Here’s an idea somebody could make a mint on. It’s a freebie, from me to you. Those who don’t believe in plate tectonics or gravity can ignore this one.
There’s a type of geological fault called a slip fault. This is when two plates slide past each other. The most famous of these in the U.S. would probably be the Hayward Fault, which runs up along the San Francisco Bay, from San Pablo south of Fremont. The next big (>8.5 magnitude) earthquake in California will surely come from the increasingly-stressed Hayward — many thousands of people will die. The Hayward moves at 5-10 millimeters each year, leading to clearly-skewed landmarks on the fault line. There is, of course, no stopping this — the power of plate movements is more powerful than any other on earth.
So what better a way to generate power? The simplest, crudest vision of this would be a giant spring, suspended between posts on either side of the fault. As the faults slide along, the spring becomes wound up, potentially containing an enormous amount of power. Of course, there are many methods of capitalizing on that movement and storing the resulting energy that would be more much reasonable than a spring, but you get the idea.
Building hundreds or thousands of such devices along major faults could potentially generate an phenomenal amount of power. Clean, thoroughly-renewable, safe power.
If you use this, give me 1%, would you?
I think that this is not a workable idea at all. Not that I think it is inconceivable to harness power from this force.
It is just the idea that there is some sort of anchor that would be adequate to capture all the force of this sort of movement.
Think about the massive buttresses used to hold up a suspension bridge. Now think of the relationship between the force required to support the weight of a highway and the forces involved in the movement of an earthquake.
What exactly are we to use to anchor this spring to each side of the fault? And what is this spring going to be made of?
Rather than trying to pick stable region of rock to sink the pilings into, wouldn’t it be easier to attach one end of a cable to the moon and the other end to the earth and install a clock spring in the middle? After all, you could put an entire steel net around both globes for a more dependable purchase. Then the moon could wind the spring up, kind of a big wind up clock.
To work out the details, we could put one end of a cable on the Sears tower and the other end on the Prudential tower and then blow out the first floor of the Prudential tower so that it will fall away from the Sears tower, conveniently into the lake. This might be a good test bed for a 1:1,000,000,000,000,000 scale model. Based on careful measurements we could now scale all the dimensions of the spring up to the right size for a full sized earthquake generator.
I’m also thinking of a very big and strong tarp that could be suspended the length of the Oregon and Washington coasts that would catch all the rain. As the weight increases as more and more rain water accumulates, we could let it run out through turbines into the Columbia and Rio Grande rivers Yes, I know the Rio Grande is far away but the S.W. could really, really use the water. And what a nice thing it would be for Mexico.
Hey, remember those big springs under the SAC headquarters under Cheyenne Mountain?
I’m guessing that they would have to be much bigger to support the entire mountain and not just the headquarters building.
Regarding SAC headquarters under Cheyenne Mountain.
‘These buildings rest on enormous (4 ft long, 1000 lb) steel springs designed to (according to the witty and wonderful Air Force) “mitigate the ground shock associated with an atomic blast.” ‘
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1021191
At its simplest, drive a couple of posts in the ground 1″ apart and suspend a copper spring between the two, which gets wound up as the two move past each other. That would generate so little energy as to be useless, but it would work.
The limitation of the power that can be generated is the same as the limitation of the strength of the materials and the ground. A sufficiently strong pair of posts and a sufficiently inflexible material for the spring (though not so inflexible as to strain the posts or the bedrock) would do the trick.
Speaking of Cheyenne Mountain, I was on their site the other day and found it rather bizarre to see photos of the Denver Nugget Dancers chillin in full gear.
I don’t understand how the power would be created, Waldo… I could see if the plates were moving quickly, like a motor but 5-10 millimeters each year? Don’t you have to have a lot of motion to create energy? Am I missing the point?
To generate power in this manner, you can either have a lot of motion, or you can have a very small, very powerful motion.
Imagine the energy stored in a rubber band stretched from 2″ to 6″ — there’s not much, because it’s easy to do. If you flicked it at me, I must muster an “ow,” but that’s about it. Imagine, instead, if you took a 6″ spring from a set of shocks in a car compressed it down to 2″, and allowed it to spring out at me. You could do some damage. Both have moved by 4″, but it took a great deal more effort to compress that spring, so there’s a lot more energy stored in it.
I hope that helps.
