[cube]

Here's a fun idea. It borderlines a "pie in the sky" fantasy. As we all know there is no such thing as a 100% efficient energy conversion system. Heat to mechanical energy conversion is rather inefficient even though much of the modern world depends on it.

Imagine a generic electrical power plant. The process pretty much goes like this:
1) create heat
2) heat boils water into steam
3) steam runs a turbine generator
There is heat energy loss along each step. One reason why is because as the pipes and machinery heats up it also causes the air around it to heat up. I assume every power plant must have an air ventilation system to pump out the hot air and replace it with ambient temperature air. This is a waste of energy. The whole point of producing heat was not to warm up the air but instead to boil the water to make the turbines spin.

Now imagine if a vacuum was created inside the power plant! There would be no energy loss through heat transfer from the machinery/pipes to the air/atmosphere. Therefore a greater percentage of the heat from the boiler must reach the turbines simply because there is no other place for the heat to go.

Actually there is another path. Since the machinery is ultimately bolted down to the ground some of the heat will be wasted by being transfered to the ground. If you really want to get exotic the entire machinery can be placed on some sort of magnetic levitation system. In such a system ALL the heat generated by the boiler (minus whatever was used to initially warm up the pipes/machinery) must eventually find it's way to the turbines simply because there is no other place for the heat to go.

Actually that's not true. The machinery will invariably produce infra red radiation as a secondary effect of heat. Since radiation can travel thru a vacuum some of the energy will invariably bleed off into the outside environment. Like I said no system can be 100%

Is this idea totally "half-baked" or is there some potential here?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'I')s this idea totally "half-baked" or is there some potential here?

[PenultimateManStanding]

Is this a spoof of the infamous oil replicator thread?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I')s this a spoof of the infamous oil replicator thread?

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', 'I')s this a spoof of the infamous oil replicator thread?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', ' ')scratches head in confussion* how did my thread end up over here?

[eric_b]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '
')(...)

Now imagine if a vacuum was created inside the power plant! There would be no energy loss through heat transfer from the machinery/pipes to the air/atmosphere. Therefore a greater percentage of the heat from the boiler must reach the turbines simply because there is no other place for the heat to go.

[Falconoffury]

It's a pretty good idea in theory, but I don't think it's possible to have an entire power planet in a vacuum. What might be possible is the creation of pipes or other containers with a region of vacuum around the surface of the pipe to lessen heat transfer. Like a double layer pipe with a vacuum in between each layer. It sounds worthy of an experiment to estimate the amount of heat saved if it was applied to a power plant.

[Aaron]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Falconoffury', 'I')t's a pretty good idea in theory, but I don't think it's possible to have an entire power planet in a vacuum. What might be possible is the creation of pipes or other containers with a region of vacuum around the surface of the pipe to lessen heat transfer. Like a double layer pipe with a vacuum in between each layer. It sounds worthy of an experiment to estimate the amount of heat saved if it was applied to a power plant.

[Falconoffury]

You sound like the poster named Raphael. Remember that guy? He talked about confusing and meaningless things.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Falconoffury', 'Y')ou sound like the poster named Raphael. Remember that guy? He talked about confusing and meaningless things.

[Falconoffury]

We already have thermoses which keep coffee, soup, or anything like that hotter for a longer time because of vacuum regions. We might be able to do the same with pipes and tanks in a power plant. Like I said, it's worth experimentation. You can make fun of the idea of putting a whole power plant in a vacuum, but the idea that vacuum regions can reduce lost heat is a valid one.

[Markos101]

http://www.cheniere.org

Hi, as a veteran peak-oiler, I've pretty much reached the conclusion that whilst peak oil is a serious issue, I don't feel (like I did at one stage), that we're looking at the disaster scenario analogous to the bacteria on a petri-dish. Rather, I think cheap oil is certainly not going to return, however, it will only mean a reduced growth in population created by natural resource limits (economically expressed in higher prices) rather than some massive catastrophic reduction in human population levels to pre-industrial levels.

I've been through this a million times, so I've been looking instead at some of the alternatives out there beyond the scope of traditional nuclear, biofuel, and other types of alternatives.

I did a degree in physics and studied electromagnetism to advanced classical level, and a further module on particle physics, which touched upon quantum electrodynamics in my final year.

I've been reading some of the work of Tom Bearden, among others, regarding the topic of extracting energy from the vacuum of virtual photons all around us (and in space, in fact).

I'm healthily sceptical, but I've read his paper and I understand much of his thesis, particularly regarding experiments involving the Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect.

In the AB effect, electrons fired passed a solenoid (magnet) get deflected, even though the electrons themselves do not pass through the magnetic 'B' field of the magnet. This suggests the presence of another magnetic field which appears to be generated via gauge freedom in the region surrounding the solenoid, even though the solenoid's B-field magnetic field is only located within the solenoid's shaft.

By 'gauge freedom', I mean a quantum effect that's strange, because it's produced by the requirement that the waves associated with the electrons in QM must be phase-indepdendent - i.e. if you vary the electron's wavefunction (a mathematical gimmick that works to explain particle behaviour in QM but has no particular physical interpretation in itself), you mathematically get the result that there should be another magnetic field outside of the solenoid. <i>No extra work is done to obtain this 'outside' magnetic field</i>.

