It's raining... energy?

Producing electric current from drops of water:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/07/raindrops-energy.html

Originally posted by Crowley
Producing electric current from drops of water:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/02/07/raindrops-energy.html

raindrops are small ... so they have high frictional losses with the air ... their terminal velocity will be low ... they will not have much energy unless we can capture huge numbers of them. ... nice story - but not much energy.

Rain has has a lot of energy in it, from whitch we can harvest energy.
Let the rain flow, down the hill sides, down to a river. Block the river so you get a higher level of the water. Let the water flow down pipes with a heavy force. Lead the water into propellers and you have rotational movements. Align this with generators and you can get a lot of energy out of it. Starts with a rain, ends with a lot of electrical energy. Then lead the electrical energy to the cities, and voilá!

What? Not my idea? What? It is called hydrodynamic powerplants? Oh, I had no idea... I thought I came up with this invention...

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Rain has has a lot of energy in it, from whitch we can harvest energy.
Let the rain flow, down the hill sides, down to a river. Block the river so you get a higher level of the water. Let the water flow down pipes with a heavy force. Lead the water into propellers and you have rotational movements. Align this with generators and you can get a lot of ener ...[text shortened]... called hydrodynamic powerplants? Oh, I had no idea... I thought I came up with this invention...

yours is a more powerful invention .... in the link they talk about using the kinetic energy of raindrops before they pool together ...

Originally posted by flexmore
yours is a more powerful invention .... in the link they talk about using the kinetic energy of raindrops before they pool together ...

Of course, doing one doesn't stop you from doing the other. If it works.

Originally posted by flexmore
yours is a more powerful invention .... in the link they talk about using the kinetic energy of raindrops before they pool together ...

Then it will not work. You can't get much energy out of raindrops.
We are not talking about E=mc2 here, are we?

Originally posted by flexmore
raindrops are small ... so they have high frictional losses with the air ... their terminal velocity will be low ... they will not have much energy unless we can capture huge numbers of them. ... nice story - but not much energy.

The article explains that the power 'harvested' does not meet even household demands, but their applications are perfectly suited for pipe flow-meters etc. where batteries can be a hassle.

Originally posted by Crowley
The article explains that the power 'harvested' does not meet even household demands, but their applications are perfectly suited for pipe flow-meters etc. where batteries can be a hassle.

why not get a just a tiny little power from the flow ?

Originally posted by FabianFnas
Then it will not work. You can't get much energy out of raindrops.
We are not talking about E=mc2 here, are we?

i think we might be talking about E=cm2,
where c is a constant, 299,792,458 prayers/second, the speed of hope,
and m is the mass of the raindrop.

Originally posted by flexmore
why not get a just a tiny little power from the flow ?

How the hell should I know? You don't see me donning a lab coat, do you?

Originally posted by Crowley
How the hell should I know? You don't see me donning a lab coat, do you?

In my lab, if you don't don a lab coat, you can, a-freeze because of the stupid air conditioning, and b-get fired.

Here is a better article from the same magazine:
MIT students build solar concentrator, 12 by 12 feet. It can produce 1300 degree C temps. 144 square feet above the atmosphere would collect 18,000 watts, enough for ten homes. On the ground, it would go down to about 5,000 watts and if that was sent to a high temp capable high efficient solar cell, 20% or so, would generate 1000 watts, at least in daylight. So cut that in half and say it would generate about 500 watts times 24 hours or about 12 Kw hours per day, maybe 10. Here is the link:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2008/06/30/solar-energy-mirror-02.html