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I gonna use it anyway
By Muffloj, Section Hydro Posted on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 04:13:02 PM MST
?

As as i was playin with my little hydo battery charger excuse me "testing" my charger in the kitchen sink i had a little thought.
Just looking at my past few water bills i come up with an average of about 3,000 gallons of water per month. Man that sounds like alot. Anyway and i know this sounds a little crazy so bare with me but if i was to built a small tower and stick a water tank up there. Run the main water line to the top of the watertower and stick a small hydro gen. in between the incoming line and the intake of may tank using the city pressure to turn the hydro and fill the storage tank for later household use.
Possibly having several levels of tanks fed by the water pressure from the one above(keeping it high enough for household pressure) each level turning its own hydro gen. and maby even use one of the tanks as thermal water heater some how.
I have no idea how much power you could produce using this method and i dont even know enough about the matter to do much good.
Maby someone can shoot this idea down , maby someone will run with it farther than can.
Maby If you could get someone to buy enough bottles of water from you for 50c a peice you could pay your water bill, charge batteries or whatever, and make a chunk. ahhh whad i say?
I am real interested in any thoughts i get on this matter.
And someone tell me if this sounds dumber than i look

I gonna use it anyway | 13 comments (13 topical)

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#1)
by drdongle on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 04:29:14 PM MST

Your getting the water company to pay for your hydro produced power.

Carpe Vigor

Dr.D
Carpe Vigor, Dr.D

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#2)
by jacquesm on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 04:32:27 PM MST

Hehe, that's quite clever. Reminds me of a guy in NL that powered some lights in his house from the phone circuitry (it's got a good sized power source on the other side).

Anyway, you asked how much power you can make out of 'falling water', the formula is:

power available is head (the height difference between the top of the water level and the intake of your generator) * flow

From that you can see that it does not pay off to have multiple small drops with a generator on each, easier to have one bigger one at the bottom, and get the same amount of power.

Turn of the century London had three power grids !

gas

electrical

and, little known but really true: pressurized water

You'd better do your homework on that one, I can't imagine the water supply is so subsidized that you can extract more power from a liter of pressurized water than the cost of the water.

Regards,

Jacques
www.greenbits.com

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#5)
by RatOmeter on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 06:32:49 PM MST

You'd get less power out than what it would take you (or the utility) to pump it up. Though it would be "free" in this case, I don't think it would be enough to bother with. Maybe you could light a few LEDs when the water is running or charge a AA battery over the course of a few showers.

His idea of bottling the water and selling, though... Most of that bottled stuff that folks pay > $1 per half a liter is just plain, old city tap water, filtered. The only thing you're getting for your money is the convenience of clean, usually OK tasting water neatly packaged to go. It has squat to do with AE, RE or any other kind of E but it looks like a good business plan if there's not already too much competition in ones given area.

Here's an idea. Have the power of the flowing water light up an LED bargraph indicating how much money you stand to make off of the bottles of water you're selling.

[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#6)
by jacquesm on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 06:51:34 PM MST

It would be interesting to do the actual numbers, I think it's quite a bit more than just a few leds.

Did you read about the 'dasani' scandal in Brittain ? The Coca Cola company had to take that brand of bottled water out of circulation because it was found that it was just bottled tapwater, with conveniently added pollution (which was not in the original water...) Beats me what they were thinking, selling bottled tapwater at a few pop per liter *clever*... throwing that away because of bad plant design... not too hot.
www.greenbits.com
[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#3)
by Muffloj on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 04:37:02 PM MST

How many gallons of water does it take to make = to a 1$ worth of electricity?

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#4)
by jacquesm on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 04:41:48 PM MST

that depends on the pressure with which it is delivered to your house (open tap pressure, not closed tap pressure). That pressure translates in momentum the moment the water leaves the 'nozzle' in your hydro turbine, and is directly proportional to the available power. As is the maximum flowrate, which is usually restricted by the diameter of the tubing and flow losses in the tubes.
www.greenbits.com
[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#7)
by Muffloj on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 08:32:34 PM MST

Ok even deeper into the realms of not knowing what i am talking about. But i can see in my minds eye (its a little hazy in there) a water wheel sized and geared properly to turn a generator at optimum rpms using a steady flow of water based on my average gpm water usage.
At 3000 gallons per month, 30 days a month, 24 hours a day, 60 min per hour thats .069 gallons per minute at 8.35lbs per gallon thats .58lbs of energy every minute. It doesnt sound like much bit with proper mechanical advantage and enough space (self inclusive) you could make a half a pound do a lot of work .
Has anyone thought seen or heard of someone using this kinetic energy that most of us use every day (city water) to make energy.
Any ideas

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#8)
by Chagrin on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 11:08:35 PM MST

An example sump pump I looked up using 60W of power pushing about 10 PSI would use less than a kilowatt hour of power for 3000 gallons. Not sure what tap pressure is, but even at 40PSI you're still only generating about 3kWh over the course of the month.

Send an email instead of using a stamp and you'll save the same amount of money. :)

Just a guesstimation so don't nitpick my work, but I think it's sufficient to discredit the idea. :(

[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#9)
by Muffloj on Thu Sep 09, 2004 at 11:44:55 PM MST

Keep in mind that this model does not depend on spending any energy (other than paying the water bill) to supply water to house from the water tower, which is over 100ft higher than the intended flow point . At my house i can spray a 35ft stream accros the yard with a leaky hose and my thumb for resistance. That seems to be enough pressure

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#10)
by laskey on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 12:50:23 PM MST

Why build a tower. Why go to the expense. The water is already under pressure. Stick your hydro gen in the main feed to the house just after the water meter. All the water you're going to use is comeing in right there. Who cares how much power you make, it's free, you're paying for the water aready. The problem is that it only runs when you are using water.

Cya,
Chris

[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#12)
by zmoz on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 04:27:36 PM MST

No, it's not free. It will cost you a couple hundred bucks to build anything that will make power...and will take you a couple hundred years to make that money back.

[ Parent ]

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#11)
by Dan M on Fri Sep 10, 2004 at 02:41:51 PM MST

The formula as I understand it is:

power (watts) = pressure (psi) x flow rate (gpm) / 2.3

Assumptions:

10 gpm at 40 psi (pick new ones if you like, I had to start somewhere).
Assume whatever power system you have is 50% efficient.
$0.10 per kwh

power output = 10 x 40 / 2.3 x 50% = 87 watts

dollars saved per hour from electricity generated = .087kw x 1 hr x $0.10 =
$.0087 / hr (or 0.87 cents per hour)

This is from 600 gallons / hr flowrate.

If you use 10,000 gallons of water per month, the generator will run for about 17 hours per month, netting you a cool 15 cents.

Somebody please check my math,

-Dan M

Re: I gonna use it anyway (3.00 / 0) (#13)
by Nando on Sun Sep 19, 2004 at 10:28:39 PM MST

Muffloj:

Since you :I gonna use it anyway
I will not spend my time in calculating the losses you going to incur.

It is a waste of money time and effort, by design you will never recuperate the investment.

Regards

Nando

I gonna use it anyway | 13 comments (13 topical)

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