal power? There are a lot of options being explored and used already.

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However, what about solar cells, wind power, hydropower (waterfalls), tidal power? There are a lot of options being explored and used already.
All of these come down to gravity :Waldo:. (Yes, even the Solar cells... Think about it...)

 

Gravity is the only force I know of that never loses energy. Harnessing it's full potential seems rather difficult, and probably not feasible or cost efficient for family owned transportation vehicles :hyper:.

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All of these come down to gravity :hyper:. (Yes, even the Solar cells... Think about it...)

 

I am thinking about it - how do solar cells come down to gravity? AFAIK the major problem with solar cells is that they are expensive and have a poor conversion rate.

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Human liposuction waste. Figure an overall average equivalent to 10 lbs each from 2/3 the population of the US alone. That's two billion pounds. Burn it for fuel, feed the poor, grease the skids of civilization. Over a hundred years you would retrieve 200 billion pounds from annual harvest. Render corpses for their body fat and the numbers go way up.

 

Why are we burying our free energy future?

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They used to burn garbage for energy but nobody wants co-gen in their backyard. This the social problem with most renewable energy. It is funny that nobody mentioned nuclear fusion. Progress is slow and nobody has be faith it will be soon. Hydrogen gas sounds good and should be interfaced to other renewal energy like solar. There are bacteria that turn nitrate in nitrogen gas, maybe bacteria that make hydrogen. We pull a large solar powered bacteria farm behind us that generates hydrogen for our car.

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Grow coelacanths in the now sterilized Grand Banks fishery. They use body oil for flotation not swim bladders. Coelacanths are finny oil wells. The left-over protein can feed Welfare mothers. Nothing bothers a coelacanth and survives the attempt - armed and armored. They're big, too.

 

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/coel.htm

http://www.dinofish.com/cimages/coel03b.jpg

http://www.jonchristianryter.com/IMAGE/Coelacanth%5Br%5D.jpg

Google Images

coelacanth 5350 hits

 

The inevitably aborning coelacanth oil crisis is not Uncle Al's problem.

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All of these come down to gravity :hyper:. (Yes, even the Solar cells... Think about it...)
Good, challenging riddle, Dark Mind. Of course, solar cells generate electricity from light which is generated by fusion which as triggered by the gravitational collapse of the solar nebula. However, gravity is the source of solar energy only in the same way that the force of ones finger muscles are the source of the energy produced by a struck match. Small expenditures of energy (eg: collapse of the solar nebula) can trigger the release of larger amounts (eg: solar output) .
Gravity is the only force I know of that never loses energy.
Precise use of Physics terms are essential when making statements like this. Gravity is a force. Force applied over a distance (eg: lifting a stone against the force of gravity upon it) is work. The potential for work (eg: a lifted stone) is energy (energy and work have the same units) which can produce work (eg: dropping a lifted stone).

 

“Undesired” work is friction, and is responsible for “losses” in the production of energy by work, and the production of work from energy. Because gravity can act over a great distance, the energy produced by that force over such great distances can occur in the nearly friction-free setting beyond the earth’s atmosphere, making it a very efficient, but still not perfectly efficient, so it is, “lost” by such systems as the solar system.

Harnessing it's full potential seems rather difficult, and probably not feasible or cost efficient for family owned transportation vehicles.
It’s pretty easy to harness the potential of gravity. For example, spool a cable around the axle of some sort of wheeled vehicle, pass the free end over a pulley affixed a manageable height above, attach to a manageable massive object, wind, then release. This “gravitymobile” will exert a force averaging slightly less than the force required to wind it, over the same distance require to wind it. Like the mousetrap vehicles so familiar from the ad link on scienceforum’s main page, such a vehicle can reach a surprising speed, but isn’t something most of us would feel comfortable driving in rush hour traffic. :hihi:

 

As this illustrates, a problem with gravity energy systems is that gravity is a very weak – the weakest of the 4 fundimental forces – makes for very low energy/mass densities compared to more traditional systems using gasoline, electric batteries, etc.

 

When it comes to collapsing stellar nebulae to ignite stars, gravity is an excellent force. For automobiles, it’s not so good. :)

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  • 2 years later...

Rare earth magnets lot's of em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The power source of the future is magnets!!!!!

 

AND I've spent the past twenty years sorting out exactly how to do it

 

AND Just as soon as I can get the various bits I need I will have the very first generator powered by a motor driven exclusively by permenant magnets...no batteries required ever!

