The Next Big Renewable Energy Source
I learned Saudi Arabia is building a 105 mile long sky scraper set on its side called “the line” which will house a million people.. It’s said to be powered by renewables (the Saudi’s must be getting nervous) and will utilize Green Hydrogen gas.
I assume that means they will use solar power to power the hydrogen generator, which will produce the gas which can be stored in vessels.
There’s a few renewable/sustainable energy device sales pitch’s being thrown around lately. Id hate to buy into something that doesn’t pan out, like EV’s if there is a break through with Green Hydrogen, and then the markets heads in that direction. Or maybe sustainable nuclear fusion which would generate electricity for the EV’s. But the problem with EV’s are the batteries imo, which Green Hydrogen wouldn’t need.
What’s your opinion on which renewable/sustainable energy will be the most promising and why? And have you read about the Holcomb Energy System which basically doubles your electrical power?
Thanks
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Replies
Mike,
Whether hysdrogen or some other energy source becomes more widespread in the future, I suspect Evs will be the dominant alternative to internal combustion engines for some time yet.
I've looked at the architectural renderings of The Line and to me it's one of the most asinine projects I've ever seen. That's saying something when you consider their man-made island communities, and the transplanted North American style suburbs they have built.
What about the dairy farms and golf courses?
A bit confusing terminology going on - EVs, green hydrogen and fusion are many things, but are certainly not “renewable energy”. I mostly wouldn’t worry about it - if you bought an EV today, there’s no technology replacing it during its lifespan. Even if fusion happened and green hydrogen for cars happened within the next 15 years, who cares? Your 15 year old EV would depreciate 95% vs 90%? Hydrogen has many okay applications but light duty transportation and residential heating (the average Americans largest polluters they can directly control) are pretty poor applications.
Using solar panels to generate electricity and then using that electricity to produce hydrogen that will in turn be used to power systems in a stationary facility is a waste. Every time you convert energy, you lose some of it, so this would be a very inefficient system. You would be far, far better off just using the solar power to power systems in the building directly. The hydrogen step just wastes a lot of energy and introduces lots of new problems. The only time it might sense to do this is if you were using the hydrogent produced as a form of energy storage that would be used to power a vehicle.
Hydrogen is not a magical energy source. I don't really think it's likely to gain much traction in the future, either, due to all kinds of problems with the safe transport and use of it. There are a lot of downsides to using hydrogen. While I'm not going to say that there may not be some kind of breakthrough in the future that would solve some of the nasty little problems (like hydrogen embrittlement of many metals), I think we probably have more promising technologies out there that are more likely to be the future of transportation energy storage systems.
The Holcolm system is a scam. For one, you can not magnify power, and they don't even define "power" correctly on their site. Power, according to physics, is energy that does real work, such as moving a mass through distance (like driving your car), or producing heat, etc. Power DOES SOMETHING. Holcolm claims they don't boost voltage, they boost amperage! The problem is that while voltage isn't "power", amperage isn't either! Power is the product of voltage multiplied by amperage, which is wattage (in a DC system anyway). 10 volts times 10 amps is 100 watts. If you have 100 watts at twice the amperage, you need half the voltage. Amperage alone doesn't do anything. All a transformer (on an AC system) does is to change around the sides of that equation, so more volts means less amps for a given amount of power and vice versa. Simple. You cannot "magnify" power, since that would mean creating energy from nothing which physics says you cannot do.
The other issue they have is that they claim to extract energy from electron spin of an iron atom. You cannot extract energy from a static field. You have to extract energy from something doing real work (like moving a mass, or spinning a shaft). This means if you extact energy from something like "electron spin", you would stop the spinning when you extract the energy. You would CONSUME the energy in the electron, basically, by converting it to electrical power you send down the wire. If the claim is the input power "respins" the electron, then you get out only what you put in, minus those pesky losses you get when converting energy. There is no free lunch. Physics is a real pain sometimes. You CANNOT get out more power than you put in, to do so would be what is sometimes called "over unity" or otherwise a fancy vesion of the impossible perpetual motion machine.
