Turning kinetic energy from wind directly into heat (hot water)

Build sequence to the DaS Valve and other home built providing turbine motion.

The CO2 coming off the turbine flash chills to liquid in the low pressure zone and then drains
back to the heater as the high pressure is released to the low pressure zone .

A heat source above -40*C puts into motion. 1 Bar force (14.2 psi) is obtained at -40*C
and this increases to 10,000 Bar force 142,000 psi at +100*C.

Stainless Steel is the lightest pipe to handle these pressures.

Hello Dale,

My apologies I thought you had read about DaS Energy in Turkey. A correction, Das Energy Turkey is not DaS Energy. We have nothing to do with them. I note they use DaS Energy very quickly in their name for reasons not given.

DaS Energy simplest home build is CO2, Water and a hydro turbine. Unless anti freeze is added to the water 1*C is lowest heat for operation.

Commencement is by inserting a piece of Dry-Ice into the works. This provides the CO2 gas charge.

Peter, I emphasize again my difficulty in understanding your posts. Do I understand correctly that one of the systems you have described is a heat engine using CO2 and liquid water as the working fluid? If so, then please answer the following question: What is the benefit of using CO2 and liquid water as the working fluid beyond (1) possible higher power density due to the higher pressure, and (2) possible ease in fabrication? In particular, do you claim any increased thermal efficiency from this configuration? If so, then what net thermal efficiency does the system achieve, and what are the temperature parameters (peak temperature of working fluid, and temperature of heat sink)?

Marcos Buenijo wrote:Peter, I emphasize again my difficulty in understanding your posts. Do I understand correctly that one of the systems you have described is a heat engine using CO2 and liquid water as the working fluid? If so, then please answer the following question: What is the benefit of using CO2 and liquid water as the working fluid beyond (1) possible higher power density due to the higher pressure, and (2) possible ease in fabrication? In particular, do you claim any increased thermal efficiency from this configuration? If so, then what net thermal efficiency does the system achieve, and what are the temperature parameters (peak temperature of working fluid, and temperature of heat sink)?

Hello Markus,

CO2 and liquid water are not used as the working fluid? Only water is the working fluid. CO2 gas is the force pushing the water.

Both CO2 and Steam at higher pressure produce more power. Fabrication involves welding pipes together.

Thermal efficiency is the same 9 bar of Steam pushing water through a 82% efficient turbine produce 720 watts for each litre of water per second.

( Steam require greater heating than CO2 for work pressure, example best efficiency Power Station heats steam to +600*C and obtains 200 Bar force, 2480 psi,whereas CO2 requires heating from +30*C to +50*C to achieve the same 200 Bar force.)

There is no heat sink, there is a condenser, (its cyclic fridge action chilling the CO2) its temperature is that you wish the C02 to enter the boiler at.

Peter Mckinlay wrote:Hello Markus,

CO2 and liquid water are not used as the working fluid? Only water is the working fluid. CO2 gas is the force pushing the water.

Both CO2 and Steam at higher pressure produce more power. Fabrication involves welding pipes together.

Thermal efficiency is the same 9 bar of Steam pushing water through a 82% efficient turbine produce 720 watts for each litre of water per second.

( Steam require greater heating than CO2 for work pressure, example best efficiency Power Station heats steam to +600*C and obtains 200 Bar force, 2480 psi,whereas CO2 requires heating from +30*C to +50*C to achieve the same 200 Bar force.)

There is no heat sink, there is a condenser, (its cyclic fridge action chilling the CO2) its temperature is that you wish the C02 to enter the boiler at.

Note that the fluid that absorbs the heat is best considered as the working fluid. So, it seems CO2 is the working fluid here. Water is used only to transmit the force.

Please state the thermal efficiency, the peak CO2 temperature, and the temperature of the heat sink. That is, please provide actual numbers with units.

"Note that the fluid that absorbs the heat is best considered as the working fluid. So, it seems CO2 is the working fluid here. Water is used only to transmit the force.

