trevorjohnson32 Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 I have a patent that involves creating electricity from explosives and gravity. I was just wondering if anyone has heard of any other ideas to create electricity from explosives. There are three basic concepts. The first basic concept is to blast a cannonball up into the air catch it where gravity pauses it then use the weight of the cannonball to pull down on an elevator type generator until the ball is back to where you shot it from at which point you can re load the cannon and start the process all over again. So you re using explosives as the fuel in the system. The second method is instead of using a cannonball as the weight you can fill the cannon with water and blast the water weight into the air which I ve experimented with using fireworks as the explosive and a soup can in the ground as the cannon and I observed that an explosion set off inside a water cannon squeezes the water inside against the walls of the cannon causing the water to shoot straight up pretty high into the air . Now one of the advantages of using a water cannon is you can build it several hundred feet wide and deep enabling one to use a much larger explosive say a fission or fusion explosive to clear the water out. And yet another method in the patent involves pre cutting the earth in a way that you can detonate an underground explosive and pop the piece of pre cut material right out of the ground ,a generator could then be operated lowering the weight or other weight back into the ground. I ve also proven this works using fireworks and it works really well comparing the weight to the crater i made with a fireworks surface blast. This method could make use of hundreds of millions even billions of killowatts from a single fusion explosive. This method also has limited amount of fallout because the single piece of precut material absorbs most of the blast energy related to fallout. this would be important if using a fission primary fusion explosive to remove the piece of earth. so anyone can look up the full patent by google searching trevor hawthorne and patentscope Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwagen Posted November 13, 2015 Share Posted November 13, 2015 (edited) There are three basic concepts. The first basic concept is to blast a cannonball up into the air catch it where gravity pauses it then use the weight of the cannonball to pull down on an elevator type generator until the ball is back to where you shot it from at which point you can re load the cannon and start the process all over again. So you re using explosives as the fuel in the system.How much energy does it take to shoot the cannonball, and how much energy will you get back from the lift coming down? The second method is instead of using a cannonball as the weight you can fill the cannon with water and blast the water weight into the air which I ve experimented with using fireworks as the explosive and a soup can in the ground as the cannon and I observed that an explosion set off inside a water cannon squeezes the water inside against the walls of the cannon causing the water to shoot straight up pretty high into the air . Now one of the advantages of using a water cannon is you can build it several hundred feet wide and deep enabling one to use a much larger explosive say a fission or fusion explosive to clear the water out. I'm not sure exactly what you mean here, but the question remains pretty much the same - how much energy does it take to shoot the water, and how much are you getting back from the soup can? Can you see any experimental error margins when using fireworks and soup cans? And yet another method in the patent involves pre cutting the earth in a way that you can detonate an underground explosive and pop the piece of pre cut material right out of the ground Pre cut material of what, exactly? This method could make use of hundreds of millions even billions of killowatts from a single fusion explosive. Care to show your calculations using fireworks so we can compare that to a fusion reaction? This method also has limited amount of fallout because the single piece of precut material absorbs most of the blast energy related to fallout. One of the problems of fusion reactors is containing the energy. Could you clarify exactly how you'll harness the energy if most of it is absorbed in this precut material? Edited November 13, 2015 by pwagen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 Haha! well I ll try to answer your question anyways. The experiments I did compared the displaced weight of a fireworks surface blast to the displaced weights of a piece of pre cut rock in the ground and the weight of the water removed from a soup can. My estimates on efficiency's are 40+% for the cannonball, 2-18% for water cannon, and 5-10% for the pre-cutting the earth method. That means if you used a 10 billion kilowatt explosive to remove a piece of pre cut earth at 5% efficiency then you could gain back that energy by lowering weight into the cavity made and get 5% of 10 billion kilowatts which is 500 million kw which is at twelve cents a kw right now. The United States carried out a program for peaceful uses of nuclear explosives from the 1950's to the 1980's called Project Plowshare. They conducted several thousand test experiments with underground explosives and cratering mainly to build ports for ships. Previous ideas for the use of nuclear explosions to generate electricity were to gather the heat from them