green ideas - I am starting "thegreentank" blog

green ideas for power, products and designs

There have been so many good discussions flying over E_mail these past few weeks, I think it's about time to share a few of them.

You can read it at  thegreentank.blogspot.com

Windmill Efficiency.

I have been searching for articles on making efficient wind mills.

This seems like a really obvious thing, but apparently no one is doing this right!

Some articles below show this.

http://nov55.com/wdm.html
http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw91.htm
http://www.appropedia.org/Savonius_rotor


This seems like a perfect problem to put to a genetic algorithm search.
If I could find a good simulation code, then many different designs not just of blade shape but orientations, configuration. Both horizontal and vertical can be simulated and tested quickly.

I am definably seeing a trend where very old wind mill designs are cheaper easier and more efficient then these modern high tech mega windmills.

Where modern windmills seem skewed towards large construction projects.

It would seem something is broken in the wind industry.


Some additional interesting articles:

• Reciprocating wind generator - From
  
  
• Cretan Sail based windmill designs.

A few more ideas.

• You know about shark skin has dimples that reduce drag, Using these in water pipes, ship hulls and propellers should make these more efficient.
  
  
  

  Its dermal denticles decrease drag and turbulence by directing water flow over the body, which allows surrounding water to pass over the shark more effectively. SPEEDO Introduces Fastskin -- the Fastest Swimsuit Ever Made
  

  
  Would this work with Air? For Windmill blades, and aircraft propellers and wings?
  
  
  
• Energy storage is a big deal. Can we store compress air underground generated from a windmill or solar (sterling cycle) and then have generators that convert this compressed air in to power on demand?

Space-Based Power Plant

Just think a network of solar death rays, now that's cool. We can burn our enemy's like ants under a magnifying glass.

In 1973 Peter Glaser was granted U.S. patent 3,781,647 on the Solar Power Satellite to supply power from space for use on the Earth.

Good link Solar Power Satellites (SPS) http://chview.nova.org/station/sps.htm

Hurricane-Killing, Space-Based Power Plant
http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/weathermod.html

PG&E makes deal for space solar power
Utility to buy orbit-generated electricity from Solaren in 2016, at no risk
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30198977/

After JAXA's announcement of space-based solar power for Japan, we've been keeping our eyes peeled for some news of similar projects Stateside. Lo and behold, California's largest energy utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, has agreed to do just that, inking a deal with solar power startup Solaren Corp. The agreement calls for the utility to purchase 200 megawatts of electricity once the company starts beaming power down from Earth orbit beginning in 2016. A solar-power satellite would consist of mirror arrays -- perhaps measuring up to several miles wide -- which would focus sunlight onto photoelectric cells. From there, the electrical power is converted into a microwave beam that is directed downward toward Earth, where it's converted back into electricity and then fed into the grid. According to the company, the system could generate roughly 1.2 to 4.8 gigawatts of power, at a price comparable to that of other renewable energy sources. When asked for a comment, legendary sci-fi jazz composer Sun Ra was more than enthusiastic. "Space is the place," he said.

Breakdown of PC power usage

At my now dead startup Nisvara we where building Silent computers using passive cooling, and figure out how to build server rooms that didn't require air conditioning just outside evaporative cooling towers.

Our designed cooled each component individually so we did profiling of each components power draw.

I dont' have the numbers in front of me, but if I recall for a typical P4 3Ghz system we saw the total average power consumption at something like 75 watts when idle and 150 watts or more under load. With the ACPI on it would drop considerably when idle. (I am not including the monitors that also draw 75 watts or so)

Again we were more interested in were heat was generated so we measured power dissipation per component which for all purposes is directly equivalent to watts used.

We found watts for a component was quite different then the watts on the power line.

Why? Because in this breakdown almost 40 to 50% of the power was lost in PC's power supply's!
Both main and on the motherboards on board supply's needed for the CPU and chip sets.
This was very high since most PC power supply were only 60% efficient!
So all loaded inside the PC show up as almost 2x on the 110 volt power line.

So of the peak 150W coming in what's left after being stepped down is a remaining 80W or so.

Hard Drive 12 watts assuming 1 80Gb Maxtor DiamondMax.
North and South Bridge, 1 to 6 watts
Support chips, almost 1 maybe 2 watts, things like the NIC and other support components were insignificant.

CPU which could vary from 20 watts to 100 watts depending on it's load.
Running like CPU burn, CPU test or CPU stress would max out the CPU's power, again with the power supply low efficiency an 80 watt increase in CPU power use results in an 160 Watt increase on the 110V power line! We didn't not expect this when we started.

If you add a high end graphics (Nvidia/ATI) card then add on another 40 watts 2x so 80 watts on the power line.

Another interesting thing was 10 watts for fans!

Here is another unexpected result, the hotter the system ran the more power each component draw. This could add another 10% or so. So a cold system like just after power up uses less then a hot one.