Wild Ideas

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Comment by Bernard on June 19, 2010 at 1:46am

Has anyone also considered pressurized convection?

Comment by Bernard on June 19, 2010 at 1:16am

Has anyone considered using the Internet as a new source for energy?

Comment by rafael garcia on February 27, 2009 at 7:52pm

my name is rafael garcia and I live in stockton california. I have been looking for someone to help me make my dream a reality.I have an idea for an (ELECTRICAL ENERGY HARVESTING SYSTEM)when this system is applied to an electric plug in vehicle, it will allow the vehicle to collect electricity from the vehicle itself and use that energy to recharge the lithium ion battery.this will solve alot of problems in the world including oil dependancy and stop or slow down the damage that vehicle pollution does to our planet. Delete Comment

Comment by Vic on January 15, 2009 at 4:03pm

The latest reports indicate over 50% of our population is overweight. There are more than 50 million people sitting at desk jobs (in the US) burning an average of 50-60 calories per hour. If we give (or sell) each person a pedal generator to put under their desk, combined with an inverter to connect to the grid through an AC outlet, it would be very easy to generate a few hundred watts per day, per person. This translates into 10 Gigawatts of power a day (Conservatively). In addition to putting a big dent in reducing our CO output and dependence on foreign oil, our nations overweight problem is solved.

Comment by Will on January 15, 2009 at 5:04am

What really needs to happen is to call out all the groups that publicly "care" for the environment and ask them why they haven't done anything yet. Millions go to waste that could be creating jobs and fixing our world.

Comment by Ronald Davis on December 13, 2008 at 6:55am

For $100 each we can require new automobiles to be E85 capable. E85 is 85% alcohol and 15% gasoline. Brazil is now energy independent using E85. We can require gas stations to add one new pump for E85 and phase out gasoline like we phased out gasoline containing lead.

This would gradually move us toward using renewable fuel, helping reduce fossil fuel use. It would also eliminate the need for us to go to war over shrinking oil supplies. At the consumer level, supply would prevent the cost of fuel from rising, helping our economy.

End the war, help the environment, help the economy.

http://www.energyvictory.net/energy_victory_book.htm

Comment by Jay on October 18, 2008 at 6:02pm

Here is a wild idea. STOP WASTING TAX DOLLARS PAYING POLITICIANS TO CAMPAIN WHEN THET SHOUD BE DOING THE JOBS THEIR BEING PAID TO DO BACK HOME OR IN THE SENATE OR MAYBE USE THAT POLITICAL AD MONEY FOR SOME REAL AND TRUE PURPOSE THEY ARE PREACHING ACTUALLY PUT IT INTO THE ECONOMY BY BUYING WIND AND SOLAR. INSTEAD OF FILL THE AIR WAVES WITH BULLSHIT ADS AND OUR MAIL BOXES WITH JUNK MAIL. nOT TO MENTION THE JET FUEL WASTED JET SETTING AROUND THIS COUNTRY PREACHING CONSERVATION AND ENERGY EFFECIENCT POLICIES YEA RIGHT . BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS ITS ALL BESIDES THE POINT MONEY ALLREADY WASTED GETTING THERE IS GOING TO TAKE FOUR YEARS OF CONSERVATIVE POLICIES TO MAKE UP FOR WHAT THEY WASTED ALLREADY.

Comment by Will Jansen on September 8, 2008 at 11:01am

I'd like to share a slightly different view of alternative energy with my blog here

Comment by Will Jansen on August 22, 2008 at 1:26pm

Building unsinkable city size floating islands that will benefit the environment and provide affordable housing can be done today

I,m new here, just got back online..nice to meet you all. I thought you may be interested in what I propose for helping out with some of our problems. Sorry if it's too long but it's cheaper than buying my book. Appreciate any comments bout this.