Please state the thermal efficiency, the peak CO2 temperature, and the temperature of the heat sink. That is, please provide actual numbers with units. "

Water is the working fluid, the turbine takes energy from the moving water not the CO2, though you be correct CO2 is supplying the push power to the water

Repeat, There is no heat sink, there is a condenser, (its cyclic fridge action chilling the CO2) its temperature is that you wish the C02 to enter the boiler at.

Peter Mckinlay wrote:Water is the working fluid, the turbine takes energy from the moving water not the CO2, though you be correct CO2 is supplying the push power to the water

Repeat, There is no heat sink, there is a condenser, (its cyclic fridge action chilling the CO2) its temperature is that you wish the C02 to enter the boiler at.

CO2 gas must expand to displace the water. Therefore, the energy delivered to the turbine (using water as a medium) is derived from the expansion of the CO2 gas. This energy is in turn derived from the heat stored by the CO2 gas.

A condenser dumps heat. To where is this heat released, and at what temperature? This is the heat sink to which I refer.

"A condenser dumps heat. To where is this heat released, and at what temperature?"

Heat is released wherever. The temperature of the condenser is the same temperature the CO2 returns to the boiler at.

If the incoming to the boiler is a +8,000,000*C then so is the condenser temperature. If its at -8,000,000*C then so is the condenser temperature.

Changing back to the discussion. Why make the wind heat producer so complicated? The dynamometer I use for breaking in tractor engines is a very simple machine. It is a PTO driven hydralic pump that runs oil through a valve for adjusting constriction and then back to the reservoir. In the reservoir across the whole thing there is a radiator cooled by an external water feed. Hooked to a 250+ hp tractor this will on a continuous basis take a garden hose stream of cold water and flash somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of it to steam out of an open hose coming out the other end.. For the wind mill a similar system would work with off the shelf components. Hydralic pumps and needle valves are off the shelf components. For radiators both water and air cooling for the oil are readily available. The other advantage to this system is the heat is mostly made on the receiving end so line losses of heat are lower than if you generated the heat by friction at the tower. Add an electronic controller for the valve and you could control the speed of the wind mill under all wind conditions by simply varying the load assuming the pump on the tower was big enough. Plus you would have the option of tapping this power for mechanical or electrical energy.

C. Letellier wrote:Changing back to the discussion. Why make the wind heat producer so complicated? The dynamometer I use for breaking in tractor engines is a very simple machine. It is a PTO driven hydralic pump that runs oil through a valve for adjusting constriction and then back to the reservoir. In the reservoir across the whole thing there is a radiator cooled by an external water feed. Hooked to a 250+ hp tractor this will on a continuous basis take a garden hose stream of cold water and flash somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of it to steam out of an open hose coming out the other end.. For the wind mill a similar system would work with off the shelf components. Hydralic pumps and needle valves are off the shelf components. For radiators both water and air cooling for the oil are readily available. The other advantage to this system is the heat is mostly made on the receiving end so line losses of heat are lower than if you generated the heat by friction at the tower. Add an electronic controller for the valve and you could control the speed of the wind mill under all wind conditions by simply varying the load assuming the pump on the tower was big enough. Plus you would have the option of tapping this power for mechanical or electrical energy.

Exactly, why make the wind heat producer so complicated? All one has to do is use a wind turbine to drive an efficient alternator to convert and transmit 80-90%+ of the energy to either heating elements or an electric motor driven heat pump. This is the most practical and cost-effective way to go about it.

C. Letellier wrote:Changing back to the discussion. Why make the wind heat producer so complicated? The dynamometer I use for breaking in tractor engines is a very simple machine. It is a PTO driven hydralic pump that runs oil through a valve for adjusting constriction and then back to the reservoir. In the reservoir across the whole thing there is a radiator cooled by an external water feed. Hooked to a 250+ hp tractor this will on a continuous basis take a garden hose stream of cold water and flash somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 of it to steam out of an open hose coming out the other end.. For the wind mill a similar system would work with off the shelf components. Hydralic pumps and needle valves are off the shelf components. For radiators both water and air cooling for the oil are readily available. The other advantage to this system is the heat is mostly made on the receiving end so line losses of heat are lower than if you generated the heat by friction at the tower. Add an electronic controller for the valve and you could control the speed of the wind mill under all wind conditions by simply varying the load assuming the pump on the tower was big enough. Plus you would have the option of tapping this power for mechanical or electrical energy.

