1.41GW, in fact – enough to power around one million homes:
There is a wealth of untapped hydroelectric potential in the United States – around 1.41GW of energy flowing through pipes, irrigation channels, and aqueducts.
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) reached this conclusion after what they described as a first-of-its-kind study examining the potential power generation of small and micro-scale hydroelectric generators bolted on to existing water infrastructure.
Using both existing data from water regulators and "novel remote sensing and feature detection techniques," the ORNL team said it was taking the first step in not only understanding the US's untapped conduit hydropower potential, but also to raise awareness that such a power source exists.
"For all its benefits, the biggest barrier is a general lack of awareness of conduit hydropower's potential," said Shih-Chieh Kao, ORNL's water power program manager.
[...] For the sake of generating power, ORNL said it considers any "manmade water conveyance that is operated for the distribution of water for agricultural, municipal, or industrial consumption and not primarily for the generation of electricity" as a tappable source. Most deployments would tend toward the very small scale – existing conduit hydro projects top out at less than 10MW, the team explains.
Most of the power generated by such small facilities would go toward stabilizing microgrids and offsetting energy needs for water system operators, which ORNL said is typically a significant portion of their costs. Conduit hydro systems could also be net metered, meaning unused energy could be returned to the grid for further cost offsets, ORNL said.
[...] ORNL said that there's yet another reason to consider getting conduit hydroelectric generators plugged into grids: the 1.41GW figure is probably way lower than the actual potential.
"The authors attempted to incorporate a variety of data and approaches to estimate the national conduit hydropower potentials, but the significant data gaps still represent a major hurdle to capturing the full resource potential," the researchers said.
"Given these uncounted opportunities" – which ORNL said includes self-supplied water withdrawals, incorrect coordinates on maps used for estimates, and other things unmeasurable in a broad study like this – "there could be more conduit hydropower than ... estimated in this study."
See also: Portland's New Pipes Harvest Power from Drinking Water
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If you live in Portland, your lights may now be partly powered by your drinking water. An ingenious new system captures energy as water flows through the city's pipes, creating hydropower without the negative environmental effects of something like a dam.
Small turbines in the pipes spin in the flowing water, and send that energy into a generator.
[...] In Portland, one of the city's main pipelines now uses Lucid's pipes to make power that's sent into the grid. Though the system can't generate enough energy for an entire city, the pipes can power individual buildings like a school or library, or help offset a city's total energy bill. Unlike wind or solar power, the system can generate electricity at any time of day, regardless of weather, since the pipes always have water flowing through them.
The pipes can't generate power in every location; they only work in places where water is naturally flowing downward with gravity (if water is being pumped, the system would waste energy). But they have another feature that can be used anywhere: The pipes have sensors that can monitor water, something that utilities couldn't do in the past.
The turbine sections also contain sensors for monitoring water pressure and quality.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Adam on Monday October 17 2022, @05:39AM (11 children)
Aren't we using that energy to move the water through the pipes/aqueducts? That's why we put in the energy to pump water up into water towers and have minimum gradients for piping.
I have thought about making a water tap powered electric generator that could be used to charge a phone in a power outage. City water managers wouldn't be thrilled with my inefficient way of tapping into the cities backup diesel power generators.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Opportunist on Monday October 17 2022, @06:31AM (5 children)
I was wondering that. If you "pull out" the potential energy from the water by running it through the hydro plant, the water arrives at a lower point and has less potential energy. If you use that potential while it's in the pipe and siphon it away, will the water still be able to arrive where it's supposed to go or are you dealing with a dry pipe somewhere downstream (where that "down" isn't far enough "down" so the water still has enough energy to flow)?
(Score: 5, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 17 2022, @09:15AM (1 child)
It's unbelievers like you who stand in the way of perpetual motion machines and free energy!
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2022, @11:24AM
In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! Back in my day we didn't run around creating energy out of no-where, we had to convert it! And you will to so help me...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 17 2022, @12:25PM (2 children)
If we don't value the pressure of our water, we can simply save the energy of pressurizing it in the first place, no micro hydro generation hardware installation required.