Excerpt from a book called:
Electric Earth…a motor overheating
available on Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble.com


Copyright © 2003 Will Jansen

Chapter 9 Ocean land


A number of years ago, I heard a commercial by a real estate company that said, “Buy land now because they don’t make it anymore!” Well, in my simplistic way, I thought, Why not? How come they don’t make it any more? What is land? Well of course, land is something you stand on and build on! If I can make a floor and stand on it, why can’t I make land? Oh, I know, there isn’t any space left. Then I thought, well why not build land on water? There’s plenty of that around. If you build it light enough to float and build the structures on it in a similar fashion, it shouldn’t be a problem. I mean, we stand on boats don’t we? After considering this for a number of years, I came up with a basic form of “land” that could be built cheaper than you can buy regular land for.

Because of the strife between some peoples in many parts of the world, the location or the lack of land is the problem more so than the price. Many of the current problems in the world are the result of not enough land in certain areas. In some cases it is land that has historical value to the parties involved but since there does not seem to be an answer to these problems such as in the Mid-East, using the space available on the nearby water would be a sensible solution. This is space that is not in contention and is not being used by anyone. When you can provide space for building and living at an affordable price, you would be doing more than just making money or providing a neat place to live. By providing a few islands in the Mediterranean Sea or the Sea of Galilee for the Palestinians or the Israeli Settlers, things would cool down a bit. The same could be said for other hotspots in the world. An island about a mile in diameter could easily accommodate more than 4000 homes and businesses. I am sure that the Israelis and the Palestinians are spending much more money trying to maintain some sort of peace than it would cost to build some “sealand.” Living on a mobile island is like living in an RV, you can always move the Island or even your part of the Island if you don’t get along with your neighbors.


How can this be done, knowing that land needs to be rather big and stable? The best way would be to copy nature, more specifically, bees. They build pretty large structures in relation to themselves by using one basic part, or shape, and that is a hexagon. A hexagon is nature’s most efficient shape for joining parts to each other. In order to build this floating island, you would need to do it with parts that are maximum size yet still be able to be handled without the use of heavy machines. A hexagon about 10 feet in width and about 1 foot thick would be about right. This would allow each hexagon to support about 4400 pounds before it submerged, allowing for the weight of the EPS (expanded poly styrene) foam and the cement coating it would need. Joining together just 100 of these hexagons would support half a million pounds. A sizable “Island” consisting of a few thousand of these modules will accommodate a small city that can be grown as needed. This type of material is not affected by water and since cement increases its strength in water, the two together are ideal for the job. They also happen to be the two cheapest building materials available today.
The design of the basic “module” would use a simple attachment device so that as each module is produced, it can easily be attached to the one before it in the water. As for how to produce this system, a mold would allow each module to be completed with cement and attachment device when it comes out of the mold. After the fiber reinforced cement skin is allowed to cure, the module can be added to the ones before it in the water. When enough pieces are produced and attached to each other in the water, the entire production operation can be transferred to the new “land”.

The stability of this new land would depend on how big the island is. To be a true island, capable of existing on the open seas, it would need to be about a third of a mile in diameter with a beach area around it about 200 feet wide. This would be sufficient to ward off any extra large waves keeping in mind that unlike regular seashore land, the outer perimeter of this type of “land” would be able to rise up and over incoming waves. The outer fringes of the island would need to be designed somewhat differently than the interior parts to allow for wave absorbing features. In protected waters such as lakes or inland seas, much of this beach area can be used for more housing or other structures. An island of 2000 feet or so in diameter would be so stable that you would think you were on land. This type of system, when being attached to existing land in a bay or other protected waters could be whatever size you like for few or many houses or other uses. Structures put on this new land would be built using the same methods of lightweight construction used to build the land itself. A hexagon makes an ideal part to build geodesic dome shaped houses and other buildings. Dome structures are easier to build, they are stronger and a dome shaped structure is the best shape for purposes of wind resistance. They are also more efficient in terms of space versus structure than typical box like structures. Please forgive me if I am going too fast for you to get your mind around the idea of building land. What I am describing here is very “low tech” and extremely doable.