Note that the usual way to fool people into thinking that these kinds of things actually work is to take advantage of a relatively little known quirk of many cheap electric meters. Some meters are marked "True RMS", which means they measure voltage or current of an AC waveform by taking a bunch of samples over the waveform, then calculating the root-mean-square, which is a sort of weighted average, basically, to come up with the RMS value, which is how AC voltage and current values are defined. Cheaper meters use a simple average instead of the more complex true RMS circuitry. The result is that cheaper meters can be fooled into giving false readings when the input sinewave is modified in certain ways and intentionally made to result in a false reading on such meters. It's possible to fool some kilowatt hour meters in a similar way, by chopping up the AC power waveform in oddball ways. You can't trust many of these supposed "demonstrations" that you see on Youtube and other places for these reasons.
Fusion is a real possibility, but no idea when it might be viable on a commercial scale. Solar most certainly works, but you obviously need sunlight to get power from it. Batteries are the big weak spot for EVs as you mention, but there is a LOT of R and D going into those right now, so it wouldn't be surpising to see continuing improvements in those technologies, and maybe even some new technologies coming along. There are also fuel cells that work off of natural gas, but with very high conversion efficiencies that would get us more power for the same amount of fuel, which is always better when you can make it work.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds.
Bill
Thanks for your reply to my question Bill. That's what I was looking for.
One thing though.. Even though Green Hydrogen would be inefficient compared to solar power to power systems directly.. Aren't the batteries used to store solar energy for night use just as inefficient on top of having a limited life span? And I'm reading hydrogen embrittlement can be prevented by increasing the Ni percentage, decreasing the C percentage and adding Ti.
Thanks again..
In response to Paul Wiedefeld.. In my opinion green hydrogen is a renewable energy source, considering it uses solar panels to power the hydrogen generator and pretty sure we all know EV's consume energy.
I use public transportation everyday for work which costs $10 a month. But when I need to run errands or drive to the farm, I drive a $1800 07 honda fit. Me buying a $50K EV would be like spending a dollar to save a dime. Or like installing a ground source heat pump and expecting to break even one day..
Hello Bill,
Please, allow me to first quote your answers, in order to respond accordingly...Thks.
PART # 1
"The Holcolm system is a scam. For one, you can not magnify power, and they don't even define "power" correctly on their site. Power, according to physics, is energy that does real work, such as moving a mass through distance (like driving your car), or producing heat, etc. Power DOES SOMETHING. Holcolm claims they don't boost voltage, they boost amperage! "
And what is exactly what a typical Rotary Generator do?
Doesn't it just "boost Amperage"?
Talking about the simplest Generator out there, a Single Phase Sychronous Gen.
We get an Exciter Field which consumes around 2.0 A max...and from 90V to 170V...depending on AVR and Load.
Then we get at Output around 120V and anywhere around 15- 20 Amps...
So, at 220V we get like 10 Amps...
What is that?
Isn't the Generator "Boosting Amperage"?
I will finish here...the first part...of your previous Post
> "Isn't the Generator "Boosting Amperage"?"
No, it's not. The generator is converting mechanical energy from the rotating shaft into electrical energy in the form of watts.
The exciter field voltage depends on the design of the generator and is not always the same as the output from the generator windings. Some fields will run at around 12v. I have some megawatt size generators at one commercial project that run around 55v on the field. The purpose of the field is to setup a magnetic field, typically in the rotor in most larger generators, with the output coming from the stator windings. You don't even need to have a field supply, you can build a generator with permanent magnets instead, in which case NO electric power enters the unit. In such a permanent magnet generator, the only input energy is from the rotation of the shaft, which shows that "boosting amperage" is not occuring, since there is no "input amperage" in this case.
Note that the field voltage is typically adjusted in relation to load primarily to compensate for voltage drop due to the resistance of the wire in the output windings of the generator. The AVR isn't changing the voltage of the windings so much due to load as it is due to losses in the generator. The electrical load affects the torque required to maintain a constant speed of the shaft, which is the energy source for the generator. All the field is doing is setting up a magnetic field for the shaft to rotate.
