Cold plasma in shipping boats?

[Piscator]

Existing in the sense of being a by-product of food sterilization or other applications of cold plasma?

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Arugela said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_fuel_enhancement

And yes the energy can in essence be obtained for free if it exists in a system and is not being utilized..... It's not important if it's net use of energy is higher if in the correct circumstances. Especially if it gains some other function sufficiently. You can become what you consider inefficient in a simplified sense and still be useful or more useful in practice. And many other things.

And that was just a random off suggestion.

From the article:

Quote

Monetary prizes have been offered to sellers or promoters of these devices to demonstrate their claims of increased fuel economy are true, with very few sellers taking the challenges and no device passing the challenges

In other words, just like I said. Snake oil.

[Arugela]

But that is for cars. Boats are a different thing. They are bigger and can carry other things. Plus as I said their hulls do generate energy hypothetically if they are metal. It's normally grounded in the water though. Either way it's usable. And again it's exploring an extremity. It's still possible to make it work.

You could also collect it for other reason.

I'm also assuming given the fuel they normally use it wouldn't be hard to improve it in various manners. Wouldn't pure oxygen also be useful?

I'm also assuming the cost of these boats they have some money to do things others can't. And money might not always be the full defining factor. Or that the realities of what makes the cost what they are will stay static.

Can't cold plasma and plasma in general also help catch other things in the atmosphere like nitrogen?!

And those prizes were for people making things for modern vehicles. That isn't going to be the same thing or as serious as someone actually working to make something for a shipping vessel.

 

 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[Guest]

12 minutes ago, Arugela said:

Plus as I said their hulls do generate energy hypothetically if they are metal. It's normally grounded in the water though.

They do not. They dissipate it. Where would this energy come from? 

Boats or cars, doesn't matter. Snake oil is snake oil. Hydrogen enhancement is a thing, but it's not good enough to make up for the energy expanded in splitting water. Cold plasma will not change that. Efficiency gains from adding H2 are minimal, the biggest benefit is reduced emissions. Water is very stable, splitting it takes a lot of energy.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Guest

[Arugela]

A metal boat on dry land can kill you because of the energy and static and other things in the hull. It's generated by the atmosphere and the shape/material of the hull. You could utilize it.

And I'm not just talking efficient in the modern context. Assume things can change drastically. Maybe whole new ships could be designs to utilize it. Think Sci fi. Realistic sci fi. Someone with too much money on their hands. Those things could be useful later on as prices change or industries shift.

And why can't you make low drag air collectors? If you had a tube through the ship it could reduce drag by only effecting things in the tube. Or MHD it! Aren't there existing liquid paths on a ship to start with? Make an MHD generator or similar using the existing parts of the ship as much as possible. Could you do a reverse version and use the water flowing on the outside of the ship instead of inside something? Maybe an alternative to solar? Could you use that to clean the hull of a ship by destroying the bonds of the algae and lifeforms from the hull? Either the entire hull or with equipment from the inside or outside of the hull on a small location?

 

Here's a stupid idea. You could use small blimps or other objects to either do it in a cloud or part of the proccess to ease it. Could you utilize static or energy in a cloud to get the energy to some extent? Or could you collect energy from a cloud in general in this matter? Or anything else useful to a boat the extend it's functionality.

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Does_plasma_water_splitting_have_a_future_for_hydrogen_production

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330341968_Catalyst-free_highly_selective_synthesis_of_ammonia_from_nitrogen_and_water_by_a_plasma_electrolytic_system