There have been other attempts to build land on the seas but they failed. They never came to be mainly because of the enormous expense involved in their construction. One design I became familiar with a few years back anticipated using large steel interconnected floatation chambers. They were quite complicated and expensive to produce and therefore the idea never got off the ground, so to speak. In order for this new land is to be seaworthy, it has to be large and it must be completely unsinkable. The method and materials I am describing fulfill these requirements

The two basic materials involved, cement and EPS foam are both non-toxic and non-polluting and are at the same time, recyclable. They are also very available. EPS is an oil product but since it is so lightweight it requires very little oil to produce large volumes of the material. Besides, if some of these things come true, we will need something for the oil companies to do.

.There needs to be a complete infrastructure incorporated into the “island.” To be entirely self contained it should have its own electrical generating systems. I say systems, plural, because there are various ways to produce energy at sea. One obvious method is to use the power of the movement of the tides and currents. Separate hexagonal “energy modules” allows for placement of relatively small water turbines, turned by the ever present moving water underneath the island. These would be rather simple water wheels attached to electrical generators that are turned by the moving currents. Individual “energy modules” would allow for placement at each house or facility that requires electricity, eliminating the need for a centralized power station or an electrical grid system.

The beauty of generating electricity on an island like this is the fact that if you can produce electricity in one place on the island, you can produce it anywhere on the island, separately or all at once because they all tap the same source. There is an additional source of energy that would be available to the island and that is called solar energy. Solar panels today have become much more efficient and cheaper and can be placed wherever required about the island and used in conjunction with other systems. Producing power at sea is inherently easier than on the old fashioned type of land. In the case of land being provided on enclosed bodies of water where currents did not run such as lakes or inland seas, existing land based energy stations could be connected to the new land to supplement the island’s energy systems if required.

While on this subject of energy production, I will also mention that these same “energy modules” would have another method of producing electricity. On the bottom of each energy module would be the “water turbines” to drive the generator while on the top would be located a “wind turbine” that could be connected to the same generator to take advantage of another of natures helpers called wind. Theses natural sources of power, wind and water, can be used either separately or both can be used at the same time.

At times it may be more advantageous to use the wind than the water for energy. One of those times may be while underway as it may be that while underway the current runs in the same direction you are going. If I didn’t mention it before, yes, the island would be able to move. What would be the use of such an island if one couldn’t take advantage of going south in the winter and north in the summer? Of course it wouldn’t move so fast that you would have to hold on to something. Something this big would travel in the neighborhood of 2 or 3 knots. It would take a while to get from say, the North Atlantic to the Caribbean but so what. You could sit in your backyard and have a barbeque or go out to a nice restaurant while you’re getting there. Some may want to do a little fishing in their backyard to pass the time. All you would need to do is lift one module up or just make a hole in it. The idea of living on an island like this is that you’re never really going somewhere when you’re going somewhere, you’re already there.

By now you probably wonder? How does something this big get “underway”? Just as there are redundant means of generating electricity, there would be various methods of propulsion depending on conditions at the time. If wind were available, which it would be most of the time, those same individual “windmills” which are used to turn the generators in each energy module would be designed to power omni directional water turbines- cum -water paddles for propulsion. Naturally, any long distance travel would be planned to take advantage of natural ocean currents. It goes without saying that an anchoring system would be available when needed.

In today’s world, Satellite navigation and meteorological information is readily available. Worldwide weather forecasting would provide ample time to avoid hurricanes. Computers would do most of the work in handling these systems. A third method that would be available to use for propulsion is the old fashioned one called sails. Retractable sails could be placed wherever and whenever it was felt they would be advantageous. Engines could be used also if it were deemed necessary. One thing to remember, on an island of this size, there is plenty of room for whatever you want or need. Also, weight is not a major consideration for something like an engine because as I mentioned before, each 10 foot module is capable of supporting over 4000 pounds. If necessary, any modules that were required to support more than that could simply be made thicker. A two foot thick module will support 8000 pounds. This is not a very complicated system. It can be modified wherever and whenever necessary, even after it is built. Just replace a few modules with whatever you like whenever you like. In the event of an island that wanted to stay in one location but may have to move occasionally, tug boats could be utilized thereby saving the cost of built in propulsion.

