Thermal Energy Idea: Pressure=Energy

[arkain101]

Recently I had some ideas running through my mind about energy systems that use pressure to do work.

The article MIT-led panel backs 'heat mining' got some gears turning on certain ideas.

Concept:

By taking a container full of water deep to the ocean floor. By introducing a heat source to the water in that container it may be possible to bring that water to its boiling point, which in turn generates pressure difference and essentially lift.

Containers such as metal space blanket material could contain the water, effectively containing no mass. Attatched to an elevator system.

As the water lifts to the surface the ocean pressure lessens and the water boils more and more easily. Possibly becoming a steam source?

The idea is to use natural thermal vents, or deep water nuclear reactors, to generate the heat source, that boils water (extremely heats water) in specialised containers that are attatched to a looped elevator cable. The boyant hot water bags, create lift and travel upwards, turning the cable, turning a generator. Once the containers reach the top of their trip (which could be still several hundreds of feet below the surface of the water) the bags are treated relative to their tempeatures and pressures.

IE; if the bags/containers (of vast vast volume) still contain boyancy, heat, pressure, by the time they reach the near surface, then by whatever means;

possible example: there is steam in the containers at the surface: collect the steam for energy, the bags empty, and in a thin shape, travel relatively friction free to the bottom of the cable (back to the heat source, upon which by battery powered mechanism they re-open and are prepareda nd waiting to be somehow introduced to large source of heated water, (or even gas) again, on their trip upwards.

However I have no idea of the effectiveness of such a system.

The plus sides are:

The size of the system is open, massive scales.

The system can not be seen.

Its rather enviromentally clean.

Oil rigs could be effective for merging into the system as to serve a different purpose.

Considerably low quanity of material at inexpensive cost and maintainence.

Long lasting design. All electrical generating parts kept out of the water.


I dunno it could be a stupid idea.

Maybe running water pipes through thermal areas would be better. Just to generate a creation of hot water that transforms into steam on its way up to the surface, and Cold water plumits downward through the intake just by natural pressure differences.

Essentially, one could drop a nuclear device that heated water. A natural pump would be created. Water would push itself into the intake to take place of the heated water that races to the surface to do work.

[arkain101]

Rough concept image.

lift idea...

Heat pump idea.

[Roadam]

Provided you make those cointainers out of verl poor thermal conductors and provided you let the water extend(which it does very little with rising temperature) you could make this work. But I suppose that water in depths is quite cold and that would make system very inefficient.

You know how typical steam engine works? Lets summarize an compare to your idea: heat the water and let it extend-do work and cool in the process, then repeating that again and again. And efficiency of a steam engine is about 10%.
So, the pipes would have better efficiency, but still the energy would be drained trough them. I think that just placing a steam turbine over an underwater heat source would be the best. But still, the only advantage would be that you would have A lot of cooling water.

[Jigar111]

I would like to say Pressure is not equal to energy.
Pressure=Force per unit area and energy=capacity of doing work and work= force*distance travelled. If you consiner potential energy= mg*h where mg= force and h= height from some reference line.
Unit of energy is newton-meter and
unit of Pressure is Newton/meter2 where 2 concider as square
so Pressure is not equal to energy.
yes you can use difference of pressure to create a motion just like you can use heavy weight to lift light weight.

[ErlyRisa]

I have spent a good cpl of hours on this same idea...

it came out... that what you put down thier, takes the same amount of E as you get out 'letting' it back up.

---In other words... it's another 'free' energy system!...

The only E that I was able to equate as GAIN... was surface pressure... which also brought me to the conclusion that surface pressure is a force that is contained inside the cohesive bonds of a material., and not the actual pressure gained by immersing the object deeper in the 'atmosphere'.

ie. There is an inherent '0' point surface pressure on all objects - if that E can be harnessed by extracting that pressure via the co-hesive bonds of the material than that would be an intersting machiine...but I think it's already been done ...Piezo-Electricity.

in other words...to create the E in a surface pressure change, you have to LIFT the hammer again to get more E, or an OBLITERATING hit will render the material useless. (all cohesive bonds converted to piezo-electricity)

Yes, as for an atmospheric/gravity run machine you could argue that E comes from... well G... which brings me to my final conlcusion, if my kinetic calculations brought out Oero return in E, then what's gravity?

[silverslith]

You'd be better to drop a pipe from your rig to some underwater vulcanism. Theres water over 350c along the midocean ridges and other volcanos. Once you give it a little suck to get it started the steam bubbles formed as pressure reduces will cause the water column in the pipe to lower density and the ocean will push more into the pipe without pumping energy. Plonk a turbine on top where its all steam and presto, can you say virtually unlimited energy resource. Submersible closed cycle systems using pentane are easy peasy too, no great tech challenge there and can run fine at heat of say 40cwith luvly 2c ocean floor water for cooling.

[arkain101]

a prototype would be fun to mess with.

[Jay-qu]

Umm I dont think this would work, the whole concept of bouency is to do with density. If you boil contained water you will still have the same amount of mass per unit area.. did I miss something?

[silverslith]

Originally Posted by Jay-qu

Umm I dont think this would work, the whole concept of bouency is to do with density. If you boil contained water you will still have the same amount of mass per unit area.. did I miss something?

actually if you have a temp above 374C then there cannot be liquid water. It will be supercritical below 2200m depth (above this it will be gaseous h20) but still much lower density than the cool water column.
Even far cooler temps will still be lighter than the surrounding water as long as above 6c because water expands from 0c-4c. Basic thermal syphon.
You can see the effect of gas bubbles in a water column by pumping water out of bores by blowing air into them near the bottom. This will pump water out of 100m bores continuously (if in splutters)
It would be fun to test. super-geysers. The biggest ever recorded natural geyser was 20km from here from 1904-1910. 400m altitude when it erupted every 40 days.

[arkain101]

Right yes, the bottom of the ocean is like a big spring.

You could develope a huge vertical syphon that blows steam upwards.. If you took the water from the bottom of the ocean and instantly transported it to the surface in the air, It should have to release energy?

Anyway yes you might be able create a syphon if you can support a pressure free pathway from the deep, to the surface, and a heat source in the pathway, such as hot underwater volcanoes, or nuclear reactor, Nice and safe at the bottom of the ocean.