Alternate Energy

Discussion in 'Earth Science' started by Nebula, Jun 4, 2003.

  1. Nebula Occasionally Frequent Registered Senior Member

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    906
    My dad told me what he plans to do after he retires: he's going to build a solar-powered, geothermally heated house with a self-contained water recycling system. He's done a lot of research on it (books, internet, talking to various people), and it sounds very possible and relatively inexpensive.

    I was just wondering if any of you had any resources where I (or my dad) could go for more information? Also, what are your thoughts on this approach?

    Personally, I think that we would already be taking advantage of renewable resources if it weren't for the fact that non-renewable resources are so damn profitable...

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    Thoughts please

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    Kyle
     
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  3. DigitalPhalanges Registered Member

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    Specifics

    Kyle, in what region/climate is your father thinking of settling? I ask because building techniques are vastly differing from region to region. I have done some research in this area and will try to help you.

    A book I recently borrowed from a friend and found quite interesting is called "Solviva" it is about a somewhat sustainable business/home. The woman who wrote it uses some facinating techniques.

    DigitalPhalanges
     
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  5. Nebula Occasionally Frequent Registered Senior Member

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    He's planning on building in northern Alberta, Canada...it gets really cold in winter

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    .

    Also, there isn't as much sun during the winter months, so he wants wind power too.
     
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  7. palosheights Registered Senior Member

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    kyle, using some type of turbine for the wind would be prudent since i guess in northern alberta besides being cold it would be quite windy also.

    or, on the hand, we drove down to disneyworld (from chicago) in march and well over half of the people there were from canada and they were driving also. so i guess heck with the short summers just extend it by going to florida.

    just for your info, at universal studies in orlando florida they now have a 5 day pass for the islands of adventure park for just $90us per person, that's really really cheap.


    andy
     
  8. river-wind Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,671
    there's an issue of Popular Mechanics from 1974 or 75 that I found in a box in some guy's attick a while ago. It had a house w/ a sod roof, water reclimation system, solar panels, etc. It was nearly fully self-seficient. If you can hit a local library, and ask the librarian, she may know the exact issue. and remember everything in there, while 30 years old, it still usefull information to consider.

    as for electricity, I have this page bookmarked for later use

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    http://www.backwoodssolar.com/interests/HomeExamples.htm


    found this link while reading an article about a house in maine which is hooked up to the local power grid. it produced it's own power via solar cells, but pulls any extra power need off the main grid. The cool part was that if they used less electricity than they produced, the extra got pushed out onto the grid, and the power company gave the owners of the house a credit for the energy. so in a given month, they could end up with a negative energy bill (counting maintinance costs on the solar cells).

    Tell your Dad good luck, and I want full blueprints when he's done, so I can blatently steal his ideas when I build my house 10 years from now.
     
  9. cthulhus slave evil servant Registered Senior Member

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    754
    actualy i just got on to come ask questions on solar panels. lol. how conviniant to find this thread...

    do u know of any places to get relitivly cheap solar pannels, the cheapest i could find was 5$ for 260 sq centimetors. do you have any idea if thats a good price?

    and do you know where to get a turbine for use ina whidmill?

    i havent even looked into the price of water purifiers yet.

    also ide make the house subteranian. underground is better insilated and more eficiant. and leavs more room on the property for whidnmills. ide consider having the solar panles on a raised sctucture for optimum sun. btw cold is good. for every digree celsius above 19 degrees the solar panels are aproxametly 1% less eficiant.

    if youd like to descuss this w/ me my email is gretinking@yahoo.com id love to hear if you have any ideas on this subject.
     
  10. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    4,467
    Im sure the birds will love you for your wind turbine. In California they call them "Condor Cuisinarts". KFC anyone?

    Any source of power comes with a cost. Ah well.... its better than what we are using now.
     
  11. kazakhan Registered Abuser Registered Senior Member

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  12. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    4,467
    Speaking of alternate energy I rigged a small Stirling temperature differential engine to pump water into my birdbath. http://www.stirlingengine.com/

    Funny little things. Pity that they are so quirky.
     
  13. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    Theres all sorts of quirky websites out there about this, and many many serious ones. And lots of stuff going back decades, its all been done before. I have a random book, possibly the only one in the UK, called "The mother earth news handbook of home made power" with info on turbines, hydro power, wood stoves etc, culled from the pages of "the mother earth news" which was an ecological etc magazine around in the early 1970's.