Bill
Part#2
"The problem is that while voltage isn't "power", amperage isn't either! Power is the product of voltage multiplied by amperage, which is wattage (in a DC system anyway). 10 volts times 10 amps is 100 watts. If you have 100 watts at twice the amperage, you need half the voltage. Amperage alone doesn't do anything. All a transformer (on an AC system) does is to change around the sides of that equation, so more volts means less amps for a given amount of power and vice versa. Simple. You cannot "magnify" power, since that would mean created energy from nothing which physics says you cannot do."
I assume everyone here knows perfectly well the "Power Equation" based on VXI=Watts
But, Holcomb is not saying they "only" boost Amperage without "any" Voltage...
The Voltage, is automatically generated by Induction at Variation of Flux over Variation of Time in any Electromagnetic Device, including a Transformer...
That is exactly what any typical generator do...maintain around the same Voltage transfered by Induction, while increasing Amperage.
The AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulator) is there to do that job...However, the AVR does not Limit Amperage or Currents. It just plays with Voltage reduction or magnification as required by Loading spec's.
The Single Phase Generator (to put it very simple and so, easier to understand) uses peak around 170Volts at Exciter plus peak 2.0 Amps at Max Load. Just because that is the Mag Field Intensity required to generate the Output Power requirements at Max Loading.
AVR works directly with Exciter Power, NOT with Output Power. So, once AVR lowers Voltage, Amperage would also be reduced automatically, and Field will decrease its intensity (strenght)
Everything in an Induction based Generator works based on Magnetic Field strength variation to control the Induced Output.
Have in mind that also the AVR works directly with the Prime Mover or ICE Engine...to also reduce RPM's/Torque, precisely not to allow Amperage to go skyhigh, whenever Voltage alone is reduced on the Exciting Field. That is decreasing Variation Over Time whenever Rotary speed is decreased.
UfoPolitics
>"Everything in an Induction based Generator works based on Magnetic Field strength variation to control the Induced Output."
No, it does not. Rotational torque is the input energy source. The field is only there to setup a magnetic field, which is why the field power source can be replaced by permanent magnets and the generator will still function. The field current is varied (by adjusting the voltage supplied to the field) primarily to compensate for voltage losses due to resistance in the output windings. If there were no losses in the machine, the field could stay constant and the electrical load on the output would ONLY affect the required rotational torque input on the shaft to maintain a constant speed.
>"Have in mind that also the AVR works directly with the Prime Mover or ICE Engine...to also reduce RPM's/Torque, precisely not to allow Amperage to go skyhigh, whenever Voltage alone is reduced on the Exciting Field."
That is not what happens. The AVR is the "Automatic Voltage Regulator", and it acts only on the electrical supply to the field winding. An AVR typically has no control over the engine speed, although it may sense output frequency and drop voltage if the frequency drops, which is known as the "volts/Hz" function. This function is to help prevent brief overloads, such as motors starting, from stalling the prime mover driving the shaft of the generator. The governor, or speed control (in the case of an isochronously controlled system with a speed pickup), controls ONLY the engine throttle. In a typical synchronous generator, the speed control system acts to maintain a constant engine speed, and it does this by increasing throttle with increasing electrical load on the output of the generator.
Reducing field voltage REDUCES output voltage and current, INCREASING field voltage will increase output voltage. It is not an inverse relationship as you imply. In a typical AC generator, the output frequency in hertz is fixed in relationship to the input rotation speed in RPM, and it's "fixed" due to the mechanical design of the generator -- the number of poles. For a 4 pole generator, a 60Hz output requires 1,800 RPM. There is nothing else that affects the output frequency aside from the number of poles and the rotational speed of the shaft. This is why REAL power in watts is considered to be related to FREQUENCY in an AC system, and REACTIVE power is considered to be related to the field in such a system. You control the throttle to control the speed to control the real power in watts produced by the generator, and you regulate the field to control the reactive power (usually thought of as "imaginary power") in VAR produced, or consumed, by the generator.
