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i dosen't have to be a mountain it could be huge sand dunes or any other highly elevated terrain to possibly work check out the video above..
It still gets into the problem that the technique consumes more energy than it would produce. While landslides (as shown in the video) or sandslides contain the potential of generating tremendous amounts of energy, they are only fleeting, short-lived events. Tornadoes also have the potential of generating massive amounts of energy, but they too are short-lived. To be most efficient and useful, a source needs to be long-lasting and constant or be renewable. Some short-lived sources of energy can be efficient and useful, but usually for a much smaller period of time, like a campfire to generate heat for warmth, to cook with, to shed light, and to keep certain nocternal predators at a distance.
The technique of using a conveyor belt and gravity to move rocks or sand would require frequent adjustments to reduce the length of the conveyor as the height of the source reduces. During such shutdowns, zero energy is produced, and more energy is spent in making the system adjustments.
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Originally Posted by cruxan
in south americas andes mountain range there's 1000's of cubic miles of terrain that is 11 to 12 thousand feet in elevation ...that's thousands of cubic milles of land above 5000 foot elavation.. and not all areas of the world are solid rock!! it's a concept that needs testing!!!! and the same above method can work with water insted of blasting water thru a pen stock and down to a giant fan blade to generate power... water can be run on bucket sectioned conveyers that way every pound of water could be used for generating power... dams could be more efficient by using the discharg wather on conveyers.. that way you could get alot more power from the same water flow.. and the same method could be used in rivers directly by building a small dam wall to raise the water just enough to get the leed water on the conveyer system to generate power...so this conveyer method truly needs to be tested it will definitely will work at the bottom of a dam discharge... and the longer the conveyer is and the more angled and more sloped the more power you would get.. the big differece with the above conveyer system is if you have 1000 tons of water on a buket sectioned conveyer is all 1000 tons of water would prduce energy... and once the wather is on the conveyer if the conveyer is longer it will generate more power it's all about gravity and the conveyers do the rest.
nightbazzar the above conveyer system can work on dam discharg water and make dams more effiicient..^
nightbazzar the above conveyer system can work on dam discharg wather and make dams more effiicient..^
Oh. Okay. So what happened to the idea of turning mountains into rubble? I assumed that was still a consideration since the video was of a rocky mudslide.
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
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Originally Posted by NightBazaar
Oh. Okay. So what happened to the idea of turning mountains into rubble? I assumed that was still a consideration since the video was of a rocky mudslide.
you have to look at all possibiliyties of such a concept!!! but yes i say it needs to be tested on a 1000 foot mountain to realy see if it would take more energy to load the conveyer turbine drive system than it would produce.. such a test is easily feasible with todays exiting tec..
just look at alberta blue tar sands in canada they are tearing up like 54 thousand square miles of pristine area!!!! and producing billions of gallons of very toxic water that sits in tailing ponds that could fail some day in the future.. to refine the tar sands end product oil... and spewing out millions of tons of co2 in the process ..it's a brutal way to get enegy.
you have to look at all possibiliyties of such a concept!!! but yes i say it needs to be tested on a 1000 foot mountain to realy see if it would take more energy to load the conveyer turbine drive system than it would produce.. such a test is easily feasible with todays exiting tec..
You'd need to look at more than just the possibilities. You'd also need to look at all that's involved in terms of energy spent vs energy produced. It wouldn't require a 1000 foot mountain to test the concept, involving rocks or water. The idea could be tested in a lab using computers or even scale models. For all I know, maybe the idea has already been tested out. At least there's enough data available to predict what the results would be with reasonable accuracy. There are plenty of people around with expertise in geology, soil hydrology, fluid dynamics, etc. Why not contact some of them? It'd be interesting to hear what they have to say.
It is already being done in MA, but its not being done with dirt...it is being done with water.
It is pretty simple in concept. During the day a nuclear power plant operates and kicks a lot of power onto the grid. That is all well and fine, but at night that plant is producing lots of power that a sleeping nation does not need. So they take that power, drive massive pumps and pump the water from the reservoir at the bottom of the mountain to a reservoir at the top of the mountain.
At peak times of power consumption, they open valves and let that water run down pipes from the top of the mountain to the bottom. And as you guessed it, there is turbines at the bottom that the flowing water powers to make massive amounts of power at a time when the grid really needs it.
The truth is you cannot defy physics. It takes more power to pump that water up hill due to the friction and inefficiencies of pumps, then what can be gleaned out of it falling back down. There is no argument there. But in this case, what if you have lots of power not being utilized at certain times of the day, and yet at other times you have shortages? This system takes a nuclear power plant that must run 24/7/365 and powers a closed system hydro power project for those times when demand is higher then supply. It's inefficient...but a lot less so then not using the power from the nuclear power plant locally.
nightbazzar the above conveyer system can work on dam discharg water and make dams more effiicient..^
I applaud the fact that you are thinking 'outside the box', but basically what you're talking about (in the case of dams) is a waterwheel. Turbines are far more efficient at producing power than are waterwheels. What you're really talking about is harnessing potential energy. And, as mountains are (practically speaking) a non-renewable resource, you still run into the problem that even if (and it's a really really really big if) you could somehow make the process efficient, it can't go on indefinitely. In the mean time, you inflict catastrophic damage to the environment (no way around that).
All is not lost, however, for if you examine the system as a whole, invariably you have to ask the question: How did those mountain ranges manage to reach that high? Where did all that potential energy come from anyway? The answer is below your very feet. Deep in the Earth's mantle, convection currents in the liquid rock push and pull on the tectonic plates that make up the crust we live on (the interactions of which create mountain ranges). These convection currents (along with slab pull, a phenomenon of subduction zones) are responsible for the motion of the plates. I can't think of anyway to harness slab pull effectively (though it does put some rather entertaining visions in my head), but we can and do harness the energy in all that liquid rock at geothermal power plants. Because the Earth will remain hot for a very long time, geothermal power is for all intents and purposes a renewable energy source. All you need is water and magma. Perhaps a better answer (though it's clearly only part of the solution) to the energy crisis is to further utilize geothermal power. The mid-ocean ridges, for example, contain abundant amounts of both water and magma. This 'solution' still leaves a lot to be desired, and is lacking in enough areas that it can't be considered practical (today), but who knows, maybe it will lead to practical applications down the road. Many of the best scientific ideas are discovered quite by accident.
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