You could take out a few modules in your backyard to create a swimming pool and put them back in when you get tired of it or the water got too cold. A net could be fastened to the pool underneath to keep people from straying too far from the pool or to keep unwanted underwater visitors out of the pool.

While we are on the subject of pools with a net, it is also a good way to have your own little fish farm. Creative waste management would provide food for the fish to grow along with whatever natural food there would be. There are similar net fish farms producing Tuna presently in operation in coastal waters of Australia. Some modules could be allowed to accumulate barnacles and other sea growth underneath to attract fish. All the other modules can be cleaned as needed just by lifting them out periodically one at a time. Other marine foods could be developed such as oysters, crabs and certain seaweeds that are edible and nutritious. There are people that could provide knowledge about this type of thing.

Hydroponics modules would be suitable for growing vegetables and fruits. Dirt could be used as a growing medium also but it would not be as efficient as hydroponically grown food. Even trees can be planted wherever you like. I am not talking about giant oak trees and such but smaller fruit trees and the like. Water can be provided by having a certain number of modules converted to evaporation stills using the seawater underneath to condense on plastic coverings thereby providing fresh water. Modules used for planting can be covered with transparent plastic domes that would act as evaporation stills and water the plants directly as well as be a protection for the crops from the elements as a sort of self watering hothouse. Each house could designate modules for whatever type food they would like to grow. You could have one for potatoes and lettuce and your neighbor could have tomatoes and green peas which could be traded or sold amongst other neighbors, cutting down on the need for distribution systems and warehousing.
This is not very high tech; it is just another way of doing things, things that have already been done and proven. Water for the use of the island can be produced by banks of these evaporation still modules along with small osmosis plants if necessary. Another back up system for water would of course be to have water tanks modules made from the same materials as the rest of the island that could be refilled by rainwater or whenever near shore or by supply ships. Of course the island would have its own built in port so that boats and ships could visit. Naturally the island would also have its own ferry service. Small airplanes could land on the island also. The inhabitants could give tours to cruise ship passengers who might want to come “ashore” to visit the restaurants or see a show in one of the island nightclubs. A few nice motels would be there if visitors wanted to spend the night.

Some of the inhabitants of this “island city” could specialize in different foods and a trade system developed such as two oysters for one fish or something like that, or just plain 50 cents each, whatever. After a while it may be that one island could trade goods that that island specializes in with another island that is set up for a different type of product because of where it spent most of its time or the people living on it suited that particular type of product. You could have an oyster island, a hydroponics lettuce island, a chicken island or a TV set island or even a cell phone producing island. The possibilities are endless. Once a year all the islands would get together somewhere and have a big trade fair. By that time, someone would probably figure out that they needed to enlarge the Panama or the Suez Canal to allow passage of all these islands. That shouldn’t be a problem though because instead of enlarging the canal, the island itself can be made narrower by separating the island into smaller parts for the canal passage and then rejoining them on the other side.

By now you have probably noticed that I am not treating this island building idea as a fanciful subject. I feel that it will be the way human beings will have to go if we want to maintain our present population growth and the necessary shelters. Population growth is an exponential thing. The more people there are, the more babies there are, the more babies there are, and the more people there are. Learning to live on the other 70 percent of the world is the natural way for us to keep our world balanced and at the same time advance civilization. Airplanes and even cars were considered “fanciful” ideas before they got going.

I have read various stories of the fabled continent of “Atlantis” and the idea that their civilization dispersed to other parts of the world after their country disappeared. At that time the population of the world may have been such that it was advantageous to spread people around to the various continents.

The name, “Atlantis,” in its root form, to me at least, means “to the land.” By the same reasoning, the name “America,” in its root form, means, “to the sea.” The letter “A” means “to” and “mer,” means “sea.” Maybe thousands or millions of years ago the Atlantians were fated to populate the land. Today, it is possible that we are supposed to populate the oceans. I know it seems a bit of a stretch for someone just learning about the idea of being able to live on the seas, but I thought I would mention it anyway. To further strengthen the case, “Amerigo” was the original name of America.

