12\" tube to heat your home with electricity?????

J. Cricket

It's always fun to break the law. But no one has been able to violate the laws of thermodynamics so far, although plenty of people have been parted from their money.

Eric_8

Color me highly skeptical!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/technology/technology.html?in_article_id=481996&in_page_id=1965

J.C.A._3

?????

Cold fusion of the 00's?

I hope it's true but am too, skeptical. Chris

Eric_8

Kinda fun to imagine the possibilities.

I find it intriguing that it assumes the use of hydronic heating.

Perry_3

Most likely a Chemical reaction... How much potash will ya need

This actually sounds more plausable than many people think.

Here is my guess as to how it works:

Potash is an alkili material (basic). When it reacts with water it gives off heat. The problem is that normal potash does not react very fast with water - and you would never think of it as its reaction as a heat sourc. Hence, add the right catylist and you can speed up the reaction. It is also true that chemical reactions speed up with heat. Methinks the purpose of the electical elements is to heat the potash water mixture to a hot enough temperature to allow the catalyst to now enable a fast enough reaction to warm up a noticiable stream of water... Now you have noticably more energy coming out than electrical energy going in... (and the article does not claim anything more than that).

Now all you will need is a stream of potash... and who knows how much that will cost. If it can be mined relatively cheaply then welcome to a potential new fuel source (now that we know how to catalyse the reaction at a reasonable rate).

Oh, I'm not sure what the potash reaction will leave for a waste stream - or how much of a disposal problem their would be. Just sure that there is a waste stream...


Recently another "miricle" heat source made the news... the ability to burn seawater. Perhaps you heard of that one too...

Upon further investigation that was after you used electrolyisis to dissosociate the hydrogen and oxegen gas in the first place. But, alas... no net energy gain; and the reactions and energy realeases have been understood for about a century.

Many years ago (decades ago really) I signed a confidentiality clause for a person who wanted to build a huge machine that would generate power with no input source (except for statup energy). After looking at the presentation, the models, the diagrams I offered to help him build and instrument a working model to demonstrate that it would work - and to understand where the losses would be in the system. The gentleman declined (he did not understand friction and efficiency losses at all). He felt that his idea was so good that he wanted a half million dollars to build something like a 10 MW electrical generator (and I probably could have come up with that kind of money from the utility at the time - which is why he came to me).

Perry

ps: and yes I do believe there is another energy source out there - another way of doing something completely different than what we do now... I've been poking at ideas for 15 or 20 years on that; and have not gotten far at all.

Weezbo

i seemed to think on first perusal ....

that it is a controlled metal fire..that means the electricity enables the chemical metal fire and the water cools it passing over the heat exchanger ....the thing that occurred to me is that there might be some safety issues with that idea. because if the heat exchanger is breached the O within the water would increase the metal chemical "fire" making it something of a hassle to get back under control. i wonder about the safety of the devise.... as i have seen plenty of submerged heat tape create some terrific damage. heat tape will burn under water like a sparkler and way more rapidly...

let me go back and read it this time instead of over reacting...:)

well, it is somewhat ambiguous..in that the solution in which it is doing the power generation isn't explicitly stated to be part of the entirety of the system water. more over, it says 'Domestic water in'....

Unknown

zeolith boiler

I've seen quite a few mad scientist inventions like that, none ever panned out as far as i know. The zeolith boiler seems like the real deal though, I don't think someone like Viessmann would waste their time on something that didn't seem plausable. Though I read this article a couple years ago and they said it too would be on the market in a year and a half. Haven't seen their fuel-cell boiler yet either, hmpf.

Aktuell Magazine 2005 (scroll to page 13)

Leo G_101

Perry

potash = Saskatchewan

Leo G

scott markle_2

Zeolith boiler

You got to love Viessmann, solar, heat pumps, fuel cells, "more than heat" indeed!

I didn't really understand the what this boiler was "burning". It was described as a heat pump, as I understood one that operated by chemical as opposed to mechanical means (no compressor). Boiler seems like a misnomer, what am I missing here, what were the inputs?