Bill
PART#3
"The other issue they have is that they claim to extract energy from electron spin of an iron atom. You cannot extract energy from a static field. You have to extract energy from something doing real work (like moving a mass, or spinning a shaft). This means if you extact energy from something like "electron spin", you would stop the spinning when you extract the energy. You would CONSUME the energy in the electron, basically, by converting it to electrical power you send down the wire. If the claim is the input power "respins" the electron, then you get out only what you put in, minus those pesky losses you get when converting energy. There is no free lunch. Physics is a real pain sometimes. You CANNOT get out more power than you put in, to do so would be what is sometimes called "over unity" or otherwise a fancy vesion of the impossible perpetual motion machine."
To put it in simple words...What Holcomb is doing, it has been done before by many other Inventors...but they did not succeed...unfortunately.
And that is just to move the Magnetic Field Spectrum, itself, NOT any huge steel mass wrapped with copper coils!!...But just the Massless, Weightless, Frictionless Magnetic Field SPECTRUM.
And that do can be done, I have done it myself, and I can prove it, and btw, I only use True RMS Meters...so, no "mistakes"...also Tektronix Amps Clamps Probes (A622) attached to a Digital Scope.
Sincerely
Ufopolitics
If you didn't move mass, you didn't produce (or consume) power, according to the laws of physics. You only change the form of the energy, and, also accoding to physics, you lost some of that energy in the process. I have radio transmitters. They can move the massless, weightless, frictionless magnetic field too! But they CONSUME energy to do it, they don't PRODUCE anything except an RF field from that input energy. You get out less than you put in.
If you're trying to read watts (real power) using two SEPERATE meters, one for amperage and the other for voltage, you have another issue to contend with that makes the measurements inaccurate in less than ideal perfect 1.0 power factor for an AC sytems: the samples taken to calculate those RMS voltage and amperage values don't line up. For a truely reliable wattage measurement, you have to take simultaneous samples of voltage and current, so that you sample the voltage AT the time the current sample was taken. Analog Devices has an excellent app note for one of their watt meter chips that explains this quite well. If you don't do that, the amperage drawn during a voltage measurement causes a volt drop due to resistance in the system. If the voltage sample happens to be taken during a time when no amperage (current) is being drawn, the volt meter will not "see" that voltage drop. The result is that you see an overly high voltage reading, and the difference between the voltage at no current and the voltage while current is drawn now results in inaccuracies that show an apparent increase in power from what you actually have. You need either a proper watt meter, or an oscilliscope, to be able to measure these things accurately. In the engineering world, using improper test setups leads to improper conclusions.
I design complex power systems at work, it's most of my job, actually. These tend to be multimegawatt systems, with backup generators, UPSes, and a whole lot of transformers. If something looks goofy, I HAVE to measure it correctly so that I can design a solution to the problem. I can't play games to make things look the way I'd like, because that will, as we jokingly say, "let out the magic smoke". I also like to say that we "work in an unforgiving industry", because physics doesn't play games, and doesn't care about our feelings, desires, or our bottom line. Physics just is, and we have to deal with it as it is.
If Holcolm would like to reach out to me and demonstrate their system in my lab, using my equipment and test setup, then we can see what happens. I doubt very much they will take me up on that offer though, because I'm quite certain they know what the results would be. And a note too: if they want to take me up on my offer, I retain the right to PUBLISH those results in the places I choose, and I would freely contribute those results to GBA and anyone else who is interested. If they are a scam as I suspect, they are, or are at least attempting to, take research money away from the development of technologies that could actually help us to solve some of the world's real problems. Deceit like that is a Bad Thing.
Bill
The "green hydrogen" projects that I've heard the most about use wind energy for creating "green" hydrogen and then condense the hydrogen to liquid ammonia for transport. There are some conversion losses, but there are a lot of places that don't get adequate solar, so this is one way to use wind power and also get a product that transported long distances.
There are probably a lot of conversion losses. I would expect electrical transmission lines would be more efficient, although they might be a higher initial capital outlay in some situations.