Agree!

Peter Mckinlay wrote:
Heat is released wherever. The temperature of the condenser is the same temperature the CO2 returns to the boiler at.

If the incoming to the boiler is a +8,000,000*C then so is the condenser temperature. If its at -8,000,000*C then so is the condenser temperature.

If the condenser is connected to the boiler, then clearly these statements you have made are redundant and convey no meaning. I can only conclude that the purpose of your post here is obfuscation. This is unfortunate as my line of inquiry is genuine. I wish to know the parameters of the system you are trying to describe here. In particular, I wish to know the highest and lowest temperatures achieved by the CO2 working fluid (i.e. the temperature range), and I wish to know the thermal efficiency of the system as it operates under these parameters. If you have this information, then please provide a direct answer.

NOTE: I realize that you noted a temperature of -8,000,000*C only for the purpose of illustration. However, I am compelled to emphasize for the purpose of education that this temperature is not possible as it is far below absolute zero (i.e. violation of third law of thermodynamics).

Attached.

Marcos Buenijo wrote:Bill, I second (or third) the idea of "stirring" water contained in an insulated vessel for heating. See Joule's work in thermodynamics during the 1800's. Cavitation is not required, but may be unavoidable. Any resistance to the motion of the "paddles" contained in the vessel will transfer energy to the water to raise its temperature. I used to work at an experimental power plant that placed a large "water brake" on the output shaft as a load. The same principle applied there even though it was basically a large hydraulic pump that sent the water through a restriction. On that note, you could drive a vane pump (hydraulic) with the wind turbine sending the discharge of the pump through a pressure relief valve, and contain the whole apparatus within an insulated vessel. If the vessel were pressurized, then this could help minimize any cavitation in the pump.

However, note that wind turbines generally have to be elevated for good performance. Therefore, there would be extreme thermal losses involved in containing the heated water and especially in transferring the heated water to an end use. I expect the losses to be greater than those seen by a good alternator. So, it makes more sense to use the wind turbine to drive an alternator, then send the DC output directly to a water heating element. This is often done as a "dump load" in diversion battery controllers, but in this case one would just connected the alternator directly to the element and call it a day. If it's heat from wind that you want, then this is actually an elegant solution.

I thought of this same sort of idea, but slightly differently. A few ideas that I had, which may be work around's to yours, was in the use of a vertical axis windmill instead of a horizontal one, the shaft going down into an insulated vessel as you describe, but 4 feet underground where it is isolated from the varying outside temperature.

A vertical axis windmill has issues of its own I know, and likewise stabilizing a long shaft may be problematic. If It could be done, I am thinking rather than a vane pump, a swash plate hydraulic pump may be better. In that way say six plungers (lets say) pump oil for every revolution. With all six being ported through relief valves, that should theoretically heat the oil, and the oil thus heating up the water in the insulated tank. The key I believe, may be a way to regulate the orifice opening size of the relief valves based on current wind speed. That could be done easily through an anemometer, plc and controllable relief valve, but that gets kind of high tech for a do it yourself system.

A simpler arrangement may be to have a wind mill of either vertical or horizontal design pick up a plunger several feet, and through the use of a cable up the length of the tower, connect it underground to a plunger. Think of an oil pump jack sort of arrangement here. The weight of the plunger in a tight bore would force the oil in a closed circuit through a relief valve heating up the oil. That closed circuit, operating in a a insulated vessel of water, would theoretically heat it. In this case, as wind speeds increased, you would just get more plunges per minute and thus gain more heat. It has the benefit of eliminating the stability of a long, fast rotating shaft, and uses gravity to its advantage.