I do not know how a city island would operate in terms of laws or regulations because there would be no laws until the folks living on it decided how things should work. In a way it would be like starting your own country. Actually, not in a way, it would be starting your own country. It is possible that a company could build such an island and sell or rent the properties on it. If this country or another one wanted to expand they could do so by claiming the island as sovereign territory, similar to how they do with ships. Current international laws of the sea allow for new countries to be established as long as they are not on existing land or islands. These considerations would be up to those involved and is admittedly beyond my expertise and knowledge.

. Building and living on islands, may seem to be a farfetched and “outlandish” idea, but when considered, it makes a lot of sense if you take into account all the benefits. This is the kind of project that could be started today. We have managed to get to the moon without any real purpose to do it and have overcome some very daunting technical challenges in doing so. We have spent untold billions of dollars and taxed many brains to figure out how to turn atoms into bombs. Neither of these endeavors has given us any real lasting improvements to the way we live our lives or for that matter helped the world in its operation. Yes, it’s true we have enjoyed some spin off benefits from these enormous efforts such as atomic power plants and space developed gadgets. These advances would have happened in any case simply by letting science progress as it always has without spending all that money for a few rocks from the moon or for bombs to kill cities at a time.
This space available to us called seas and oceans are underused and we could be living comfortably on them. If done properly and with vision, it can be accomplished in a helpful and non-polluting way. At present we live on about 15 percent of our worlds total land area because of unsuitable climates, deserts and mountains and that amounts to only about 5 percent of the earth’s surface when you count the oceans. We can learn to produce the energy we need without damaging our environment as we do now. Moving water currents, sunshine and wind are inexhaustible and limitless supplies of energy. Practically everything the inhabitants of this island could need exists on or in the oceans. We can produce the water we need by removing the salt from the limitless supplies that would lay beneath our feet and simple sunshine would do the work. What I am talking about is not pie in the sky stuff. Growing food and even keeping livestock are more than possibilities, they are entirely doable. Island fish farms, done in the right way would even reduce the depletion of our natural fish stocks because we would be feeding them as they grow. We presently take fish from the sea without feeding them. Whatever wasn’t produced on the island could be supplied by our non moving land based neighbors. Just as a city grows on regular land, sealand can be grown as needed. All you have to do is add some more modules produced by the module plant already in existence on the island. In the case of Islands built close to shore, roads can be built to the island by the use of the same basic modules.

Transportation on such an island can be accomplished rather easily since distances are not very great meaning lightweight electric cars and other vehicles would be more than suitable. Everybody could have a boat if they wanted one as the island would have docks and water roads built in simply by not putting modules wherever you wanted a water road. If you wonder how this is possible without affecting the integrity of the island, it can be done by simple underwater connection ties to take the place of a module that wasn’t there. As the island grew and things needed to be changed, moving roads or even houses can be easily accomplished by moving modules. There are really no limits to what can be done. Pretty much whatever you can think of can be built using some of the lightweight and simple methods described. We already have the technology and know-how to do whatever we want to. All we lack is to want to.

OK, so we can build these islands that allow us to live safely on the oceans of the world but what is it going to cost? Well, let’s see, an island 2000 feet in diameter for example, has 3,170,000 square feet. Of that, 200 feet of the outer perimeter would be wave absorbing beach area, which would leave 2,028,800 square feet available for building and common area. First let’s take a look at the cost of the basic 10 foot by 1 foot thick hexagon modules to make the whole island. We would need 34,870 modules for an island about a third of a mile in diameter. The perimeter modules will require a little less material than the inner area but for purpose of cost estimate I will count them the same. Because of the large amounts of EPS involved and the molding method that would be used to create these modules, it would be worthwhile to blow your own foam, that is, expand the basic poly-styrene in the mold. This is very similar to how they make a typical inexpensive Styrofoam ice cooler that you buy to keep your soda or beer cool when you go to the beach. Some little pellets are pre-expanded with steam and then put in a mold and with steam, expanded again and out pops the cooler. It is a very clean process and no gasses are emitted or pollutants put into the atmosphere. This same process would apply to the modules except that there would be a ½ inch layer of fiber reinforced lightweight cement sprayed on the inside of the mold first along with the placement of the attachment devices. After a few minutes of cure time the module is “popped out” and stacked ready for joining to the rest of the island. It sounds simple because it is. Of course to produce 34,870 modules you would probably need more than one mold, depending on how fast you want to build the island.