By varying the strength of this further magnetic field, you create an <i>electric</i> field, which can be used to generate a voltage, and hence current.

That's basically it.

It's an interesting hypothesis, and further, if you search for the 'disclosure project' on the usual http://video.google.com/ you'll find that some of the 400 former intelligence and government employees are making testimony that they have worked with and seen vacuum energy devices working in real life, but they have been classified for political and commercial reasons. Also an interesting hypothesis.

[emailking]

I'm not clear how that steals energy of the vacuum. In fact, as far as I understand vacuum energy, this would amount to a violation of conservation of energy mascroscopically. Of course the whole concept of vacuum energy is due to microscopic violations of conservation of energy, allowed by the Uncertainty Principle.

Well, I have a MS in physics. Even if this is possible theoretically, I think the necessary technological advances to make use of it are a long way off indeed.

[Markos101]

It wouldn't be any more a violation of the conservation of energy than a windmill, which extracts energy from the wind. It also does not break the law of entropy, because it takes ordered virtual photon energy and disperses it.

I'm healthily sceptical, however Bearden rightly points out that the magnetic vector potential <i>does</i> freely appear out of nothing, as experimentally shown by the AB effect.

This is merely a mathematical consequence of phase gauge-freedom, however its effect is physically real.

The question is, how is the appearence of this magnetic vector potential physically interpreted. Bearden points out that, according to quantum electrodynamics (and not classical electrodynamics, which fails to explain AB effect), everywhere there are virtual photons, which can be regarded rather like a battery.

When electrons interact, these photons move from a virtual state to real state, and an interaction takes place.

Bearden seems to be theorising that this 'gauge freedom' effect, which produces the magnetic vector potential, occurs because of the presence of these virtual photons moving from virtual to real state - and that it is freely permittable, because the magnetic vector potential is a quantum effect of a sort because of these virtual photons. That's where it gets a little vague.

It's interesting, and I think you have to take the real life testimony of a very large number of former government employees whom have no personal gain to make shouldn't simply be brushed off - there must be at least something to what they're saying.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=243421874735533678&q=disclosure+project

Also, note that the MEG is already a device that uses Fermi's law E = -dA/dt to produce an E-field from this A magnetic vector potential. The technology part isn't that complicated, it appears that the main problem is stablising the field in order to produce a consistent E-field. This may be a bug in the concept - but in any case, I'll be reading the book on the subject in the next few weeks and I'll probably post back with any extra info. In the meantime, apparently Nikola Tesla discovered much of all this back in the beginning of the last century, but it didn't interest financiers due to the fact that it didn't produce cashflow - only a single sale followed by technical support. No return on capitial invested. Again I'm a healthy sceptic, however I know for a fact that Tesla patented a number of devices later in his life that are still poorly understood.

[emailking]

There may be something to what they're saying indeed. I'm trying to understand it. Where is the energy coming from then if there is no macroscopic violation? There must be an answer to this question if it is possible.

"I'm healthily sceptical, however Bearden rightly points out that the magnetic vector potential does freely appear out of nothing, as experimentally shown by the AB effect.

This is merely a mathematical consequence of phase gauge-freedom, however its effect is physically real."

I believe there have been experiments that have shown that particles can feel the vector potential itself. I forget the details.

"When electrons interact, these photons move from a virtual state to real state, and an interaction takes place."

This has to correspond with a decrease in energy somewhere though. I'm trying to understand where. The only other scenario I'm aware of where a virtual photon can be bumped up to reality status is near the event horizon of a black hole, and that immediately corresponds to a decrease in the black hole's mass.

"I'll be reading the book on the subject in the next few weeks and I'll probably post back with any extra info."

I'll be happy to hear what you find. This is interesting just on a physical basis.

[UIUCstudent01]

You realize the same people who brought you that "Disclosure Project" also brought a "Disclosure Project" on aliens from outer space and that the government has this alien technology....

[Clouseau2]

There is a simple reason I never believe in these devices ... If they put out so much power from nothing, then you could start building them and selling them to people to put in their homes. $4000 and I never have to pay an electric bill again? ok!

[small_steps]

You guys raised my interest of bearden here again, so I took some time to listen to a google video "tom bearden on tesla". First thing is that bearden says that the scientific community has shunned tesla, which I find odd, 90+% of the electric power grid is based on his work, and that wireless networks are based in part on his work. It would appear to be taken for granted, but nowhere near shunned.
he talks at length about how the rest of the world has misunderstood maxwell's equations and then talks ad nauseum about maxwell's well known contribution, the displacement current (\espilon \frac{dE}{dt}), and how classical physics doesn't explain this. Suuure.

What he talks about as free energy from the vacuum of space sounds like radio waves to this observer.

And I happen to have one of the papers he cites in regards to the "scalar magnetic potential", and he totally takes it out of context. This paper details the magnetic flux distribution due to the geometries and material properties of a permanent magnet as derived from the scalar magnet potential in due regard to traditional field theory. Similar procedures can be undertaken to determine the magnetic flux distribution due to currents with the vector magnetic potential. He does not explain (or understand?) this, and then goes off on a tangent that he never returns from.

Those are a couple of observations from this perspective.

[eric_b]

Gawd, not the infamous 'MEG' device again.

This has already been discussed here. Not much to say, it's bullshit.

see (old topic):
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic9186.html