by setting them off in abandoned mines filled with water and to try to boil the water. The basic concept of weight displacement power plants is not to gather heat but to gather kinetic energy in weight being blasted against the force of gravity then convert that energy stored in the weight into electricity by lowering the weight back down. One day along with fusion lasers these systems will help replace fossil fuels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 I have a patent that involves creating electricity from explosives and gravity. ... anyone can look up the full patent by google searching trevor hawthorne and patentscope I found some patent applications, but nothing that was granted. Perhaps you could just post the links? However, I'm skeptical. You repeatedly use power (kw) where the proper unit would be energy (e.g. kw-hr), which is a novice mistake. You don't measure explosive energy in kw, and you don't charge for electricity according to the power. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 15, 2015 Author Share Posted November 15, 2015 Yeah, there's still another two to three years to go in the patent application before its granted. I'm fairly confident though from the examiner's report that I 'll be rewarded the grant. This is the first time I ve ever tried forums to talk about the invention. I'm happy to see so many views and responses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Cuthber Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 Do you understand that getting a patent does not mean that the idea works? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sensei Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 (edited) The experiments I did compared the displaced weight of a fireworks surface blast to the displaced weights of a piece of pre cut rock in the ground and the weight of the water removed from a soup can. My estimates on efficiency's are 40+% for the cannonball, 2-18% for water cannon, and 5-10% for the pre-cutting the earth method. Show calculations.. That means if you used a 10 billion kilowatt explosive to remove a piece of pre cut earth at 5% efficiency then you could gain back that energy by lowering weight into the cavity made and get 5% of 10 billion kilowatts which is 500 million kw which is at twelve cents a kw right now. kilo watt is not unit of energy.. The United States carried out a program for peaceful uses of nuclear explosives from the 1950's to the 1980's called Project Plowshare. They conducted several thousand test experiments with underground explosives and cratering mainly to build ports for ships. One of the stupidest ideas I heard about.. Inevitable contamination.. Now you have results. Cancers everywhere. Do you understand that getting a patent does not mean that the idea works? If they will reject patent, he will lose money few thousands $. If they will accept patent, he will have to spend something like $10+ more, and more for maintaining it, year by year.. And then if nobody will be interested in patent, he will never have return.. Edited November 15, 2015 by Sensei Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Endy0816 Posted November 15, 2015 Share Posted November 15, 2015 (edited) I think this is one of those cases where it could technically work, but that it would be impractical to implemenent. Three were some crazy ideas early on. Nuclear grenades and the Mobile Nuclear Reactor programs. Edited November 15, 2015 by Endy0816 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 17, 2015 Author Share Posted November 17, 2015 yeah but it works with an efficiency of 2-40%. Show me just one other example of a fusion fueled power generating system with those types of efficiency's. You can't. You know why? cause there are none! Edward Teller couldn't think of one. His idea was to collect heat from explosions with circulating a type of salt inside a closed steel container. wikipedia's idea is to use abandoned mines filled with water to try to collect heat. No one has ever thought to convert blast energy into kinetic energy stored in the weight into electricity before.This system will still be used for thousands, even millions of years from now in combination with lasers. And at raw material cost I seriously doubt the energy required to do refining and cutting and the cost of the materials would add up to be more then the energy you create from using the described method. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrP Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Got to ask..... Why blow a thing up in the air and use it's falling to turn a turbine? This seems a massive waste. Why not harness the power from the explosion itself to drive a motor? Like in an engine? There will be so much wasted energy in the initial explosion that propels the ball/water/lump of ground upwards that it would not be worth the effort. Just use the potential of the chemical energy straight off - rather than converting into a mixture of heat, sound, light and KE to get your mass up to a level where it has potential energy again which you are planning to use as the mass falls back to earth. You have done a lot of work for absolutely no reason. So, why? Also - I saw a good documentary the other day regarding Russian experiments with Tokamaks and new modern super conducting magnets - they are well confident that the new ITER will not only be an experiment, but a full working demonstration of fusion power running solidly at much better than break even. It all looked very promising. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansont Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 yeah but it works with an efficiency of 2-40%. Show me just one other example of a fusion fueled power generating system with those types of efficiency's. You can't. You know why? cause there are none! You imply you have a fusion reactor working. Where is it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 17, 2015 Author Share Posted November 17, 2015 weights of different materials displaced by a firework: dirt from surface blast 1.5 oz, pre cut piece of rock 10 oz, water from a can 7oz The weight removed doesn't include collecting any of the blast energy using gravity which is a big step up in efficiency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrP Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Problem is it wastes a heck of a lot of energy during the explosion... why not harness that itself? Seems very inefficient to me. Why not use the heat and shockwave of the blast to generate electricity? I bet that would generate more than you will get back by blasting a rock in the air... and honestly, how are you then going to harness the potential energy/KE of the rock on the way back down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 17, 2015 Author Share Posted November 17, 2015 It's a system that uses fusion, not a reactor. The reaction occurs in the explosive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrP Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 So what? It still seems like a massive waste of energy... it sounds dangerous too. My questions still stand - why bother wasting all that energy in an explosion; and if you do go down that route then why waste the explosive energy chucking a rock in the air? Why not drive a piston directly with it? (I suspect you can't as it is too big an explosion to be controlled/harnessed in this way). Also - how are you harnessing the power of this falling rock? Seriously - watch out for ITER and the subsequent fusion power stations that I hope will be inspired by it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 17, 2015 Author Share Posted November 17, 2015 The cannonball system is totally different then a car engine. It's like comparing a solar panel to a wind turbine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phi for All Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 The cannonball system is totally different then a car engine. It's like comparing a solar panel to a wind turbine. Since we don't know how you plan to use the power of the cannonball, it's hard to compare anything. The explosion seems too uncontrolled as you've explained it, but does seem more like an internal combustion system than a solar panel seems like a wind turbine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACG52 Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 If you're using a fusion explosion its far more likely to be propelling atomized dust up into the air, rather than rock. There's no way to moderate a fusion explosion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrP Posted November 17, 2015 Share Posted November 17, 2015 Also - just to go with it for a sec - if you are going to utilise the motion of the falling object to make energy, then you might as well use it on the way up also. . But to echo one of the questions above again.... How is it supposed to work? It still sounds terminally inefficient and very messy. I'm trying to find that Rusian ITER you tube vid I saw - it was inspiring. I'll share it here if I find it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 Yeah I m not 100% on the efficiency's, my estimates are based on the known efficiency of a surface blast, all I know is that all three methods worked as I predicted and they all removed more weight then a surface blast. and I thought about firing weight into a loop to circulate it around, then the energy can be gathered using any number of devices, levers, a turnstyle that extends through the loop, coupled with spring or weight batteries to store the sudden burst of energy, but I decided the idea of firing weight into any system would cause too much wear and tear on that system, considering the average bullet travels at 2500 ft/sec. Allowing the weight to gather kinetic energy firing it into nothing and then catching it was a superior idea. You could also fire the weight directly into a spring without the loop, but again wear and tear. Thanks for your interest Dr.P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrP Posted November 19, 2015 Share Posted November 19, 2015 (edited) You could also fire the weight directly into a spring without the loop, but again wear and tear. Thanks for your interest Dr.P No problem sir. I was thinking some kind of spring too, nearly mentioned it but It wouldn't really be great. With the cost of the bomb you would not get enough of the energy converted back to get your money's worth... and it still sounds way too dangerous, lol. I think you might be under estimating the amount of 'wear and tear' a nuclear fusion bomb is going to create. ;-) Edited November 19, 2015 by DrP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trevorjohnson32 Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 Oh yeah, I can barely imagine it in a system maybe only 10 uses or so as landmark use of billions of kilowatts of fusion which is my bad habit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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