Travis,, are you saying use wind power to generate electricity and use the electricity to heat the water, and use the hot water to heat the house?

It's a good idea, free power to heat, but my first thoughts are about the number of steps, hence the number of things that can break down, also the expense involved in setting all that up.

You have lots of wood.  I wonder why not build a rocket stove mass heater, using the water as nonpressurized mass, have the circulating and nonpressurized water heat your house, and also provide domestic hot water.  It seems a shorter loop to me.

A big advantage of using the wind power would be the ability to leave home for a while, leaving it all untended and have it continue on automatic in your absence.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Travis,, are you saying use wind power to generate electricity and use the electricity to heat the water, and use the hot water to heat the house?

It's a good idea, free power to heat, but my first thoughts are about the number of steps, hence the number of things that can break down, also the expense involved in setting all that up.

You have lots of wood.  I wonder why not build a rocket stove mass heater, using the water as nonpressurized mass, have the circulating and nonpressurized water heat your house, and also provide domestic hot water.  It seems a shorter loop to me.

A big advantage of using the wind power would be the ability to leave home for a while, leaving it all untended and have it continue on automatic in your absence.

No, not at all. I am thinking of using wind power to directly heat water. My uncle has windpower here using it to generate electricity and it has a 27 year return on investment. For me, money would better be spent reducing my electrical needs then trying to produce electricity myself, but that is just me. SLOWLY I am reducing my electrical requirements through geothermal sources primarily.

My house is 100% radiant floor heated, and my boiler system is set up for additional sources of heat. Since radiant heat uses the principal of mass (my entire concrete floor is essentially a heater for my home), I only pump warm water through my floor, not hot water. It varies, but is less than 100 degrees most of the time. All I need to do is provide 100-150 degree water to my main boiler loops and my propane boiler will not come on. It does not matter how that is achieved; solar, compost heat, but in this case wind power hot water. A computer controlled mixing valve then adjusts the water from the main boiler loop and injects it into my floor as required. (I won't get into how as it is very complex).

So if I can use the wind that is prolific here to heat water, all I must do is get the water from the base of the windmill, and get it to my main boiler loop and back. When the wind is not blowing, my propane boiler simply takes over.

I have rethought my original idea though and am going in a different direction, and yes based on ideas generated from here. Cavitation Heating. I hope to do a simple test to see if a scaled down version will work. If it seems promising, I should have all the resources to do this.

Thanks Travis.  Cavitation is little appreciated utilized or understood.  I'll be curious what you devise.

I also like hearing about the concrete floor heating system.  Did you insulate the slab?  I wanted to do that at my place, but the contractor said insulating the slab was not an option.  grrrr  not very meany years later, it is required in this county...

I still don't understand how you might heat water directly with wind power, bypassing the electricity.  Can you give me a reference or link if it is too complicated to describe?

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Travis,, are you saying use wind power to generate electricity and use the electricity to heat the water, and use the hot water to heat the house?

It's a good idea, free power to heat, but my first thoughts are about the number of steps, hence the number of things that can break down, also the expense involved in setting all that up.

You have lots of wood.  I wonder why not build a rocket stove mass heater, using the water as nonpressurized mass, have the circulating and nonpressurized water heat your house, and also provide domestic hot water.  It seems a shorter loop to me.

A big advantage of using the wind power would be the ability to leave home for a while, leaving it all untended and have it continue on automatic in your absence.

My thoughts exactly!  

@Thekla M: "I still don't understand how you might heat water directly with wind power, bypassing the electricity.  Can you give me a reference or link if it is too complicated to describe? "

Here is a within-Permies.com link:  https://permies.com/t/4794/Direct-Wind-Heat

I've considered this before as well, especially as it seems one could modify a crude VAWT to turn an array of paddles within a chamber filled with water.  The water heats up from the friction of the paddles churning through the water.....just like if you turn a Vitamix on High, the solution you are mixing becomes quite warm.  I've seem modifications of the idea that use a heat-exchanger:  The paddle-heated liquid in a closed-loop runs through an exchanger that then heats the water in a tank.   In areas like ours where winter-time water that is not well below ground will freeze solid in a few hours, one would either have to have the water tank below ground or have it transferred to the tank for heating only when plenty of wind is available.  There are likely many prototypes of this concept around out there.

