nice idea for a dumpload

[jacquesm]

While driving back from Colorado (see this page for our adventures, we had lots of time and talked about all things RE.

One of the issues we ran into was a suitable dump load, and TomW recalled that he once had a house that was so energy inefficient it even had a few KW of heat to keep the driveway ice/snow free in the winter.

So, we figure that might be an excellent dumpload !

Divide your driveway in to several segments, put heaterwire (or pipe warmers for waterlines) into the ground and hook them up to your dump outlet. Then as soon as you have too much power (and assuming your house is warm enough) you can start dumping heat into your driveway, and automagically melt all the snow and ice off.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Yes!

(That's a much better way to dump unwanted extra energy than the '50s suggestion of disposing of radioactive waste by mixing it into highway paving for snowy areas to achieve the same effect.  B-)  )

[Peppyy]

I like that idea. I have a ramp that gets really icy in the winter and I don't really like using ice melter on it. I thought about hooking up a zone on my wood furnace but I didn't want to burn the extra wood on that.

Now we need to figure out a summer dump load. Heat the hot tub? Run a high pressure misting system on the deck or just a fountain in the pond. So many possibilitys for spare power.

[stm]

Your idea sounds good, but an hour after the wind stops blowing, you would be ice-skating in your driveway - the melted snow would turn into solid ice.

Maybe you could make a concrete lowwater pond with a lot of heating wire embedded, fill it with sea water (if you are close to salt-water areas), and wait until the pond dries out - then use the salt in your driveway to remove the snow.

If you did this in the summer, you could create quite a lot of salt with the help of the sun.

/Steffen

[jacquesm]

right... drainage ! or cantilever the crete slightly to one side so it runs off

In fact almost all roads have that

[jacquesm]

the language police has informed me that 'cantilevered' means 'overhanging', so I would like to change that term to 'crowned' which is the correct road construction term, and in case that's too technical 'slanted' would be fine as well...

or banked...

or whatever

As long as it's clear that I mean that the water would run in a direction orthogonal to the direction of travel...

bloody language police ! Hope they leave me alone now.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Now we need to figure out a summer dump load.

That's easy:

Airconditioner.

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Your idea sounds good, but an hour after the wind stops blowing, you would be ice-skating in your driveway - the melted snow would turn into solid ice.

I'd think if the hysteresis on the controller were set high enough the heating wouldn't come on until the batteries were up enough to keep it up until the melt ran off (unless new snow was still falling).  With it set that way, under most circumstances I'm familiar with (having grown up in Michigan with its variations on the theme of snow/slush/ice/black ice/silverthaw), I'd expect the slab would usually either remain clear or the new snow that fell during the cooloff would first form water, then slippery ice, then quickly build a pack on top of the ice, once again giving traction.

[wooferhound]

I always have trouble with the Body Language Police

[whatsnext]

OK, just asking. How much extra power have you got to dump? Heating your driveway seems, just a bit, excessive, maybe. A bigger battery would allow your 'dump' to pretend it's actually an equalization charge.

John........

/loves commas more than spelling

[ghurd]

Mike Tyson the boxer had a place in the N.E. Ohio snow belt.

It has hot water pipes to melt the snow and ice from the driveway.

Funny thing is, when it snowed, it just evaporated. Dry. No water left to freeze.

How much money do you need to have before that even sounds like a good idea?

G-

[jacquesm]

I'm planning on having between 10 and 15 KW of windpower here eventually (right now it's about 1KW), so right now it's not an issue, but in the long term a 'useful' way to use excess energy is a good thing, and plowing driveways here is a much-too-frequently returning chore.

That being said, I don't think that it's possible to heat the whole driveway in one go, it'll probably have to be a system where you heat sections of it.

I figure that with one power 'bus' running the length of the driveway and heater segements that can tap in to that being controlled from some location I may be able to cut that down significantly.

The winds here mostly happen in the winter, which nicely coincides with the need for snow removal.

[whatsnext]

Why not heat your house or shop? 10KW of heat is not really that much. 34K btu's tops.

John.......

[Dan M]

I saw a special on TV about the insanely rich in and around ski resort towns in Colorado.  They were talking about some of the ridiculous ways people use energy because they can afford to.

Like heated outdoor swimming pools (year-round).

Driveway thawers.

etc....

I don't know the details, but either the power company or the state government was instituting a graduated $/Kw-Hr scale.

The general idea was to charge normal rates up to some "reasonable" amount of monthly consumption, then increase the rates like crazy above a certain useage point.  Mostly to keep the Rocky Mountain Year-Round Orange Growers Association and others like it from consuming Terra-Watt-Hours per month just because they can afford it.

If anyone knows the specifics of this I'd be interested.

-Dan M

[joebob]

How about hook up a simple electrolyser and create hydrogen from water. I understand that our cars are "easy" to convert.  Pick up a winter junker, convert it to hydrogen, then have the wind generate your fuel.

Tough part is storing it, but there are folks developing hydride salt tanks that absorb  a lot of hydrogen without too much effort.

Anyone know more about hydrogen auto conversion or hydrogen storage?

joebob