Gravity as an energy source?

[swansont]

Hey dude, you can. Where I work, there is an environment exhibition and they've got one with a portion of a dance floor that absorbs energy with springs. They use that energy to play music and use the lights.

 

The problem with this is that the energy conversion is going through humans, and that's incredibly inefficient and has a large environmental impact. It's camouflaged: it looks "green" but when you look closely, it really isn't. In terms of environmental impact, humans are more like batteries — a storage medium — than a source.

[ercdndrs]

Hydroelectric has lots of environmental problems, from release of greenhouse gasses to environmental disruption. Most environmentalists are looking to decrease our use of hydroelectric from damns.

 

Hm, yeah, coal burning plants are really that much better

 

As far as I know the amount of greenhouse gases produced from hydro dams is negligible, and after the initial filling of the resevoir there really isn't much to complain about from the environmental point of view.

[Moontanman]

Hm, yeah, coal burning plants are really that much better

 

As far as I know the amount of greenhouse gases produced from hydro dams is negligible, and after the initial filling of the resevoir there really isn't much to complain about from the environmental point of view.

 

Well ercdndrs you would be mistaken, dam methane emissions is the largest source of human generated methane gas and a huge amount of CO2. Dams disrupt the ecosystem and negatively impact a great many fish species, some of them commercially valuable but all valuable in their contribution to the diversity of the ecosystem.

 

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/383

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impacts_of_dams

 

Many very large fish are impacted to the point of extinction, the Chinese paddlefish are now gone, the largest freshwater fish the world, many sturgeon species are going extinct due largely to dams, herring, shad, trout, salmon, the list of negatively impacted species is very long.

 

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/1545

 

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~lpohara/Pol%20116/enviro.html

 

Earthquakes can be triggered by dams.

 

http://www.internationalrivers.org/en/node/3845

 

 

:doh:

[ercdndrs]

Huh, never knew that. How do dams produce greenhouse gases?

 

Also, while I understand how big dam projects like the three gorges one in China (extinction of Chinese paddlefish?) will majorly screw up the surrounding ecosystems, smaller dams (I live downstream from one) don't seem to have that much of an impact.

[Moontanman]

Huh, never knew that. How do dams produce greenhouse gases?

 

Also, while I understand how big dam projects like the three gorges one in China (extinction of Chinese paddlefish?) will majorly screw up the surrounding ecosystems, smaller dams (I live downstream from one) don't seem to have that much of an impact.

 

Any damn has an impact, I have a friend who lives in the mountains, he put a dam across a small creek that only flow a few months out of the year. He wanted a small pond but above the dam quickly filled up with sediment but it prevented small fishes called chubs from coming up stream to spawn, the ecology above the dam has changed drastically. with out the annul up stream spawning the population of various organisms changed.

 

Worms and crustaceans now dominate water that used to be filled with small fishes but most importantly the water is now filled with the larvae of biting insects and crayfish that crawl out on land at night and eat the new shoots of plants, even in his garden.

 

The new large population of crayfish has attracted raccoons and possums that also eat his chickens and destroy his property in other ways. He is going to have to to hire a dozer to come in and dig out his small dam to bring things back into balance.

 

This is an extreme example that amazed even me but all changes have consequences, some are more obvious than others. But even small streams can be important for large organisms to spawn and if they are denied this they die out in that particular watershed.

 

many runs of salmon have been destroyed by small dams even fish like sturgeon can be effected by a small dam.

 

Dams cause methane release by allowing vegetation to rot in anoxic conditions. The links i provided explain this in detail.

 

BTW, yes, the three gorges dam has pretty much clinched the extinction of the Chinese paddlefish by preventing them from have access to the entire river, stopping them from spawning in the head waters or traveling to the feeding grounds of the lower river. The Chinese paddle fish is an extremely good food fish and was historically presented to the emperor as tribute. But thanks to the three gorges dam it is gone forever, the largest freshwater fish on the planet, 23 feet of piscavore, gone, forever. Several other fish an alligator and a dolphin are also endangered by this one damn.

 

This sort of thing has or is happening all over the world, here in North America we have destroyed many runs of fish and endangered many others by even small dams, out own sturgeon and paddle fish are also endangered by these dams.

 

The environs around dams is also negatively impacted by dams, the links I provided explain it much better than I can.

Edited April 10, 2010 by Moontanman

[Double K]

Not that I have any idea of the method required, or if it's even possible, although I would assume theoretically it is...