BTW, ammonia is *very* dangerous to handle -- it will kill you. I have a few customers that heat treat steel parts (most of us on here are probably driving cars with brake rotors that went through one of my customer's plants). They use ammonia in their process and there is a bunch of special safety stuff involved with it. The thing I always remember is that they have a windsock flying at every facility -- just like you see at airports -- and it's there to tell you which way the wind is blowing so that you can run the OTHER way if they have a major release.
Bill
Hydrogen as an energy storage media has a lot of issues.
There's a lot of promising research going on right now about extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and combining it with hydrogen to make hydrocarbons like propane. When burned that hydrocarbon is carbon-neutral -- all of the carbon that it puts into the atmosphere was removed from the atmosphere. There are certain applications like aviation where there is no alternative on the horizon to the high energy density of hydrocarbons.
Synthesizing hydrocarbons this way requires energy. It's highly suited as an off-peak task to absorb electrical capacity that isn't needed.
PART#3
"The other issue they have is that they claim to extract energy from electron spin of an iron atom. You cannot extract energy from a static field. You have to extract energy from something doing real work (like moving a mass, or spinning a shaft). This means if you extact energy from something like "electron spin", you would stop the spinning when you extract the energy. You would CONSUME the energy in the electron, basically, by converting it to electrical power you send down the wire. If the claim is the input power "respins" the electron, then you get out only what you put in, minus those pesky losses you get when converting energy. There is no free lunch. Physics is a real pain sometimes. You CANNOT get out more power than you put in, to do so would be what is sometimes called "over unity" or otherwise a fancy vesion of the impossible perpetual motion machine."
To put it in simple words...What Holcomb is doing, it has been done before by many other Inventors...but they did not succeed...unfortunately.
And that is just to move the Magnetic Field Spectrum, itself, NOT any huge steel mass wrapped with copper coils!!...But just the Massloess, Weightless, Frictionless Magnetic Field SPECTRUM.
And that do can be done, I have done it myself, and I can prove it, and btw, I only use True RMS Meters...so, no "mistakes"...also Tektronix Amps Clamps Probes (A622) attached to a Digital Scope.
Sincerely
Ufopolitics
Until hydrogen storage is improved, any transportation application is dead. Toyota has been chasing the hydrogen dream for a very long time, even their latest effort with their hydrogen cartrage stores something around 3kWh (after converted to electricity by a fuel cell) of energy. If you look at how many is needed to move a car any distance, you can see it is still way off. Better specific energy density than a battery but a cost of lot of complication.
The best way to transport hydrogen is by combining it with carbon, makes these nice liquids that are a breeze to transport and use.
About the only use of green hydrogen I can see is for making all those fancy hydrocarbons like the stuff used in our nice tapes and membranes. Lot of those process need hydrogen which is mostly produced by steam reforming natural gas.
Yeah, I was talking to a friend yesterday who's up on emerging technologies. He said that carbon capture is starting to get there, and a big use of the captured carbon is going to be to replace hydrocarbon feedstocks for making plastics. Synthetic aviation fuel would also be huge.
I googled Holcomb. From their website:
"Uses no fuel. Puts out no emissions."
All I need to know. A scam.
Pretty much my thoughts too, but I think it's important to attempt to educate others as to the "why" here (which is the reason for my responses above to one of the other posters). People have tried to create "perpetual motion" or "above unity" machines for centuries. No one has ever succeeded, and no one ever will. Physics just won't allow it. I'd be more willing to believe someone who claimed to have come up with a dilithium reactor than someone claiming to have built a machine that puts out more energy than it takes in.
Bill
If you read about the "Nigerian prince" scams, you find that the letters they send out are deliberately incapable of standing up to serious scrutiny. They don't want to waste their time with people who are savvy, they're targeting the ill-informed and gullible. Same deal.
My big take away here is that I should drop some dime on Holcomb. That was the point of the question, right?
If it's trolling/spam, then yeah, that was probably the point. I would certainly not invest in that company though.
Bill
My question? A question from a washed up maintenance man aka fecal technician? Yeah sure, but first I think you should consider some beach front property I have in omaha.
Why don't you write them and see if they bite?