Other ideas could be utilizing storms to collect lightning for various purposes. It's not a constant but it could be used in several areas that need lots of power. Not to mention batteries are multi purpose. So, once you have the energy resource the main problem may presumable start to be removed. And there may be stupidly simple ways to do it. Maybe some of the tech could be utilized for emergency or unusual circumstances. I was forgoing this, but if you could break down hydrogen, could you use it to make a battery on the ship? Even on small scale the production capacity could work for repairs in case of a catastrophic failure hypothetically. Or other edge circumstances. Having the ability to repair/make something high tech in a low tech environment could be useful. That is a very distinct issue for a boat. It can go from one to the other and for longer and with worse extremities than other transport methods. Except planes. And they have greater limitation. So, they are ideal for such tech emerging potentially. The only thing more extreme would be subs or a rocket.

https://patents.google.com/patent/US7384619B2/en

The main proposed method I'm seeing is breaking the water down as much as possible before hitting it with the plasma. this is already done on a ship a lot. And there is lots of room in a ship to do this depending on scale or method. Especially if it's not in the cargo hold and for alternative reasons.

Besides, in the extremity, wouldn't a ship packed full of cargo or a cargo container packed full be easier to use the electrolyses method even as proposed. It would have minimal air/space to fill with gas. So, the more full the cargo the less of a problem it should be. And the smaller the equipment used. There are ways to minimize the cost. Say if you use one piece of equipment to run over each part instead of having expensive probes on each cargo container. Or as the items leave the cargo hold. Even if it's not needed for grain now it might be later or for more general cargo. if it goes out a conveyor and probed and cleaned as each package goes that could be useful for redundancy. Or if not later maybe cheaper than the port doing it. It also makes more ports available as you don't need a speciality port depending on circumstances. Especially if things were to get worse somehow. Or other circumstances make it useful. It's cheaper to pay one ships cargo crew than all other ports hypothetically. Maybe. Depends circumstantially. Say you have a single or small group of ships that can do this for occasions or certain cargo.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

9 hours ago, Gargamel said:

I think we are having an issue with the number of arguments being presented here.  I think we should try to find one point of conversation and go with that, instead of taking an idea in multiple different directions at once. 

Apparently this problem is only going to get worse. Now we have speculations over cloud energy and something about repairs.

@Arugela, let me save you some time and aggravation: Presume that the answer to any new questions from you is, "No, that won't work," and then go back and see if you can actually make an argument for it rather than just throwing out more half baked half-ideas. Because that seems to be a pretty stable pattern at this point of the discussion.

[Guest]

55 minutes ago, Arugela said:

A metal boat on dry land can kill you because of the energy and static and other things in the hull. It's generated by the atmosphere and the shape of the hull. You could utilize it.

This energy does not come from the hull. It's static, just like shuffling your feet on the carpet. If the hull isn't grounded, it picks up static electricity from various sources (dust carried by the wind, workers walking around, etc.). This does not happen when the ship is sailing, because water is conductive. 

There are easier ways of keeping barnacles off the hull than cold plasma. Admittedly, barnacles are a nuisance and a noticeable contributor to costs of maintaining a ship (the darn things are very draggy), so perhaps it has some merit in that use, but it still won't create energy.

55 minutes ago, Arugela said:

And why can't you make low drag air collectors? 

Because you need to make the air match the speed of the ship in order to collect it. This creates drag that is effectively impossible to eliminate if you want the intake to be good for anything.

MHD depends on liquid moving through the generator. Why is it doing so? Because the engine is causing the ship to move. You cannot get any energy out of this effect, and that's why people say you are talking about free energy. The only external sources you can count on are wind and sun. For the former, see sailboats. For the latter, also see sailboats, which sometimes have a dinky solar panel on the roof (not much room elsewhere). None of the yachts I've sailed on had one of these, but they can't be good for much more than lighting and charging the crew's smartphones. The only reason they are used is that unlike everything else, a sailboat can spend days without ever firing up the engine, and the fuel available for that is limited, so any alternative source of power is good to have. 