[Edit:  Travis J's comments on the thread linked above reflect this idea.]

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I also like hearing about the concrete floor heating system.  Did you insulate the slab?  I wanted to do that at my place, but the contractor said insulating the slab was not an option.  grrrr  not very meany years later, it is required in this county...

Yes, due to the deep frost that occurs in Maine, I would NOT build a concrete slab without 2" of insulation, and most likely install pex for heating too. Even then it is not too late to retrofit a concrete slab with radiant heat...I have in the half of my house that was done in 1994 before radiant heat was common place here.

Rocket stoves and my system really are not all that compatible. Rocket stoves use a hot, fast burn to produce heat that is expelled through mass for long term heat, thus their efficiency. My propane system does so much differently. The boiler works as needed to provide the main boiler loop with hot water between 100-150 degrees. The smart part of the system is the computer, which monitors the heat being lost in the slab, the temperature outside, the heat returning from the floors, and boiler temperature to constantly adjust itself. Remember I said the temperature in my floor varies? Well it does because as the temperature outside drops, the water temperature flowing through my floor increases because the house is losing heat faster. But the opposite is true too, as the outside temperature warms up, the heat flowing through my floors go down because it can get by with cooler water. In that way, the minimal amount of BTUs is burned. It does this every minute, and by adjusting the temperature of the water, it maintains constant temperature. I still have thermostats and zone valves, but those really do not do a lot. They just tell the computer when a room needs heat or not, it does the rest.

My boiler is smart enough to do most of this, BUT because I wanted the potential to add a wood boiler on, I have a mixing valve. It is not a "valve" at all, but a variable speed circulator pump. It takes hot water in the main boiler loop and adds just enough hot water to the water returning from my floors to make up the difference that was lost. Most of the time this thing is only running at less then 10% capacity. That means the 100-150 degree water in my main boiler loop is not being dragged down that much, and thus my propane boiler is seldom coming on. When it does, its computer tells it not to burn at full flame (95%), but at just enough burn to maintain 100-150 degrees.

A rocket stove could replace the boiler part for the heat side, but I already have mass so that part of it would be redundant. And while it would heat water, it would most likely do so above 100-150 degrees. Think of it this way, a Rocket Mass heater uses burst of high intensity heat to heat mass for long term. My system uses short bursts of low heat to constantly keep the mass of my floors warm. Neither is wrong, just using different ways to do so.

Is my system better?

I am not sure, it is hard to compare the two systems. Mine is a geothermal/radiant heat hybrid, but it was also expensive at $10,000 for just the heating appliance and system (not the concrete or pex tubing). A person could easily build a Rocket mass Heater for less than that, but there are issues with insurance and the like. For a person building their own home with their own financing, I recommend a Rocket Mass Heater not a system like mine. But I do not recommend a suburbanite or urban homeowner going out and buying the system I have either; not initially. Far better to first super insulate their home (mine was super-insulated at build) then look into this system. Get new windows, new doors, tighten up drafts and add insulation FIRST!

But mine can be added on quite easily. For me, if I can use the abundant wind here to power a direct drive water heater, it would probably reduce my propane costs around 50%. This is just a guess, but even if it was 25%, I would be happy.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:I still don't understand how you might heat water directly with wind power, bypassing the electricity.  Can you give me a reference or link if it is too complicated to describe?