If we want to get serious about the future of energy (free) we ought to be looking into something more like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A25FRpkbDxU
That's great! Gotta love engineer humor :-)
Bill
One point to clarify - hydrogen powered cars ARE electric vehicles, they just use hydrogen to power a fuel cell to generate the electricity instead of using a battery to supply it. You may see typical EVs referred to as BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) versus FCEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) for hydrogen powered variants.
And as much as I love the idea of the quick refills of hydrogen, I just don't see it ever happening. Even if we have truly "Green" hydrogen and were able to solve the storage problem, we're still left with pretty horrendous inefficiencies in using the electricity.
That is, there is always going to be losses when you convert power from one source to another and charging up the battery and then discharging it will typically lose 20%, meaning that every kW of source electricity will only generate 800W available to power the vehicle. But storing the hydrogen and then using a fuel cell is much much less efficient than even that -- losses are more like 60%! That same kW source electricity will only translate to less than 400W of available power in the vehicle.
I can absolutely see cases were a quick refill might override the efficiency problem, but those are all in the commercial realm (buses, trucks, maybe planes, etc). Any personal vehicle that we'll be buying the coming decades will almost certainly be BEV.
Here's another interesting renewable.. Gunner Littmarck's molten salt reactor. Lost me about the 3 minute mark..
Part 1) https://www.bitchute.com/video/sbAxj9g1GRBO/
Part 2 w/links) https://www.bitchute.com/video/Gh6NUBpn3YKK/
Careful clicking on that un-censored site, because there's allot of fake news designed to generate clicks. But I listen to Stroppy almost every morning while I work out before work.
"The Line" is pure fantasy, and will never happen. It's completely impossible and ridiculous for so many reasons it would be impossible to list them here. Possibly the dumbest idea ever given serious consideration by any government or corporate entity.
I agree but supposedly its under construction in the first line. But I cant find a picture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Line,_Saudi_Arabia
FACTS ABOUT THE WAY A GENERATOR WORKS
1- A Generator Head does not requires ANY EXTERNAL INPUT, except the mechanical rotation of the main Exciter Rotor...And that is how the Magnetic Field gets to travel in Space/Time, hence, Induce the Output Stator Coils and so, be regulated by the velocity of field.
2- The Exciter Magnetic Field is generated from a small magnetic reminiscence on the steel rotor core (also, by a couple of small Neo Magnets [N/S]) to end up outputting more Amps than what it consumes, once it reaches operational speed and torque.
3- The Main Purpose of all the hardware machinery turning the shaft of the Generator Head, including the exciter steel rotor and its copper coils...is just to rotate a weigthtless, frictionless Magnetic Field Spectrum...
To all those who have studied the properties of Magnetic Fields in depth, knows perfectly well that Field can travel through space-time without the need to physically carry, nor move any of the physical components which generates the Field, Example: Steel Core + Coils.
This property is very well known as "magnetization"...
Simple example: Just get a magnet close enough to a steel bar...and vualá...the steel bar gets magnetized...entirely.
Same way, Magnetic Fields can propagate through Space-Time in a linear fashion, we could also make them rotate without moving any of the physical components which generated it..
I will leave it here...being a pleasure to discuss here.
Au revoir
Ufopolitics
Take a look at this video...but hurry up, it will not stay long...just because it was removed by its original owner, this is just a non authorized upload, by owner, Pierre Cotnoir:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDp2VJkT76E&t=573s
He closes the loop...but hey, it could also be another Scam, right?...who knows?
Cheers
Ufopolitics
If its real, why isn't it powering his off grid home, or available to buy? Same thing with the HES?
In defense for Holcomb, I did write them and ask if I could invest in the company with no reply. If they were scammers, they would have gladly taken my money.
It's fascinating to hear about Saudi Arabia's ambitious plan to build "The Line," a 105-mile long skyscraper set on its side that will house a million people and be powered by renewables, including Green Hydrogen gas. It's a significant shift for a country that has traditionally relied heavily on fossil fuels. In terms of which renewable/sustainable energy source will be the most promising, it's difficult to say definitively. Two years ago I installed solar panels at home after reading the information here https://yenex.com. This is a good investment because now I don't pay for energy at all, and I sell the excess to distributors.