Edited August 8, 2020 by Guest

[Arugela]

Yes, but adding mhd in an existing system would/could reduce or divert energy to a new system is it's needed. You could create clever ways to do this cheaply. Especially in a large ship with lots of energy to collect. It doesn't need to necessarily use lots of material to accomplish. Not to mention if enough existing means are present you can do something for relatively cheap. if something is multi functional it could change it's overall expense over time. These things could become useful. A lot of the systems already exist. So, a simple enough implementation would work potentially. Or even be useful as a cheap small device used when needed. Say it's only used on occasions. Or it expands cargo types or other opportunities.

The other logic I'm running on is if cheap or existing means exist to gather power, like electricity in storms, you can afford to be wasteful. Plasma is energy base primarily. And can hypothetically use oxygen as the gas medium. so, you don't need to port things(although you can.) and periodic applications and other things could be useful for various reason. Not just the most efficient or cost effective. The applicability of pure energy or other means can outway the cost of efficiency. Especially if it's not much. Or doesn't have a lot of maintenance cost.

Could a cold plasma hand cleaner be made to outlast a UV one and be more repairable at it's extremity or be made more convenient than other things. A bulb broken will be much harder to repair if they all break in a crash. Assuming. So, for safety sake could it be useful for odd circumstances and outway other uses. Or be a redundant means. You would only need one. You could have one of each or 50 of the cheaper one and one plasma based on for circumstances.

Hypothetically, one single dialysis machine could open up a world of cargo for a single ship to carry specialized cargo to go with it. it could allow normal cargo or allow emergency things to be sent out in odd circumstances making it valuable. It doesn't even need to be on the boat. It could be kept at dock for an entire fleet to use when needed. A single mechanical arm or other when stopping at a point on a conveyor belt could apply it and you have special cargo on demand.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Arugela said:

Especially in a large ship with lots of energy to collect.

Again, there is no energy to collect. The energy is generated by the engine and it eventually ends up in the water around the hull. There's no way to recover it, that's just how things work. 

Perhaps turning the hull into a giant electrode may accomplish something, but it will always result in the ship consuming more fuel. This is why nobody is doing that. There is no use. It's easier to pull the ship out every once in a while (which needs to be done for other reasons, anyway) and scrub off the barnacles.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Guest

[Arugela]

And that brings up another idea if it's in the water around the hull isn't that how these methods generally work. Could it be used on the outside of the hull to be applied in some way? Interestingly if you could do it over the entire hull. Or if you could spot use it as part of a machine physically touching the hull.

It doesn't result in the ship using more fuel. It results in the system using more energy. If the system is using more energy from a battery that still fills regardless of fuel usage in travel. The energy is taken from a different part of the system. It's not increasing fuel usage specifically. that matters in a system.

And why can't the energy be collected. If you treat the entire ship like a device and let it slowly power a battery over time you have something. You can absolutely convert it and store it. The ship will not consume more fuel because you put a few diode to the hull of a ship and slap it to a battery. You are just utilizing more of the current ships fuel usage making it more efficient. You aren't even adding minute weight if the diode is already on the ship and just not being used.. Let alone something of insignificant weight to start with. Think practically. All you need is greater potential. That can be done in several ways regardless of the size of the ocean. The ocean potential is not the entire potential of the body of water. It's the potential at any point of contact. Which can be done with a probe of greater potential or even lower the potential on the opposite side of the probe at that point of contact to get a net gain or any equivalent. Does a barnacle increase or decrease potential compared to the ocean?

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[Shpaget]

OP, you should really pick one idea and dedicate some time to expand on it, and not pollute the discussion with countless others. It is confusing. I tried reading the topic but, honestly, I got lost. You bring so many different ideas into the discussion that it's hard to follow. After four pages of discussion, I still don't understand what is it that you are proposing, other than to use cold plasma, for whatever use as long as it's cold plasma.

I would suggest that you try answering these questions: What, why, how, and why hasn't it already been done? 

Hint for the last one: Industrial processes (shipping is one of them) are extremely optimized for cost. If it hasn't already been done, there must be a reason why. 