Now, if the excess pressure is valuable in transit but you don't mind taking a dribble shower or listening to your toilet fill for 5 minutes per flush, then, sure, suck out that "free money" from the water supply, using your multi thousand dollar system which costs more to maintain than just buying the electricity from the standard source.
Personally, I run out house at 50-65psi, because I like it that way, and don't mind paying for the extra pump time required to get it as compared with lower pressures.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 18 2022, @02:54AM (1 child)
That's a mighty high-pressure out house. ;)
Presumably they're looking at gravity-fed pipes and ditches, but impeding flow (as an inline generator would necessarily somewhat do) is going to lead to more silting and more maintenance, so any power generation might not be a net gain.
OTOH, a little impediment in my own irrigation ditch wouldn't hurt (it runs hard enough that it just about takes you with it down the hill) and I need to look into a self-powered water pump...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday October 18 2022, @10:21AM
We had a 4" flowing well with about 12" of head, I did the math for micro-hydro electric generation from that and the result was something like six watts. That's a lot of water for 6 watts.
The big variable for power isn't the flow volume, it's the vertical drop. In the old days that well would have had 20' of head on it, the same 4" pipe with 20 feet of head could theoretically generate 2.4kW, IIRC.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://news.stanford.edu/2023/02/17/will-russia-ukraine-war-end
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2022, @11:57AM (2 children)
> I have thought about making a water tap powered electric generator
These days it's always a good idea to check your ideas against the market. In this case, you've been scooped by many others, for just one example:
https://www.amazon.com/Generator-Turbine-Hydroelectric-Portable-Charger/dp/B095P3CWF1/ref=asc_df_B095P3CWF1/ [amazon.com]
The 5V output version sells for USD $10...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Tuesday October 18 2022, @02:50AM (1 child)
So, a bigger one in my irrigation ditch should be enough to power the whole neighborhood all summer...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2022, @06:21PM
Sure, just depends on your definition of "bigger"!(grin)
(Score: 1) by zdammit on Monday October 17 2022, @06:12PM
The study was done by scientists, rather than a random sample of the general public. Pretty sure they thought of that. The article does mention hilly terrain.
(Score: 2) by Zinho on Tuesday October 18 2022, @02:45PM
obligatory XKCD:
Faucet Power [xkcd.com]
Randall figured you could probably get 200W from a faucet turbine, for as long as it's running. He also warns that at 24 hr 100% duty cycle you'd only make $200 of electricity/month, your sewer may fail, and the city may pay you a visit about your water use. YMMV.
"Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2022, @06:25AM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2022, @03:00PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Monday October 17 2022, @08:12PM
You can make up for a few stupid individuals by having large numbers of them to raise the average intelligence.
After that, any excess stupid people can be gainfully employed because stupidity is not a barrier to going into politics.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeRandomGeek on Monday October 17 2022, @05:04PM
For context, US electrical generation capacity is 1115.68 gigawatts. So, this untapped potential represents 0.1% of that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_of_the_United_States#Electricity_generation [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday October 17 2022, @05:51PM (1 child)
If you read OLD OLD engineering books for fun you'll find interesting stuff sometimes, and I read an old book about elevator engineering which contained an interesting financial analysis of using tap water draining into the sewer vs using 1900-ish electricity to power some ancient elevators.
It was surprisingly competitive, financially. If you could use the "waste" water as part of your industrial process, it was VERY completive. If you're going to pump tap water into some chemical plant boiler then may as well hook up a 1900s era turbine to the conveyor belt (or elevator) to dump flour into the continuous flow bread mixer or whatever weird example from the book. Sure, plumbing seems "fiddly and unreliable" in 2022 but electrical motors were not bulletproof tech back in 1890 or whatever, so they were "really" competing against running a steam engine and lineshafts to run the flour conveyor, and ironically the steam engine would require water anyway LOL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 18 2022, @06:28PM
Back then, there's a good chance that a municipal water system would be pumped by steam engine. Not very efficient.
They never recycled our magnificent beasts: https://buffalowater.org/about/departments/colonel-ward-pump-station/ [buffalowater.org] but the boilers (in an attached building) were scrapped out long ago.