My idea is to suspend several hundred small turbines under every highway overpass. Every tine a truck drives through it would clear the turbines by an inch, and the wind blast would spin them. With hundreds of thousands of trucks and tens of thousands of overpasses, you could capture a lot of otherwise wasted power.
Ray, that is awesome. Sticking dozens or hundreds of turbines in major tunnels could generate a not-insignificant amount of energy.
Waldo, your question continues to intrigue me. Leaving aside the question of converting the motion to energy for the moment. I was curious how the amount of energy available from this sort of geo-physical motion might relate to our entire US annual energy needs.
Based on several informative websites and texts, these are the numbers that I arrived at:
According to the 2003 World Almanac:
Total US Energy Consumption (2001)
96.3 Quadrillion Btu = 1,016 x 10 +24 ergs = 101.6 x 10 +18 Joules
According to http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-59571
The total annual energy released in all earthquakes is about 10 x +25 ergs,
corresponding to a rate of work between 10 million and 100 million kilowatts.
This is approximately one one-thousandth the annual amount of heat escaping
from the Earth’s interior.
100 x +24 ergs = 10 x +18 Joules = 2,777,777,777.8 Megawatt Hours
Help with conversions: http://online.unitconverterpro.com/unit-conversion/convert-alpha/energy.html
So, my simple conclusion is that the total US energy consumption per year (all forms combined i.e. coal, oil, Gas, nuclear, hydro, solar, geothermal and others) represents about 10 times the total energy released annually by all the earth quakes across the globe combined.
Now here my calculations may not be so well founded. I then attempted to calculate the size cable that would be required to withstand or balance that total force, assuming that the entire movement was over a distance of 12 inches over one year’s time.
I arrived at the (possibly questionable) conclusion that to ballance the force (no allowance for error margin) could be achieved by the use of: 17,561,000,000,000 individual one inch diameter bridge cables
Marks Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers – 8th edition Page 8-92 Table 107 “Galvanized Steel Bridge Rope”
Just for the heck of it, if each one of those cables were only 1 foot long, they would require 126,708,000,000 tons of steel (Marks Handbook)
This amount would represent 1,128 years of US steel production (at the 2000 production level per the World Almanac)
I can’t even guess how concrete and structural steel pilings would have to be driven and poured along the edge of each tectonic plate or how much area might be required for such a massive undertaking.
Though your math is a lot of fun to read through, Michael (I really enjoy doing such calculation), there are a couple of logical flaws. The first is the assumption that the goal is to capture all of the energy released in the form of earthquakes. This is sort of like being concerned about the viability of solar energy because the sun just releases so darned much energy that you can’t possibly capture it all; true, but not helpful.
The other is that the assumption that the goal is to capture any energy released on the form of an earthquake. On the contrary, I’d expect an earthquake to be less than helpful to such equipment. It’s the normal energy released in the process of tectonic shifts that I’d like to capture, not the energy released from a temblor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward_Fault_Zone
Movement along the San Andreas can occur either in sudden jolts or in a slow, steady motion called creep.
Fault segments that are actively creeping experience many small to moderate earthquakes that cause little or no damage. These creeping segments are separated by segments of infrequent earthquake activity (called seismic gaps), areas that are stuck or locked in place within the fault zone.
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/25/14205
At the present, we do not know how much of the relative motion between two tectonic plates is accommodated by earthquakes and how much is taken up by slow creep, either steady or episodic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayward_Fault_Zone
THE total energy released in the mega earthquake of magnitude 9.0 on the Richter scale off the Sumatra coast on December 26 was of the order of 20 x 10 x 17 Joules. . .The total energy released in the last of the series of explosions of the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia in 1883, which caused the biggest sound that humanity has ever heard, and the largest Tsunami known till now, was 8.4 x 10 x 17 Joules
So, with little to guide us, let’s just say that the aseismic activity which you want to capture along the Hayward fault zone is 1% of the activity globally. that would equal .1 x 10 +18 Joules.
That would represent 9.8 x 10 +14 Joules or 272,222.2 megawatt hours = 0.47 % of the output of the Grand Coulee Dam
722,810,906,310,000 pound-force per foot
361,405,000,000 tons-force per foot
7,908,000,000 individual one inch diameter bridge cables
13,206,000,000 pounds of cable (only assuming 1 ft of each cable
6,600,000 tons of steel which is 21.4 days of steel production (112,242,000 tons steel per year US 2000) So, I guess that
Don’t ask me why I like this calculation better, but while we’re talking about “free” energy lets talk about solar.
