Simple free energy system overlooked by scientists

A free energy system.

On the bottom of the ocean split water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis.

Have a cable that wraps a round a pulley on the ocean floor and also one on the surface. Have bags or containers attached to the cable. Fill the containers with the hydrogen or oxygen.

As the filled containers float to the surface they will pull the cable up with them. One of the ends of the pulley system is connected to a generator to produce electrical power.

At the surface the hydrogen and oxygen are removed from the containers and fed into a fuel cell to recover most of the electricity consumed in the electrolysis process. The electricity from the fuel cells is then shipped back down to the ocean floor to produce more hydrogen and oxygen. Only a small amount of electricity need be added to over come the inefficiencies of the fuel cell.

The depth of the water will determine the amount of excess power generated.

Small problems:

PV=nRT (hint, balloons will explode as they come up i.e. pressure delta)
Friction in pulleys
Gravity

Ideas are great but you need to run some calcs and flush things out a bit more. As with most so called "free energy" ideas, that Second Law thing has proven to be a real bugger to get around....

Now if process used solar or geothermal to assist with the electrolysis you may get more energy out than you put in but the cost of that energy input (compared to existing sources) becomes an issue....

Great idea! Is it your idea or did you see it somewhere else?

Do you have any diagrams, or visuals to portray your idea in a more graphical sense?

I think the world at the moment needs free energy to save the environment and to cut the tension which has amounted over oil in the middle east and the rest of the globe.

Free energy systems have always intreiged me, i at the moment am working on a perpetual energy generator. I had the ideas back when i was a teenager but never had the resources or contacts to put it into motion, until now.

I am still working out a few bugs and general specifics at the trial & error stages. I hope soon to post the results of my experiment.

Good Post!
Thanks

Genius Idea A.S

Perhaps the additional electrical power could be generated by harnessing wave/wind energy at the surface rather than wasting a percentage of the Oxygen/Hydrogen produced though.

Another idea would be to use this method to extract the huge deep-ocean reserves of natural gas hydrates. The process may take less energy to separate the methane gas than to split water into H/O so be more energy and economically efficient

[edit on 18-6-2007 by citizen smith]

This idea is only a few days old, to me anyway. A kindergartener could have thought of this one. (I wonder why no one else has. I guess it's just laziness.)

I had thought about the expansion of the gas already though. The same thing happens in weather balloons. They never fill them 'full' when they are on the ground.

Friction of the pulleys is negligible.

Gravity is working for us in this case except it dictates the size of the cable and the surface platform.

The biggest problem would filling and emptying the containers.

With all that said, I am not trying to say that we should have this built. It could wreak havoc in the ocean if the cold water on the bottom were to be set in a current to the surface. That is not even touching on the things I haven't thought of or considered.

This will never be built, even though it is a pretty good idea. If I can come up with an idea like this then I'm sure somebody else already has.

The point is that no government is going to give you the solution to your problems. If you want to be free and have the good technologies then you pretty much have to do the thinking yourself.

what about the sea life that would die due to the electrolysis. Why don't you just gather and breed electric eels and constantly prod them with a golden prod whilst wearing rubber gloves, the prod could be connected to a giant generator energy store system but there is a extra large coil system the charge must travel through first to amplify the energy then it would have to pass through another room containing a very large quartz crystal to once again amplify the power. Although the machine to do this would cost lots the energy would no doubt be free, however theres the paying of the employees to prod the eels.
I guess the benefits outweigh the costs. Why not just use the sun the wind and a water system?

Originally posted by angryScientist
The biggest problem would filling and emptying the containers.

A simple balloon make out of a gas-impermeable fabric with a fill/empty nozzle valve assembly would be sufficient, and simple to repair/replace components. The gas is pumped into the balloons at the bottom of the pulley and drag the cable upward as they ascend. At the top, they detatch from the cable and float on the surface for collection whilst the cable decends. Once a balloon is emptied it's clipped onto the next hook assembly on the cable in the same principle as skiers will wait for a ski lift...the cable pulley keeps moving and you attatch/detatch yourself at the base/summit.