 

 

 

No I ain't "crazy"...it can be done in the works I have one reciprocating and one turbine type motor....it's just a pain getting various components needed...mainly the Rare earth magnets which are rather expensive and hard to come by around here.

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…it's just a pain getting various components needed...mainly the Rare earth magnets which are rather expensive and hard to come by around here.
Lots of rare earth magnets courtesy (well, not exactly “courtesy”, as you must pay for them) of an esteemed hypography advertiser: MAGCRAFT® Neodymium Magnets. I’m planning to us a bunch of the nice cubical ones to make a model Inductrack – I’ve been planning it since first seeing the adds, and have resolved to do it this year. :cap:
Rare earth magnets lot's of em!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The power source of the future is magnets!!!!!

 

AND I've spent the past twenty years sorting out exactly how to do it

 

AND Just as soon as I can get the various bits I need I will have the very first generator powered by a motor driven exclusively by permenant magnets...no batteries required ever!

:cutewink: I’m skeptical. Many would-be perpetual motion machine builders have tried such things, none successfully.

 

A device made with magnets only is at best an energy storage device: compressing like poles or separate unlike requires work, which you can recover (minus frictional losses) by allowing the mechanical action to reverse itself. It doesn’t matter how you arrange them and the non-magnetic parts of your motor – it can’t “create” energy. There are many lengthier discussions of this – the preceding wikipedia article has one, and links to others.

 

It’s harmless (except, possibly, to your finances, or, if you’re good at promotion, the finances of others) to try building such machines. By no known science can you possibly succeed.

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Companies like Ovonics, First Solar, and Day Star have been at this for a while. Ovonics just sold a contract for about 17 megawatts of flexible solar panels to Sun Edison (one of the worlds largest solar panel installers).

 

Ovonics also holds the patents for the Hydrogen Cell, the hydride substrate that makes CD's silver, and Nickel Metal Hydride batteries. In other words they have been working pretty hard for decades to come up with the alternatives you are looking for. The husband and wife team of Standford and Iris Ovshinsky are the brains behind the company - Energy Conversion Devices.

 

All of the companies stock prices are doing pretty well these days too with oil at $100 a barrel.

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If you are interested in this subject you might also be interested in the critically acclaimed movie "Who Killed the Electric Car"

 

They also have a web site for the movie, as well as Wiki on it here.

7956 discussed the movie at reasonable length, too.

 

Regardless of you views on energy and automotive technology, I think this movie is essential viewing. With California and its CARB back in the news, it’s topical again, too.

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Lots of rare earth magnets courtesy (well, not exactly “courtesy”, as you must pay for them) of an esteemed hypography advertiser: MAGCRAFT® Neodymium Magnets. I’m planning to us a bunch of the nice cubical ones to make a model Inductrack – I’ve been planning it since first seeing the adds, and have resolved to do it this year. :doh::shrug: I’m skeptical. Many would-be perpetual motion machine builders have tried such things, none successfully.

 

A device made with magnets only is at best an energy storage device: compressing like poles or separate unlike requires work, which you can recover (minus frictional losses) by allowing the mechanical action to reverse itself. It doesn’t matter how you arrange them and the non-magnetic parts of your motor – it can’t “create” energy. There are many lengthier discussions of this – the preceding wikipedia article has one, and links to others.

 

It’s harmless (except, possibly, to your finances, or, if you’re good at promotion, the finances of others) to try building such machines. By no known science can you possibly succeed.

 

That's the whole point magnets do store and release energy...the trick is to sort out how to harness it....of particular interest to me is how they repell and attract each other...

 

I'm presently working with two designs one of which a reciprocator which alternately slides two magnets (one "N" side down one "N" side up) above a "piston" made from a third magnet (perpendicular to piston movement which should drive a crankshaft which should drive a cam which should actuate the magnets above

as well as a similar set below the "piston"...

 

As far as finances are concerned I get goodies when I can spare the cash

and it keeps me happy tinkering so even if I never get my designs to work at least I had fun so no real loss there.

 

As far as other peoples money, it's perfectly safe.....Unless I manage to make my designs work and make them practical (useful)....then I intend to get me some bucks...I can dream can't I?;)

 

Incidently...I wonder if the fella that came up with the origional temperature differential type engine was so easilly dismissed. (for lack of a better way of putting it)

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Ooooops! almost forgot.... There Is no Such Thing As Perpetual Motion.

 

Nor am I foolish enough to try to persue it. But I do believe it possible to build a machine which consumes only magnets (well the field generated by magnets) for fuel.

 

And of course when the magnets loose their magnetism they would have to be replaced so I guess it would litteraly consume magnets as well.

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