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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday March 14 2017, @08:03AM   Printer-friendly
from the roll-with-it dept.

This unique concept unlocks the potential for electricity generation in low volume waterways such as a stream or a brook. Opening up a whole range of unexplored sources of sustainable energy in many areas of the world. The rolling fluid turbine is a viable alternative to conventional hydroelectric generators, which have been providing power from water since they were developed in the 1880s. Typically hydroelectric power requires a huge head of water to function, relying on blades submerged in high-velocity water streams. The rolling fluid turbine relies on physics to convert water's natural flow into upward pressure to generate electricity, this promises to change how water current is transformed into electrical power.

This is achieved by exploiting a unique hydrodynamic principle, the rolling fluid principle vortex dynamic, which can create a large amount of energy. This is achieved by using the naturally occurring suction of water by driving it through a specially shaped turbine casing, Sedlacek and his team have managed to generate power with an output of up to 10 kWh per day at 60% efficiency from a small turbine. This is enough power to meet the requirements of 5 European families or an entire African village.

The invention is a tubular canister that floats like a buoy on the surface of a small body of water. Beneath the surface, the natural flow of water is directed through a tube driving the water pressure upwards with increased suction as a result of the vortex principle. Inside the turbine shaft, the vortex energy rotates a cup mounted on a generator shaft that converts the rotation into electrical energy.

When installed in a slow moving stream, the turbine can generate energy for a small house at levels of up to 400 watts. Ideally, the bladeless turbine operates more effectively at flow levels of 22 to 250 litres per second, but it can produce results in flow rates as low as 2 L/sec.

The mechanism is unclear, but other designs exist that convert low-head flow into electricity.


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  • (Score: 2) by datapharmer on Tuesday March 14 2017, @11:23AM (9 children)

    by datapharmer (2702) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @11:23AM (#478860)

    Yes, but many in the US do not have gas appliances or wood/coal furnaces. I'm guessing you likely have a gas stove, water heater, boiler/furnace? In my home those all run on electrical as there is no natural gas supply for a couple miles and coal/wood pellets for heat have their own issues and are more efficiently used in a power plant than in my home. So while it might provide for the electrical for your home needs, it likely doesn't provide enough power to offset your total energy consumption.

    I'm with you though, it is clearly spinning as a result of the power cord you can see next to his foot at the end of the video... it is possible something is pushing flow through it, but it doesn't really show enough to have any indication if this thing works, and that is REALLY small for generating 10kwh/day.

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  • (Score: 2) by weeds on Tuesday March 14 2017, @01:53PM (8 children)

    by weeds (611) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @01:53PM (#478904) Journal

    "Exaggerated" is being too kind. This is pure nonsense. There is no indication that any water is actually moving in the tank. If it was flowing through the device, you would be able to see some kind of interference where the hands are in the water. How is the water flowing in the tank? The thing is plugged in.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:48PM (7 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @03:48PM (#478962)

      There is a rectangular water tank on the left. He opens a valve, dumping it into a round tank on the right. From there it overflows into an inner tank, and then down through the device.

      He obviously needs an electric pump to put the water back; he isn't claiming perpetual motion. The alternative would be to let the water spill out onto the floor.

      • (Score: 2) by weeds on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:03PM (6 children)

        by weeds (611) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:03PM (#479018) Journal

        I didn't see that at all. You have better eyes than I do. I didn't think he was claiming perpetual motion, just that he could get more energy out of the water than what was there to begin with and his explanation is not very complete.
        Generators (many DIY) that work off of a moving stream have been around for a while. At the end of the day, there is no miracle supply of energy in the free stream. If your device causes the water to move in some other direction than the free stream, it doesn't add energy,
        Ek = 1/2*rho*A*S*v^2 (A*S is volume, rho is density, v is velocity.) Period. We are ignoring pressure and altitude changes. I don't see an altitude change and the pressure in the free stream isn't going to go down allowing you to extract energy from the pressure head. The free stream has some elevation drop, but the energy, mgh, is trivial compared to the free stream energy.
        That's the energy available. There is no magic here, this is well understood. No claims of mysterious vortex or vacuum is going to make it any different.
        If the chalkboard showed 1/2*rho*A*S*v^2 + some other terms that had something to do with fluid flow, there would be something to discuss. Instead it's just a poor sketch of the device with a few letters tossed in for good measure. My fluid dynamics professor laughed out loud when he saw this.

        • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:57PM (1 child)

          by Immerman (3985) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:57PM (#479066)

          My understanding is that the innovation here is that his bladeless turbine can operate at very low pressure differences and flow rates - such as you might find in a small stream, rather than requiring fast-moving rivers or large dams.

          I.e. it's not some innovation that's going to replace large-scale hydro-electric generation, but rather make hydro power viable in lots of places where it's currently. That said, I'd love to see some direct efficiency/production comparisons between his turbines and, say, a simple paddle wheel immersed in the same slow-moving stream.

          If nothing else it's interesting that someone has managed to harness a previously undocumented aspect of fluid dynamics, though it does seem like the necessity of that small gap through which water is flowing would make them far more prone to blockages than most of the alternatives.

          • (Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:21PM

            by art guerrilla (3082) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @10:21PM (#479593)

            "My understanding is that the innovation here is that his bladeless turbine can operate at very low pressure differences and flow rates..."

            you mean like it makes a point of saying in the very first sentence ? ? ?
            huh, funny all those close readers missed that...
            'TL;DR' applies to the first sentence, now ? ? ?

        • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 15 2017, @08:49AM (3 children)

          by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 15 2017, @08:49AM (#479312) Homepage
          "I didn't think he was claiming perpetual motion, just that he could get more energy out of the water than what was there to begin with"

          What's the exact quote (translation thereof) which gives you that impression? What you've reported is even worse than perpetual motion, as it's over unity. I heard nothing like that in the video I watched.
          --
          Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
          • (Score: 2) by weeds on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:33PM (2 children)

            by weeds (611) on Wednesday March 15 2017, @12:33PM (#479357) Journal

            Bad wording on my part... What is available is not 100% of the kinetic energy of the stream. In order to get 100% of the kinetic energy out of the stream, it would have to be stopped. Obviously that's a problem for any system. So, "more energy than there is to begin with" is a reference to that amount of energy.
            Still, my biggest complaint is the stuff about somehow taking advantage of the "vortex dynamic" (aeros know a lot about vertices and the energy in them. It's one of the ways to calculate lift.) And this business of somehow creating a suction by diverting the flow through a special shape - therefore being able to get more energy out of the flow. When I see claims like that, it's a red flag for me. I can accept the fact that it's my ignorance in the way. We shall see, this is far from the first claim of this type.

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:17PM (1 child)

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Wednesday March 15 2017, @05:17PM (#479492) Homepage
              Ah, OK. You raise an interesting point with real-world implications - in order to extract all the kinetic energy from a moving fluid, you have to make it magically disappear, otherwise, it just blocks the flow of the next bits you want to harvest energy from. So either you need some external force making it disappear (e.g. the pull of gravity) or you have to leave it enough energy to get out of the way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betz'_law
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves