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Yeah, this article seems like bad engineering, especially when the opening paragraph is trying to compare mechanical energy to solar heat. A windmill with a ge

Yeah, this article seems like bad engineering, especially when the opening paragraph is trying to compare mechanical energy to solar heat. A windmill with a generator inside it that is hooked to a wire that drives an electric heating element inside your house will be more efficient then a water break inside an insulated chamber that pushes hot water through tubes into your home.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
Until it breaks down? The water+tubes is a low-tech solution that will survive the apocalypse.
- kazinator 8y ago
  Firstly, are you proposing that people should have windmills that have no generator at all, only a brake for generating heat? If we already have electric generation and conveyance in the picture, then the pump and tube system is additional. Electric generation and conveyance is "low tech": we've had it for over a hundred years now. It has few moving parts. Pipes can leak. The fluid needs to be drained and replaced. the system needs to be bled. Pumps break; seals wear out, and such.
  - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
    Few moving parts but many electronic components that will fail eventually.
- ip26 8y ago
  Wait, by "water" did you mean "electrons" and by "tubes" you meant "wires"? Electronics can get phenomenally complicated, but electricity itself can be pretty fantastically simple. There's no such thing as electrons leaking out of a poorly sealed wire onto your floor, for example, and you'll never accumulate sediment and corrosion inside your wires...
  - lscharen 8y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration
    - ip26 8y ago
      Yeah, I know about EM. FWIW it's usually only a material issue in fuses & semiconductors.
  - logfromblammo 8y ago
    Plumbing is like DC electricity. If we used alternating current in the plumbing, that would get complicated too. Electrons leaking out of a poorly sealed wire onto your floor is otherwise known as an arc fault. Sediment in your wires is the degradation of the electrical insulator by heat, radiation, chemical solvent, or biological factors such as rodents or insects, followed by moisture infiltration and oxidation in the current-carrying elements. A junction of aluminum and copper wiring without dielectric protection may eventually burn down the building. That doesn't happen when your plumbing goes from copper to PVC, or PVC to PEX.
    - atoav 8y ago
      Yet all the remote mountain cabins I know of usually have less problems with their electricity than with their pipes, drains and such. Especially because they are higher mainrainance during cold winters (expanding ice bursts pipes, while wires just happily work quite independent of temperature if done right)
      - logfromblammo 8y ago
        Places with less-cold, less-mountainous winters get more bio-problems, like a nest of fire ants inside the meter or main breaker panel, or squirrels chewing through the telecom/television/Internet cables. If you have a closed-loop circulating-water heating system, with the thermal energy produced by a windmill, its pipes are unlikely to freeze, unless the place gets really cold, without wind. The supply and return lines would probably be buried as deeply as is feasible, too. But yes, hanging an outdoor-rated NM cable between windmill and building, and placing a resistive element inside it, would be cheaper, quieter, and more reliable, even accounting for squirrel mishaps. If you can spare the expense, mineral-insulated cable is a very durable, bio-resistant way to move power.
bluGill 8y ago
I agree it is mostly bad engineering, but they are correct in one point: to make wind work you need to store the energy somehow. Water is a lot better than batteries if the goal is to heat your house for a few weeks of no power input (batteries are expensive and a fire hazard).
- l4yao 8y ago
  Water's heat capacity means you'll need a lot of water in order to keep a house heated for weeks, in a temperate climate. There are interesting Phase Change Materials (PCM) out there that take advantage of a material's latent heat properties that get you a bit closer.
- kazinator 8y ago
  That doesn't imply that the water must be heated directly by the braking system, however.
koala_man 8y ago
> A windmill with a generator inside it that is hooked to a wire that drives an electric heating element inside your house will be more efficient How so?
- l4yao 8y ago
  I'm also puzzled. I guess one angle is if the losses from a generator are captured, you get a bit more utility from having more of the total energy as electrical energy? Maybe they're picturing all of the generation and conversion inside the building envelope to capture losses.
VBprogrammer 8y ago
I admit my understanding of these things isn't perfect but I'm not sure the idea of having a generator is as simple as your making it sound. Typically you have an AC alternator (because DC generators have too high a loss in the brushes). How do you control the excitation voltage, you'd want high enough voltages to allow reasonable sized wiring but not enough to damage the insulation? How do you control the speed of the blades (under and overspeed) etc? I can see how these things could be easily managed using direct water to heat. Simple spring loaded governors etc.
- seanalltogether 8y ago
  Speed requirements are going to affect both systems equally. A water chamber driven by a mixer is going to have to reach a certain speed to generate enough heat to overcome heat loses in the gearing,chamber, and tubes and would also need an ancillary breaking system to avoid going too fast and destroying the whole assembly. The difference is that a watermill would have a lot of extra heat lose from the very long prop shaft/belt drive to reach the top of the tower to the bottom, as well as heat that would bleed out of the chamber via the drive shaft, as well as heat lost in the tubing going both to and from the house. Assuming the gearing and insulated piping carry high costs anyway, you could put that money instead into low gauge wire to lower resistance getting to the house heater element.
  - VBprogrammer 8y ago
    Are insulated pipes burried 6ft underground going to lose that much heat? What kind of voltages are we talking about? I know that to get 12v from an alternator in a van to a leasure battery in the back with a modest voltage drop you need cables sized like welding cables. Is it possible to generate voltages nearer 240v directly from an alternator or do you need an invertor somewhere? How does the load on a heating element vary in low wind conditions? Presumably the voltage and / or frequency would be lower in that case. With water you have the fact that it'll boil naturally regulating itself (so long as you let it escape). You could raise or lower the water level in the stirring chamber and possibly take advantage of convection to pump it back to a reservoir when it gets to a good temperature.