 

You would need to create a singularity. Something so dense that it has a large gravitational force assosciated with it. Of course creating this would require alot of energy - and unless you somehow got hold of some strange space rock with enourmous density the only way to even think about going close would be to collide 2 things (lets start with particles) AKA Hadron Collider. Assuming you could cause these 2 particles to fuse and retain the huge amount of energy generated by colliding high density particles at high speed after accellerating them to ludicrous speed then I believe you could create some semblence of a singularity.

 

Once you have that the next problem is working out how to generate power from it...Maybe some kind of perpetual motion..The main problem with power is that batteries at present are terrible at storing power, capacitors are not as terrible but are short term storage devices. So then the problem of not only capturing but then storing the power arises...You just have to look at photovoltaic cells and batteries they charge to see how bad the losses are from this...

 

I think calling gravity a weak force is underestimating it's potential tho - yes pun intended...

 

The force of gravity is proportional to the mass of an object and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the objects

 

Of course this is ALL speculative

[holomatrix]

Yea. Keep in mind that much of the energy used in the system was you hauling the weigt up the tree. The coeffeicent of gravity in the (newtonian) equation [math] F=G frac{m_{1} m_{2}}{d^2}[/math] is

[math]G =6.68 rm x 10^{-11}[/math]

and for electromagnet force in the equation [math] F=k frac{Q_{1} Q_{2}}{d^2}[/math] it is like

[math]k = 8.988 rm x 10^9[/math].

Gravity is a very weak force.

the power can be amplified

[Klaynos]

the power can be amplified

 

You cannot magically generate energy.

[swansont]

the power can be amplified

 

Unfortunately it takes power to amplify power.

[hotdrixz]

i have an idea converting gravity with the help of a mass to electricity, but not yet perpetual, i made a motor run by gravity + mass for quite some time. but i think i can run it for 6hrs or more and then going to perpetual hopefully..

Edited November 4, 2010 by hotdrixz

[RSIG610902@AOL.COM]

what do you mean the amount of gravity depends on forces in connection? gravity IS a force it self, so what's the connection?

 

gravity is significant when massive objects are involved, but the point is that you can't use gravity to do work unless you first store it as potentioal enegry. And the storing process is a work it self so the catch is that the entire process would not turn out to be efficient.

 

But what i am most curious about at this point is that, how would you go about generating electricity from gravity?

 

GRAVITY TO ELECTRICAL GENERATION?

PRETTY SIMPLE...PICTURE A BOAT BOBBING OVER THE WAVES IN AN OCEAN..

PICTURE THIS SAME BOAT BOBBING OVER THE WAVES IN AN OCEAN WITH A STRONG WIND.

NOW USE THIS ENERGY...STYROFOAM FLOAT AFFIXED TO A POLE HELD IN PLACE BY BURYING IT IN CONCRETE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, LAKE ETC...

OR SOMETHING SIMILAR LIKE AN AIR FILLED BALL, THAT CAN SLIDE UP AND DOWN THE POLE...A LARGE BALL, HEAVY YET FLOATS, CONNECTED TO AN ARM MAYBE, LIKE A ROCKER ARM IN AN ENGINE THAT DRIVES THE GENERATOR...

VERY MUCH THE SAME MECHANICALS THAT ARE USUED FOR OIL FIELD PUMPS..

WELL? CAN IT WORK..

WOULD LIKE TO HEAR BACK FROM THE EDUCATED ENGINEERS OUT THERE..

[swansont]

No need to shout. Put the ALLCAPS down

[Hearts]

GRAVITY TO ELECTRICAL GENERATION?

PRETTY SIMPLE...PICTURE A BOAT BOBBING OVER THE WAVES IN AN OCEAN..

PICTURE THIS SAME BOAT BOBBING OVER THE WAVES IN AN OCEAN WITH A STRONG WIND.

NOW USE THIS ENERGY...STYROFOAM FLOAT AFFIXED TO A POLE HELD IN PLACE BY BURYING IT IN CONCRETE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE OCEAN, LAKE ETC...

OR SOMETHING SIMILAR LIKE AN AIR FILLED BALL, THAT CAN SLIDE UP AND DOWN THE POLE...A LARGE BALL, HEAVY YET FLOATS, CONNECTED TO AN ARM MAYBE, LIKE A ROCKER ARM IN AN ENGINE THAT DRIVES THE GENERATOR...

VERY MUCH THE SAME MECHANICALS THAT ARE USUED FOR OIL FIELD PUMPS..

WELL? CAN IT WORK..

WOULD LIKE TO HEAR BACK FROM THE EDUCATED ENGINEERS OUT THERE..

 

My father once told me that fishermen use to tie their boats to poles at high tide. Then at low tide, the weight of the boat(s) will drag the pole down, pushing it into the seabed. They would repeat this process untill the pole got in as deep as they like. Why would they do that? I never asked, prolly so that they have something to tie their boats to or to construct a shaky house/restaurant later on.

