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Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?

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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by Weird Harold   » Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:14 pm

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Castenea wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:Since Charis is an Island -- an the Empire of Charis is a collection of Islands -- what applications of Tidal Power might be found?


Best application until the proscriptions are lifted is undershot waterwheel.


How would the power be transmitted to the working location, or are you proposing build factories on/over tidal flats?
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by AirTech   » Thu Jan 01, 2015 9:14 pm

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Castenea wrote:
Weird Harold wrote:Since Charis is an Island -- an the Empire of Charis is a collection of Islands -- what applications of Tidal Power might be found?

Electrical Generation after the proscriptions are lifted, of course, but is there any potential for earlier?

Best application untill the proscriptions are lifted is undershot waterwheel. Even after proscriptions are lifted, it is a lot of capital invested for power at best 1/3 of the time.


Or rip the standard water wheels out and replace with a Pelton or Kaplan Turbine - less water used more mechanical power out. Cast steel or Bronze makes higher speeds possible than timber or fabricated construction.
Charis is already using these in their steel mills so putting them in existing mill buildings will permit operation with less water flow (or more output with the same water flow).
Another possibility could be hydraulically driven appliances - lifts & cranes to start with. The compact size of a small turbine makes this possible, or if the supply pressure is high enough hydraulic motors. (Or combine the two and build high pressure hydraulic amplifiers.
The other toy that Charis can now build is hydraulic ram pumps (no, not what everyone now calls a hydraulic ram but a water hammer driven water distribution pump - needs good cast steel to handle the high discharge pressures).
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by Castenea   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:38 am

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Weird Harold wrote:How would the power be transmitted to the working location, or are you proposing build factories on/over tidal flats?

User of the power would need to be on or adjacent to the tidal flats, since the power transmission tech available without electricity is limited. Most likely location of user of said power is at one end of the dam.
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by Weird Harold   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 10:07 am

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Castenea wrote:User of the power would need to be on or adjacent to the tidal flats, since the power transmission tech available without electricity is limited. Most likely location of user of said power is at one end of the dam.


Perhaps a tidal water wheel/turbine could power pumps to fill a "hydro-accumulator some distance from the shore with sea water? That would permit a bit more flexibility in location and structure for whatever industry you needed power for.

How Firm a Foundation wrote:The huge tower rose fifty feet into the air. A trio of blast furnaces clustered around it, and on the far side, a long, broad structure—a workshop of some sort—stretched into the night. The workshop was two stories tall, its walls pierced by vast expanses of windows to take advantage of natural light during the day. Now those windows glowed with internal light, spilling from lanterns and interspersed with frequent, far brighter bursts of glare from furnaces and forges within it.

“In another couple of months, I’ll have nine of them up and running,” Howsmyn continued. “I’d like to have more, honestly, but at that point we’ll be getting close to the capacity the river can supply. I’ve considered running an aqueduct from the mountains to increase supply, but frankly an aqueduct big enough to supply even one accumulator would be far too expensive. It’d tie up too much manpower I need elsewhere, for that matter. Instead, I’m looking at the possibility of using windmills to pump from the lake, although there are some technical issues there, too.”
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Answers! I got lots of answers!

(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:16 pm

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Weird Harold wrote:
Castenea wrote:User of the power would need to be on or adjacent to the tidal flats, since the power transmission tech available without electricity is limited. Most likely location of user of said power is at one end of the dam.


Perhaps a tidal water wheel/turbine could power pumps to fill a "hydro-accumulator some distance from the shore with sea water? That would permit a bit more flexibility in location and structure for whatever industry you needed power for.

How Firm a Foundation wrote:The huge tower rose fifty feet into the air. A trio of blast furnaces clustered around it, and on the far side, a long, broad structure—a workshop of some sort—stretched into the night. The workshop was two stories tall, its walls pierced by vast expanses of windows to take advantage of natural light during the day. Now those windows glowed with internal light, spilling from lanterns and interspersed with frequent, far brighter bursts of glare from furnaces and forges within it.

“In another couple of months, I’ll have nine of them up and running,” Howsmyn continued. “I’d like to have more, honestly, but at that point we’ll be getting close to the capacity the river can supply. I’ve considered running an aqueduct from the mountains to increase supply, but frankly an aqueduct big enough to supply even one accumulator would be far too expensive. It’d tie up too much manpower I need elsewhere, for that matter. Instead, I’m looking at the possibility of using windmills to pump from the lake, although there are some technical issues there, too.”

Is there any textev on the subject of moons around Safehold? I assume that there is one, or the tides would be small (solar tides only). If so, and there is a shallow bay like the Bay of Fundy in Canada, you could get some very large tides, which would make this a likely power source. The reason I ask, is that current theories of the formation of Earth's moon indicate that it should be a fairly rare occurrence that you have a planet with a moon 1/4 of its own diameter.
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by PeterZ   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:27 pm

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I believe the are more than one and they give much more light than Terra experiences.
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:32 pm

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PeterZ wrote:I believe the are more than one and they give much more light than Terra experiences.

Do we know if it is due to a higher albedo, or greater size?
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 4:48 pm

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Only one Moon has been mentioned. David Weber has said that it's both larger than our Moon and has a higher albedo.

fallsfromtrees wrote:
PeterZ wrote:I believe the are more than one and they give much more light than Terra experiences.

Do we know if it is due to a higher albedo, or greater size?
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by fallsfromtrees   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 6:19 pm

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PeterZ wrote:I believe the are more than one and they give much more light than Terra experiences.
fallsfromtrees wrote:Do we know if it is due to a higher albedo, or greater size?

DrakBibliophile wrote:Only one Moon has been mentioned. David Weber has said that it's both larger than our Moon and has a higher albedo.
DrakBibliophile wrote:Only one Moon has been mentioned. David Weber has said that it's both larger than our Moon and has a higher albedo.

Is that in one of the info dumps, or was it in a post from before when I joined the forum? Is it possible to give a pointer to the info? Thanks
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The only problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't authenticate them -- Abraham Lincoln
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Re: Anybody know anything about Solar or Geothermal energy?
Post by DrakBibliophile   » Fri Jan 02, 2015 8:25 pm

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It's a post David Weber made on Tue Oct 14, 2014 4:41 pm in a thread titled "The Moon and the Lizard".


fallsfromtrees wrote:
DrakBibliophile wrote:Only one Moon has been mentioned. David Weber has said that it's both larger than our Moon and has a higher albedo.

Is that in one of the info dumps, or was it in a post from before when I joined the forum? Is it possible to give a pointer to the info? Thanks
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