Interestingly yes, and you don't have to leave this website. I was researching an idea I had about using wind directly and it seems 3 years ago my very idea was thought of by another member on here. I dredged that conversation up this morning over on the Wind Forum. It is 2 pages, but talks a lot about directly heating water by wind, first via electricity, then via hydraulics, and then into cavitation. I redirected it back to hydraulic pumps, but feel that may be prohibitive in a do it yourself build. I am thinking now that cavitation pumps may be the answer I have been looking for.

webpage

In the interest of sharing, I have wondered if maybe a direct drive cavitation pump to a windmill may be the ideal set up for me.

My house is 100% radiant floor heated, which is very complex and will not get into as of right now anyway. But basically all I need to do is provide 100-150 degree heat to my main boiler loop and the boiler will not come on. Since I live in a very high wind area of Maine, if I can heat water from the wind, it would go a long way to reducing my house heating bill.

My current idea is to build a vertical axis windmill, have a shaft extend down to below frost level at 4 feet here in Maine. This would turn a cavatation pump that is being fed water from my house via a circulator pump, from my main boiler loop, underground to the cavitation pump and back.

This is the simple version. When the wind blew it would heat the water being pumped to it, achieve a temperature of above 100 degrees, keep the boiler from coming on, then returned to the cavataion pump for another cycle. This is simple because in high wind situations, it could actually cause overheating of the water, and while protected by my boiler system, it would be a waste of excess heat.

If the same system was used, but two circulators used, one for a closed circuit cavitation pump circuit, protected by its own relief valve and subsequent water fill from the house, it would be able to store heat and also prevent overheat situations.

My "test" to see if a cavation pump would truly work is as follows and if anyone beats me to trying this...good for you. I got a lot of things on my plate lately...


Anyway, I want to take a coffee can and place a bearing at the bottom, then on a wooden dowel that fits the bearing, place a drum drilled with cavitation holes. On the top of the can I want to fit a plug that is watertight. Onto the dowel sticking up out of the can I want to cut s shaped rotors from a plastic 5 gallon bucket. All this represents a vertical axis windmill, the shaft going down to the cavitation pump, which is the drum fitted into the coffee can with holes drilled in it.

In a standard 5 gallon pail I want to fill that with water, then connect a tube into the water and to a small pump that is powered by an electric drill. (a cordless would work too). Then fit the tubing to the top of the cavitation pump. A return line of tubing will then return to the 5 gallon bucket of water.

By placing the "windmill" and cavitation pump in front of a household box fan, and turning on the drill, if cavitation indeed causes a heat increase in water, the water being pumped by the drill from the 5 gallon bucket, into the top of the cavitation pump, now being turned by wind power, and then returning out the bottom, and back to the 5 gallon bucket; should warm up rather soon in this scaled down version.

Hi Travis, and thanks Joseph for bringing us here. I just read the whole thread,and certainly have a lot to think about before I understand the CO2 and water contraption and much of the rest of the thread.  I believe I almost understand your floor Travis, which is also a lot to think about.  I might still have a few questions, but don't plan to ask until I have assimilated all this.

I have done some more research on cavitation and am pleased to see that I no longer have to prove if it will work. Amazingly a guy (much smarter than me) and who lives close by, used a blender to show that even with a horribly inefficient designed prop, he could bring water to near boiling temp!

When I built massive ships, they said on the rudders you could fry an egg the steel got so hot from the cavitation of the propeller.

But with windpower you are not turning the propeller at a steady 1750 rpm like an electric engine. Instead it varries and is smaller. I see three potential work arrounds to that:

1. Build a highly efficient propeller
2. Gear up the driven shaft so it turns faster
3. A combination of the two

On the blender video one secret to intense heat was given out, that producing a vortex intensified things. I wonder if the injection of compressed air would induce a vortex? Or if an hour glass shape with an equally shaped propeller would induce intense caviatation?

Others at the beginning of this thread thought maybe an propeller churning against other vanes would induce heat. Taking that idea to the next level...and introducing the concept of the aviationist who said two opposing propellers induced heat...I wonder if you could gear one propeller against the other, but with the lower propeller geared to the windmill at a different speed? I think that would induce caviation for sure.