    AS for wind turbines, according ot a wee book i have the three bladed ones are hte most efficient, and i seem to recall that someone found that if you duct them, ie put a ring round the edges of the blades, like an O with the blades in the middle, then they are more efficient, but I dont know if they can be bought yet.

    Basically they are even converting a few houses in the UK here with better insulation and solar pannelled roofs etc. I am dreaming of all those flat factory roofs covered in solar panels, and wind turbines in all those loud messy industrial places, generating electricity.

    Then you know you can get hot water from the suns rays, by having glass boxes with black background and black pipes running through them. you can get small ones claled solar showers that are just black bags you fill with water and on a reasonably sunny day (even in the UK, so it will work in Canada) you can get a decent shower out of them. Certainly there are commercial systems around the place, so you can make your own hot water for free if its sunny, i like it.
     
  14. guthrie paradox generator Registered Senior Member

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    4,089
    Great, stirling engines! Clockwood, what do you use as heat srouce for the hot end in your bird bath pump? the sun?
     
  15. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    If you look in the backs of magazines like Pop Sci and Pop Mech. you'll see dozens of adds for steam, Stirling, and other such engines, plans, kits, model and full size systems, kinda interesting.
     
  16. Clockwood You Forgot Poland Registered Senior Member

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    4,467
    Water. Barrel of water that cools off during the night. Stirling engines work equally well off of heat OR cold. It was just a novelty thing.
     
  17. Lorcalon Registered Member

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    info on turbines, hydro power, wood stoves etc, culled from the pages of "the mother earth news" which was an ecological etc magazine around in the early 1970's.
    ==============================================
    Actually the Mother Earth News is still around and still printing articles on alternative energy. Even though alot of articles are probably rehashings of old news there are at least two that I can think of relating to new advances.
    1) Solar panels that don't need to have tracking systems to follow the sun. They're more effecient at using indirect sunlight to create electricity.
    2) Fuel cells. They use hydrogen to create electricity and the only by-product is water vapor.
    I can't remember which issues these articles are in, but you could probably find out at their website.
    www.motherearthnews.com
     
  18. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    2,671
    there's an article in the current issue of Discover about using mirror arrays to focus sunlight to run sterling engines. a 10x10 mirror array is aprently enough to set plywood on fire nearly instantaniously (think fopcusing sunlight through a magnifying glass to burn leaves when you were a kid - I'm not the only one who did this, right?)
     
  19. sonar Registered Member

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    27
    If your father is serious about a water recycling system a good book to pick up would be "Theory and Practice of Water and Wastewater Treatment" by Ronald L. Droste. I used this book in school and has alot of information about designing and little about maintaining water treatment facilities. This is of course for large scale projects for municipalities and such but just learn from the information or call an engineer if you know one.

    If he wants to recyle his urine and make it potable water once again then this will be quite complicated and use a good amount of power. But also there is a house in North-Eastern Pennsylvania where I live that use the sun's energy to heat it. I am not to sure about running electricity from it but he used the sun to heat his home and it is built into the side of a hill using the earth to insulate and cool his house. It is a really old house too that is why I think he does not have solar power. But I was in that house and it really does stay cool in the rear insulated portion and warm in the heat collection portion.

    Also an idea might be to do your own garbage collection and treatment and capture the methane released from the decomposition of the garbage to power a turbine for energy. This though would require knowledge of soild waste handling and air pollution control. But it should be possible, however, the cost may be excessive considering all the pollution control technology and other equipment you will need. But just throwing some ideas at you.
     
  20. Wrong Robot Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    116

    It seems like it wouldn't be hard to just but a thin metal grating around a wind turbine, it might cut the overall energy produced slightly but I couldn't see it effecting it that much.
     
  21. curioucity Unbelievable and odd Registered Senior Member

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    hmmmm, there's been some suggestion for alternate energy, yet none of them is popular enough....
    personally, I think that wind-powered generator may operate in more locations on earth compared to anything else, and clean. Well, okay, it may be unsuitable for continental areas.....
     
  22. Gifted World Wanderer Registered Senior Member

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    2,113
    It would probably be easier to convince the birds not ot fly through the vanes. This would involve making it look(to the bird) like a solid disk, that they can't land on, and so they fly around.
     
  23. ElectricFetus Sanity going, going, gone Valued Senior Member

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    18,523
    use one of those old fashion turbine were the fan blades are to many and to close together for a bird to fly through.

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    this as opposed to this:

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