While laws of nature are unlikely be overturned, the spirit of being open to new ways of doing things is crucial to innovation.

Perry, How about some details on your "outside the box" idea.

Perry_3

Another take on this...

All the article claims is that this device puts out more energy than is inputted in electricity...

I've been thinking. I have one of those in my basement too... Can I get 1.2 Million to study and market it? I am sure Viessmann would not mind my pointing out how their Vitodens 200 puts out more heat energy than it uses in electricity.

Perry

Bob Gagnon plumbing and heating

The answer to the energy crises

rises in the east every day, and produces enough heat to heat all our buildings and hot water many times over. We just have to learn to harvest it more efficiently.
Bob Gagnon

To Learn More About This Professional, Click Here to Visit Their Ad in "Find A Professional"

scott markle_2

Bob, I don't believe that harvest is the problem. Evacuated tube collectors can achieve seasonal average efficiencies close to 70%, compared to P.V which tops out at 15%.
The real problem with energy in general is how to store it. Not sure what kind of breakthrough will ever solve the storage issue for thermal energy.
Ultimately I think we may need to adjust our ideas about energy. The fantasy of something for nothing is a refusal to accept that when the hydrocarbon party ends the world as we know it will change.
Solar energy is an exciting field, but I doubt it will ever be able to satisfy our current energy intensive lifestyle.

ALH_4

First Law

I like that analogy, Perry. ;-)

It's the first law of thermodynamics. One can never get more energy out of a system than one puts into a system. In fact, one can never get the same useful energy out of a system that one puts into that system.

I have no idea why the article talks about violating laws of physics when it seems pretty apparent that no laws of physics are being violated here.

ALH_4

Energy

I couldn't agree with you more. It all starts with conscious, intelligent, appropriate use of energy. There is simply not enough sunlight hitting our planet to satisfy our current thirst for energy.

Trying to bring alternative energy production up to meet our current demand is impossible. We must bring our consumption down near a level we can produce by alternative means in order to have a chance of weaning ourselves off our crippling dependence on foreign energy sources and conserve our domestic reserves.

We also must start using electricity more responsibly. Electricity is NOT 100% efficient, as AFUE labels on water heaters lead people to believe. On the evolutionary scale of energy, electricity is at the top. Why use the most valuable, most costly (in terms of resources), least storable form of energy for simple work like heating water? Just imagine what installing solar domestic hot water production systems in homes in areas of the country with the highest insolation would do. No one in southern California, Nevada, Arizona, or New Mexico should have an electric water heater.

Now this electric/potash water heater saves electricity, but from where does the potash come and at what cost? Is there an industry that is currently wasting potash?

scott markle_2

I would be very impressed if your Vito was achieving 100% plus in a real world application. If strapped to a large enough heat sink and operated at it's combustion sweet spot this boiler is probably capable of 100% plus. Maybe these conditions could even occur at times in a well designed low temp high delta system.

The way I understand it when caloric values are given to a fuel (or anything else)latent heat from condensation is not part of that calculation.

I'm seeing the parallels,... thought it was just a flip comment at first.

Edit: Missed the point ELECTRICITY, Thought you were talking about condensation bonus. Is 100% plus even laboratory achievable in condensing boiler? I might be wrong in assuming that it was.

Ron Schroeder

Scott,

The europeans base 100% as the maximum btu output before condensing so by the european standards, condensing boilers are rated at over 100% when those same boilers would be rated at under 100% by US standards.

Ron

scott markle_2

ratings

Sorry Ron but I'm not following that explanation.

What do you mean by "The europeans base 100% as the maximum btu output before condensing"

Obviously any practical hx will not be able recover 100% of the thermal-(before condensing) energy.

latent heat of condensation can add about 11% to the combustion energy of a fuel.

Could you elaborate on this difference on rating systems.

Ron Schroeder

They consider the sensable heat capacity of the fuel as 100%. Our ratings are based on total (sensable and latent) heat of the fuel as 100%.

Ron

Leo G_101

fertilizer

and I aint talking about the end of the bull!

Leo G