If you attach enough gas-filled bags at the base, the cable is kept moving by the ascending balloons and overcome the drag through the water of the folded empty bags on the descent.

It could wreak havoc in the ocean if the cold water on the bottom were to be set in a current to the surface

The upward current of cold-water caused by the ascending balloons would be microscopic in comparison to the natural current-cycle

Sorry to keep being a downer but people - this is HS level physics....

Let's assume you built a a pulley system and hooked a bag to it. You will have friction losses in towing the bag down (pulley, water drag and weight of the line that is on the way up). Assume you expend no energy to fill the bag and let it go up. You will have even larger frictional losses on the way up because you now have a big inflated bag AND you are fighting gravity.

Second Law 1, this system 0

There is no free lunch in physics but while the idea has some merit, the input and output equation will not be positive unless outside energy is introduced. The energy required to get the bag down will never be less that the energy returned in bringing it up. Sure solar could be used to provide additional input power to overcome that Second Law problem but that has a cost and Second Law losses along the way (resistance, etc.) an other issues (night) so the balance keeps tipping away from useful energy production.

Still doubting - the potential energy difference is from sea level to say 300 feet below sea level. But you are adding a gas at 300 below which while lighter than water still has a mass. The kinetic energy to go up will now be lower than the potential since you have added mass to the system.... No free lunch and Newton wins again....

Still more doubting - crack open the physics book and start plugging in some numbers. I'll even let you ignore pulley friction and water drag and just deal with the potential and mass changes.

Hey thanks UofCinLA, you made my point.

There are several sources of loss in your system, I'm afraid.

For one, the extraction of the hydrogen and oxygen takes energy.
Per your proposal, we'll get most of that energy back when we run the extracted oxygen and hydrogen through a fuel cel.

Then, there's the energy needed to move the gasses from the extraction chamber to your transfer bags, and then from the bags to whatever long-term storage you're using, then into the fuel cells.

Then there's friction loss in the pulleys, and friction loss from moving the bags (both empty and full) through several hundred feet of seawater.

There's the not-inconsiderable power needed to turn your generator. If you're planning on getting this power from the buoyancy of the gas bags and the rope or cable being pulled upward by fillied bags, you're in for a rude surprise. Generators need a certain RPM, and your 'balloon' system probably can't give it.

Then there are the inefficiencies in the fuel cell at the top, and minor transmission losses in sending the current through cables.


In case you haven't gotten the general picture, there are a LOT of sources of loss in the process, and the more complex you make it, the more sources of loss you introduce.

By your own description, you'll need to add energy to the system from outside, and that's assuming that the 'free power machine' is actually operating at peak theoretical efficiency. Since your description doesn't include the extraction of any usable 'work' from the system (your hydrogen and oxygen are used to power the pums and winches, your generator power goes to split the water. What's left to do usable work beyond running the system?

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
There's the not-inconsiderable power needed to turn your generator. If you're planning on getting this power from the buoyancy of the gas bags and the rope or cable being pulled upward by fillied bags, you're in for a rude surprise. Generators need a certain RPM, and your 'balloon' system probably can't give it.

I'd assume that rather than have the cable pulley directly rotating a generator spindle at a 1:1 ratio, a gearbox system (which would add more friction-losses to the equation) would step-up the RPM to a useable speed

If you look at current wind-turbine design, inside the cab at the top of the mast is a huge gearbox that translates the blades' 10's-100's RPM to several 000's RPM at the driveshaft output.

Then, there's the energy needed to move the gasses from the extraction chamber to your transfer bags...