JoeAltmaier 8y ago

Until it breaks down? The water+tubes is a low-tech solution that will survive the apocalypse.

kazinator 8y ago
Firstly, are you proposing that people should have windmills that have no generator at all, only a brake for generating heat? If we already have electric generation and conveyance in the picture, then the pump and tube system is additional. Electric generation and conveyance is "low tech": we've had it for over a hundred years now. It has few moving parts. Pipes can leak. The fluid needs to be drained and replaced. the system needs to be bled. Pumps break; seals wear out, and such.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Few moving parts but many electronic components that will fail eventually.
ip26 8y ago
Wait, by "water" did you mean "electrons" and by "tubes" you meant "wires"? Electronics can get phenomenally complicated, but electricity itself can be pretty fantastically simple. There's no such thing as electrons leaking out of a poorly sealed wire onto your floor, for example, and you'll never accumulate sediment and corrosion inside your wires...
- lscharen 8y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromigration
  - ip26 8y ago
    Yeah, I know about EM. FWIW it's usually only a material issue in fuses & semiconductors.
- logfromblammo 8y ago
  Plumbing is like DC electricity. If we used alternating current in the plumbing, that would get complicated too. Electrons leaking out of a poorly sealed wire onto your floor is otherwise known as an arc fault. Sediment in your wires is the degradation of the electrical insulator by heat, radiation, chemical solvent, or biological factors such as rodents or insects, followed by moisture infiltration and oxidation in the current-carrying elements. A junction of aluminum and copper wiring without dielectric protection may eventually burn down the building. That doesn't happen when your plumbing goes from copper to PVC, or PVC to PEX.
  - atoav 8y ago
    Yet all the remote mountain cabins I know of usually have less problems with their electricity than with their pipes, drains and such. Especially because they are higher mainrainance during cold winters (expanding ice bursts pipes, while wires just happily work quite independent of temperature if done right)
    - logfromblammo 8y ago
      Places with less-cold, less-mountainous winters get more bio-problems, like a nest of fire ants inside the meter or main breaker panel, or squirrels chewing through the telecom/television/Internet cables. If you have a closed-loop circulating-water heating system, with the thermal energy produced by a windmill, its pipes are unlikely to freeze, unless the place gets really cold, without wind. The supply and return lines would probably be buried as deeply as is feasible, too. But yes, hanging an outdoor-rated NM cable between windmill and building, and placing a resistive element inside it, would be cheaper, quieter, and more reliable, even accounting for squirrel mishaps. If you can spare the expense, mineral-insulated cable is a very durable, bio-resistant way to move power.

bluGill 8y ago

I agree it is mostly bad engineering, but they are correct in one point: to make wind work you need to store the energy somehow. Water is a lot better than batteries if the goal is to heat your house for a few weeks of no power input (batteries are expensive and a fire hazard).

l4yao 8y ago
Water's heat capacity means you'll need a lot of water in order to keep a house heated for weeks, in a temperate climate. There are interesting Phase Change Materials (PCM) out there that take advantage of a material's latent heat properties that get you a bit closer.
kazinator 8y ago
That doesn't imply that the water must be heated directly by the braking system, however.

koala_man 8y ago

> A windmill with a generator inside it that is hooked to a wire that drives an electric heating element inside your house will be more efficient How so?

l4yao 8y ago
I'm also puzzled. I guess one angle is if the losses from a generator are captured, you get a bit more utility from having more of the total energy as electrical energy? Maybe they're picturing all of the generation and conversion inside the building envelope to capture losses.

VBprogrammer 8y ago

I admit my understanding of these things isn't perfect but I'm not sure the idea of having a generator is as simple as your making it sound. Typically you have an AC alternator (because DC generators have too high a loss in the brushes). How do you control the excitation voltage, you'd want high enough voltages to allow reasonable sized wiring but not enough to damage the insulation? How do you control the speed of the blades (under and overspeed) etc? I can see how these things could be easily managed using direct water to heat. Simple spring loaded governors etc.

seanalltogether 8y ago
Speed requirements are going to affect both systems equally. A water chamber driven by a mixer is going to have to reach a certain speed to generate enough heat to overcome heat loses in the gearing,chamber, and tubes and would also need an ancillary breaking system to avoid going too fast and destroying the whole assembly. The difference is that a watermill would have a lot of extra heat lose from the very long prop shaft/belt drive to reach the top of the tower to the bottom, as well as heat that would bleed out of the chamber via the drive shaft, as well as heat lost in the tubing going both to and from the house. Assuming the gearing and insulated piping carry high costs anyway, you could put that money instead into low gauge wire to lower resistance getting to the house heater element.
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  Are insulated pipes burried 6ft underground going to lose that much heat? What kind of voltages are we talking about? I know that to get 12v from an alternator in a van to a leasure battery in the back with a modest voltage drop you need cables sized like welding cables. Is it possible to generate voltages nearer 240v directly from an alternator or do you need an invertor somewhere? How does the load on a heating element vary in low wind conditions? Presumably the voltage and / or frequency would be lower in that case. With water you have the fact that it'll boil naturally regulating itself (so long as you let it escape). You could raise or lower the water level in the stirring chamber and possibly take advantage of convection to pump it back to a reservoir when it gets to a good temperature.