Based on current prices at a wholesale level, it would cost between $2 and $3 dollars a square foot to produce the modules including labor if you had about 10 molds set up in a production line fashion. It would take less than six months to build the island. If you wanted it to go faster you would need more molds. The majority of the work would be done by production machinery. Attachment devices, properly designed, would only take a few minutes to attach each one to the others already in the water. This whole process would take place in a bay or other protected water until it was big enough to take offshore. At this time you would already have some infrastructure installed and production would be taking place on the island itself. Based on these figures and needing about 35,000 modules the cost of the island itself without any houses or infrastructure would be about 15 million dollars. I have included the cost of the molds and production machinery such as cement and cement sprayers, conveyer belts, steam generators, etc! I then rounded off the number to keep it simple. So far we have, or better said need, about 15 million dollars.

Let’s see about how many houses can comfortably fit on such an island. We have 2,028,800 square feet to work with when we deduct the 200 foot beach. Let’s arbitrarily assign about 40% of this space to common areas for some streets, some business space, infrastructure and some administrative structures. That leaves us with 1,217,280 square feet of space for housing. Some of this space could be for condo type residences and some for detached homes. Some could be two stories and some one story. I cannot say how it would be, that would be up to professional city planners. For purposes of coming up with a figure to work with I will say that you can comfortably put 500 homes on this island. Some would be separate houses of various sizes and some could be condo type residences.

I understand the average price of a home in the United States is at about $200,000 dollars. It seems fair to me that a home on the water would command this average price, but let’s just say $100,000 each in case the housing market drops by the time this island gets built. At $100,000 average each, this produces an income of $ 50,000,000 dollars. Deduct $15,000,000 dollars for the cost of the island itself and you have $35,000,000 dollars left. The homes and other structures will be constructed of the same type hexagons made from the same molds except that they don’t have to be a foot thick whereas 6 inches thick will suffice. The molds can be adapted with separators to form triangles for the geodesic dome construction. It will cost only about $30,000 dollars per average house with about 1000 square feet of living space. The cost of about 20 mold “pops,” which is enough to provide the basic dome parts for one house is about $5000 dollars; the rest of the $30,000 dollars is for the utilities, HVAC and labor to assemble and finish. Don’t forget, the foundation and floor is already there, This would also include the energy module for each house which would cost about $3000 dollars each or less because there would be so many of them. We now need about $15,000,000 to produce the houses, so that leaves $20,000,000 dollars. Take out about $5,000,000 dollars for some infrastructure and you have a profit of $15,000,000 dollars. Not too shabby, considering much of the work is in producing the same part.

These numbers are only intended to show that the cost of building in this fashion is very low and the project is a viable one. I haven’t even included the profit from the building of business structures. Once production is set up on the island, there would be no reason why the island corporation or city state or whatever it would be called couldn’t continue selling the houses for use by landlubbers. For that matter, once the island was established and in production, other islands or even land to attach to regular land could be produced and sold. I am sure there is a market, especially worldwide

Comment by Larry Poteete on July 15, 2008 at 5:04am

It seems everybody forgot or never saw a duck that worked for free. Am I the only one come lately that saw a machine powered by room temperature back in the 60's. Did anyone see it besides me, the duck that dipped its beak into a glass of water and then lifted back up until the bowl ran out of water? I have a more update idea on that one, surely I'm not the only one.

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