If the pulley assembly generates heat-energy as a result of friction, a cooling jacket could be incorporated into the pulley/gearbox housing (much like a combustion engine water-cooling circuit) and used to heat the stored gasses in the extraction chamber. Following Boyle's Law, the ATM pressure remains at a constant, and the addition of heat energy will make the gasses in the ex. chamber expand so enabling the bags to be filled

...and then from the bags to whatever long-term storage you're using

Again, using Boyle's Law of the behaviour of gasses under pressure, if the balloon-bags are filled to a designed-for pressure rating at the bottom of the pulley-chain to allow for expansion as ATM pressure decreases during ascent, the balloons would be above sea-level ATM pressure once they reach the surface, which would allow for the gasses to transfer to surface long-term storage.


(BTW sorry if I seem to be hijacking your design here A.S., not the intention at all, it's a damn good idea and has got my inventive mind sparking away)



[edit on 19-6-2007 by citizen smith]

this isea is actually really similar to the energy machine developped by belgian artist/scientist/philosopher Wessel Di Wesseli. He's been talking about it for about 20+ years now, has taken his technical drawings to universities and specialists and still dreams to build it. I've actually done an article on him for a paper i made a few years back. I will try to find some english articles on him and his inventions since most of the material online is in dutch.

Here's a video documentary on him, also in dutch.

He's one of those people balancing between genius and insanity...
gotto love him

peace,
mr.Jones

Citizen Smith
I know you could gear up the RPM to get a viable generator speed, but, as you noted, the gearbox would introduce a whole new level of friction losses into the system, and I was trying to be as kind as possible to the machine's energy budget.

Unfortunately, I keep coming back to the fact that a 'free energy' machine is, in essence, a perpetual motion system...and at that point the three 'you cant's' of Thermodynamics come into play...You can't win the game, You can't break even, and you can't opt to not play.

Originally posted by Brother Stormhammer
the gearbox would introduce a whole new level of friction losses into the system

I was busy editing my post with an idea that takes the friction losses into account and uses the heat energy created to put back into the system...

I understand that there is no such thing as a free (energy) lunch, but we can try and achieve an as-close-to-zero-as-possible energy equation

AS, whereas I like your thinking there are too many what-ifs for my liking especially the "what-if the ocean life got messed up" which it would with all the moving parts invloved in this process - the more moving parts the more breakages you get (and make less money)

So for me the best alternative would be what is being used in wave action energy [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_power]WEpT[/url

This is renewable energy and as long as the moon waxes and wanes then we have power

Originally posted by angryScientist
Hey thanks UofCinLA, you made my point.

Glad I could help and no this is not overlooked, but dismissed as folly when the numbers and no doubt experiments have proved that it will not work without the introduction of additional energy and many hurdles to overcome.

Have you detailed how the underwater parts will be protected from marine fouling? What about pulleys and the like that can operate under high pressures at depth? Gas flow and pumping - there is energy needed and there are losses in pumping that have to be factored in. The list keeps getting bigger with every turn....

Other systems like the tidal energy systems have been shown to work (without additional energy and are in use) and are a bit more "way out there" than this idea. Trust me, science does not dismiss quickly - if you or I have thought about it has probably been thought about and been experimented on by someone. I suspect with digging you will even find an old expired patent on this type of system lurking about.

Physics is a harsh mistress - certain laws are well documented by hundreds of years of experiment and can simply not be gotten around. Many with larger brain pans that you or I have tried, and to date NONE have succeeded when subjected to testing and verification. Sorry....

Sorry, maybe I'm missing something, but this just seems like a complicated way of using energy, not generating it.

A free energy system.

On the bottom of the ocean split water into hydrogen and oxygen by electrolysis

Electrolysis always uses more energy than is contained in the hydrogen it produces. To carry out large scale electrolysis you need vast amounts of electricity which will have to come from a power station - which will probably be burning coal, oil or gas. Nothing "free" about that!

Why do it at the bottom of the ocean? This just makes it more complicated and more waseful of electricity.

Which is why my idea is better!!!! you spend a little to make alot!!!

This is not free energy. Free energy does not exist. Read a physics book. I hate "free energy" ideas.

Well Mr Smarty pants, If all the equipment is stolen and used o harness energy you dont charge for and it costs nothing to maintain the machine then is it free? If so, does that mean your books have to be rewritten?