These are conservative figures but with the same assumptions for power consumption above and not worrying about the fact that we make energy only during the daylight hours but need it around the clock:
otal US Energy Consumption (2001)
96.3 Quadrillion Btu=
1,016 x 10 +24 ergs
101.6 x 10 +18 Joules
28,222,222,222,000 kilowatt hours
1 square meter solar panel in Arizona = 219 kilowatt hours per year
This would require 128,868,594,600 panels to supply entire US energy or 49 756 square miles of photovoltaic panels which would be equal to an area 223 miles x 223 miles square. Hey, it’s a big state and with water and everything, we shouldn’t really be there anyway.
While, again, I really enjoy the calculations, I can’t see how it would be possible or even desirable to capture all of the energy from that fault. I don’t think it would be any more feasible to capture 1% of the global seismic energy than it would be to capture 1% of the sunlight striking the earth. Even plants rarely make use of as much as 1% of the sunlight that strikes them, if the lessons of biology class stick with me.
On the topic of solar, though, PVAs are getting more and more efficient all the time — there have been drastic improvements just in the past few years. It still requires more energy to manufacture and dispose of them than they’re likely to generate in their lifetime, so it’s not clear to me that they’re yet a net gain. I’m inclined to think that they’re more useful installed by property owners for net metering than they are for supplying power to particularly large areas. We all ought to be our own daytime power plants.
http://www.wisegeek.com/how-much-is-a-kilowatt-hour.htm
In the Mid Atlantic a kilowatt hour costs about 11.45 cents, in New England 11.94 cents and in the mountain states 7.80 cents per kilowatt hour.
A 165 watt solar panel costs around $ 920 retail will produce aproximately 361 kilowatts per year in the SW. If it last 20 years (single crystal cells, all glass covers, stainless frame) that will work out to 12.7 cents per kilowatt hour ingnoring the time value of money and installation.
http://www.sunpowercorp.com
This year, Cypress semiconductor’s Sun Power division used more silicon wafers in their US solar panel factory than all the US semiconductor fabs combined, used to make semiconductors.
Europe is buying all the solar cells that can be manufactured today to support their agressive commitment to renewable energy generation. They’ve funded Cypress to build another factory.
Cypress’s A-300 cells are 21.5% efficient. In 1999 a Triple-junction gallium-indium-phosphide on gallium arsenide on germanium concentrator solar cell with 32.2% efficiency was demonstrated by Spectrolab, a unit of Hughes Electronics Corp
My understanding is that plants (vegetation) typically use 0.001% of the solar energy that strikes them.
Note that the present mean temperature of the earth, about 293 K or 20 C, is the temperature the earth needs to radiate the one unit of solar power normally incident upon it. If we add a second unit due to world power consumption of one solar unit, the temperature of the earth must rise to near boiling water to radiate the excess heat
And while that calculation doesn’t include the environmental costs of manufacturing, nor the environmental costs of disposal (they’re extremely difficult to calculate — I’ve never actually seen it tried), it likewise doesn’t include the environmental costs or corporate welfare costs of traditional power generation. So power might cost $0.12/kwh, it’s a lot more expensive when subsidies to the coal industry and the cost of environmental degradation that inevitable accompanies burning coal. (Again, extremely difficult to calculate.) I can only hope that the dollar cost of solar works out to being less than the dollar cost of coal, but I feel rather certain that the environmental impact is a great deal less.
Waldo i love this idea! How fun. But I think a spring would be hard to work with? It would absorb the energy just fine, but i seems like it would be quite difficult to extract the energy from the spring.
How about instead of cables with a spring, you have enormous magnets? Something relatively simple to construct, just HUGE. For example have you seen those flashlights that you shake back and forth and they produce a light? Something just like that. It would have a tube and a cylinder moving inside. Then say a hundred miles of copper cable. Or whatever the correct calculation is.
Move that sucker an inch and it’d generate a gajillion-billion watts (that’s a lot!)
Oh, yeah, a giant watch spring would suck. There are much more efficient methods of converting motion to stored energy than a spring. :)
Factor Name Symbol
(1024 yotta Y)
(1021 zetta Z)
1018 exa E
1015 peta P
1012 tera T
109 giga G
106 mega M
103 kilo k
102 hecto h
101 deka da
Even though my calculations of geophysical energy didn’t require any of the new Greek prefixes, I can see that some of these energy conversion schemes already are going beyond peta and tera. So if you’ve ever wanted to try out zetta and yotta, here they are. I am told that they are only proposed for now but who could resist yotta?