Edited February 17, 2011 by Hearts

[insane_alien]

The point of this thread is to use gravity as an energy source, that does not show the generation of energy from gravity.

 

gravity just plays an intermediate role in much the same way a shaft in a turbine transmits energy, you wouldn't say that nuclear power plants get their energy from the turbine shat would you?

 

a turbine shaft on its own isn't going to get you any energy at all.

 

with the tides what you are doing is extracting energy from the moon and the rotation of the earth, a tiny tiny bit but still thats where it's coming from.

[einherjer]

First time poster, and I have no formal education; however, I do have a question.

 

Regarding gravity as a power source:

 

The planet Europa orbits Jupiter within it's immense gravitational field. Europa also feels gravitational effects from other Jovian moons, which creates heat energy.

 

I understand that Einstein said "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch" or something to that effect with regards to energy, but where's the x-factor? Why couldn't infinite energy be harnessed out of 2 objects with an appreciable amount of gravity not orbit some massive, stellar hunk of magnet and copper wire and get an infinite supply of energy from it?

[lemur]

Hydroelectric dams may provide energy seemingly from gravity, but in reality is it gravity that is the ultimate source or the solar energy that evaporates the water into the clouds that rain water into the rivers that propel the dams as they flow to the ocean? Gravity may be the mechanism/medium, but the sun is the source.

[einherjer]

@Lemur: I'm not sure what that had to do with my question, or what significant contribution it had to the thread beyond what was already stated.

[Klaynos]

Einherjer, the energy comes from the orbits. They will be decaying slowly, so no free lunch and it won't go on forever.

[einherjer]

could the orbits not be be situated, perhaps by additional orbits of "moons" or something to keep the orbit from decay, or would you not be able to get a favorable EROEI?

 

I would think it would be possible (theoretically, at least) to get a perfect "non-decaying orbit" if it was possible to crunch all the numbers with enough accuracy to where the orbiters neither moved further or nearer with each orbit.

Edited May 11, 2011 by einherjer

[swansont]

No, not if energy is being lost to tidal interactions.

[Shemamforash]

OK heres one that has stumped me and my friends. As we don't know how universes form with complete certainty lets imagine that spontaneous generation of matter IS what happens. Imagine a small universe containing two tennis balls set one metre apart. They have absolutely no energy or magnetism, only a very weak gravitational field. They are completely motinless in this small universe. After so long they would eventually attract towards eachother and collide.

Energy from nothing!?

Obviously this is theoretical but it would illustrate a point?

 

Thanks guys

[swansont]

OK heres one that has stumped me and my friends. As we don't know how universes form with complete certainty lets imagine that spontaneous generation of matter IS what happens. Imagine a small universe containing two tennis balls set one metre apart. They have absolutely no energy or magnetism, only a very weak gravitational field. They are completely motinless in this small universe. After so long they would eventually attract towards eachother and collide.

Energy from nothing!?

Obviously this is theoretical but it would illustrate a point?

 

Thanks guys

Two masses 1m apart have potential energy and that PE is negative. As the objects get closer the PE decreases. That's where the KE comes from.

[Moonrec]

All the system energy was put in by me. My work was stored as potential energy in ft.lbs, then released as I wished. I had much fun in determining sticktion, friction, pulley and gear efficiency, generator efficiency, and relative efficiency of electrical storage devices. I handcut the gears myself, too, very tedious!

 

 

It might sound tedious to build a specific purpose machine, but don't give up. The gravity is there, as long as there is mass. But we need to think beyond gravity here folks. There are a lot more sources of energy in nature, so, we can combine them! Lets see, we use the gravity to pull down and generate power while we use solar or wind power to charge a system to pull the load back to the original position. This way, we keep both systems separate and renewable.

[DrRocket]

Of course that's really solar power moving the water to the high elevation.

 

And it is gravity that caused the agglomeration of materials that we call the sun and that resulted in the conditions of temperature and pressure that are conducive to fusion, and that continues to be a major factor in the physics of that star.

[Kole Govind]

Sorry if this has already been posted, but this has been bugging me for a while and a search didn't turn up anything. We keep talking about alternative energy sources everywhere when there is a constant energy around us all the time. What I want to know is, could gravity be used as a feasible source of energy?

 

Gravity is megapower energy source, Gravity energy is continue same level, naturally & free energy.

gravity energy is better than wind, water & solar. machanical energy can get from gravity energy machine. lot of electricity can get from machanical energy. No support of magnetic power.

If help me any research centre i can make gravity energy machine succesfully.