——————————
Regarding the real cost of substances like oil and coal, there is always the additional concept of the future subsidizing the present. After all, if I have more oil than anyone can use in my lifetime, it is easier to justify a lower price. To heck with my children’s children.
Now I know that my next example may seem to be a flight deep into the imaginary but why not speculate?
Imagine for the moment that I have made contact with aliens who want earth’s oxygen and water for their own needs. And let’s say that they have a good supply of gold. Why shouldn’t I sell all the air that I can pump from my land and all the water that I can pump from my wells.
Of course I will keep a reserve of air for myself and my children but to heck with my childrens’s children. Let them excavate some other world like the enterprising aliens that I plan on selling to. My rather stretched point is that the price of oil, that is set by market forces of supply and demand really can’t take into consideration the value that oil might have when we disover some truly unique and essential need that isn’t being considered today.
More directly, how can we set a fair price for the clean water or the clean air that future generations will need. Economists aren’t going to be able to help us with this one. I believe that this is a choice that must depend soley on the collective benevolence of this generation and our willingness to be good stewards of these earthly treasures for our children’s children in mind. Even if we ourselves don’t have children. (Is George listening? Or could James Watt or the white house lawyer have assured him that amageddon is a good enough possibility to justify selling the future today?)
It seems to me that for these eventualities, a civilized society must choose to consider the future needs of the many rather than the immediate wants of the lucky few today. It is political beliefs that will decide the laws we choses to establish and enforce. today.
What price is the actual cost for oil, clean water, the Virginia Highlands, or an Arctic habitat? I contend that these are arbitrary decisions that will always be decided by by average people like you and me. The price that is set will be a result of the laws we enforce. In the end, what we do will demonstrate our concern (or lack of concern) for our children, our neighbor’s children and for life itself.
There is nothing that can really keep us from squandering all that we have except for our own wisdom and the wisdom of our neighbors.
Michael, that oxygen and water example is wonderful. I’m going to be thinking about that and repeating it for years to come.
Here is what my webhost is doing. I am not trying to make any sort of advertisement. (I’m not saying who it is) This is just to demonstrate that as you indicated, solar is getting more affordable. And I also picked this company because they had good rates. I’ve been with them for three years. (for a local wilderness retreat center where I volunteer.)
“. . .[name deleted] headquartered in Romoland, California just 120 miles East of Los Angeles. Our data center and main office is powered by 120 solar panels which generate electricity which run data center and office. Short Electric, a solar energy specialist recently installed our grid of solar panels using a ground mount system. Capable of generating up to sixty kilowatts of electricity each day, this grid is owned and operated by [deleted] to power California’s first and only solar-powered hosting company and ISP.
Solar tubes bring in natural light for our data center and offices. By bringing in natural light it eliminates the use of conventional lighting needs therefore helping the environment.
AMD powered servers help us provide a high level of efficiency while keeping our energy level to a minimum. By choosing AMD Opteron processors for our servers, we have dropped our energy consumption by 60%. AMD Opteron processors generate 50% less heat than conventional processors which reduce heat related failures. . .”
“. . .We are connected to the Internet Backbone via Multi Homed connections. These lines are directly connected to multiple OC3 backbones. . .” “. . .[deleted] is a debt free company. . .”
“. . .All data is backed up nightly 7 days per week to our redundant multi terabyte backup system. We backup websites, SQL databases, MySQL databases and Mail. We keep 15 days worth of backup except for mail which we rotate nightly. . .”
“Powering A Cleaner Future
[deleted] is an environmentally conscious company who cares about our future and our environment. By generating electricity thru the use of solar panels we are able to produce the energy needed to power our data center and offices without polluting our environment.
Power is generated using 120 solar panels located on the roof of our data center. Solar panels face due south which will generate the most possible amount of electricity. The power from the solar panels is DC which is stored in our battery bank. After it leaves our battery bank the power is converted to AC through our sunny boy inverters, which supplies the power needed to run our data center and offices including the air conditioners. In case of an emergency we can get power from the electric grid but it is not necessary.
Lighting during the day is provided by the use of solar tubes which bring in the outside light.
The actual solar powered setup is more involved, but this will give you the general idea of how it works
That’s a really great setup — impressive.