 

[Arugela]

19 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

OP, you should really pick one idea and dedicate some time to expand on it, and not pollute the discussion with countless others. It is confusing. I tried reading the topic but, honestly, I got lost. You bring so many different ideas into the discussion that it's hard to follow. After four pages of discussion, I still don't understand what is it that you are proposing, other than to use cold plasma, for whatever use as long as it's cold plasma.

I would suggest that you try answering these questions: What, why, how, and why hasn't it already been done? 

Hint for the last one: Industrial processes (shipping is one of them) are extremely optimized for cost. If it hasn't already been done, there must be a reason why. 

 

No, that is a gross simplification. It absolutely doesn't work that way. You are oversimplifying optimized. It absolutely does change and drastically. You have to look at more detail as to the reason why and you'll see why something is not used circumstancially. The optimized industry is by definition very sluggish in practice. There is endless room for growth. That is not why changes don't happen. And cost is not a static thing. The way the changes happen also happen because of the work you put into the change. You are treating that overly simply also. And there are things that outway cost both in the immediate and long term. You can push cost to make something standard and cost effective. It depends. This happens on small scales also making technology development very useful even if it's not effective cost wise now. This is very real thing. There is a lot more too it. Much of what we have can be the result of not pushing. It's more versatile than you are describing. And it's a lot more complicated.

And that would void the point of the discussion.

And with corona we are talking about unknowns and a potential for morphing of the virus or other issues we may not be able to predict. So a little measure may go a long way. Especially, if it can be simplified down to a small piece of equipment and some special containers. What if we have to start being carefully of it changing from one eastern variation to a western one because of long travel distances. It may be important to be extra carefully and not assume it dies on the surface so easily. One mistake and it could get worse.

And actually there are a bunch of methods using the flame looking variation simply going over the surface on a conveyor belt. Then the only gas it may need is oxygen.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

6 minutes ago, Arugela said:

No, that is a gross simplification. It absolutely doesn't work that way. You are oversimplifying optimized. It absolutely does change and drastically.

What are you referring to? The post that you're responding to made some good points about how to focus a discussion and avoid constant distractions in every direction. It's not even clear what you're referring to as a "simplification" there.

Quote

You have to look at more detail as to the reason why and you'll see why.

What details are you referring to? What reason? Instead of making these vague, abstract allegations about how the normal rules of logic don't apply to what you're saying, maybe you could show us what you mean?

Quote

And that would void the point of the discussion.

Frankly, I'm not convinced there is one.

Edited August 8, 2020 by HebaruSan

[cubinator]

1 hour ago, Arugela said:

ut that is for cars. Boats are a different thing. They are bigger and can carry other things. Plus as I said their hulls do generate energy hypothetically if they are metal. It's normally grounded in the water though. Either way it's usable. And again it's exploring an extremity. It's still possible to make it work.

Absolutely. You're quite right: A ship moving through the water can pull energy from its motion and store it in a battery or what have you. 

Here's the part that makes absolutely any form of that ability totally useless, though:

Doing so will slow the boat down. You'll gather a little bit of energy, at best equal to 1/2 * the mass of your boat * velocity of the boat ^2, in a perfect world with spherical cows and frictionless planes. Most likely quite a bit less than that, especially if you're using some roundabout method involving static or what have you. And then if you want more energy, you're going to have to spend your fuel to get the boat back up to speed. If you look at the big picture of all the things that are going on, the energy you gathered from motion is the same energy that came from your fuel reserve, be it diesel, uranium, a battery, or antimatter. You're better off using a small portion of that original source to run a generator on board, and I think that's essentially what you're talking about: using a small portion of the ship's power to run something other than propulsion. I think this is already done in most ships with electrical systems powered by the running engines - you can charge your phone on a cruise.

The thing that most people have been pointing out as the most serious concern is that any energy you pull out of moving the boat through the water will cause it to slow down. The boat doesn't have an unlimited supply of energy in the moving water around it like a waterwheel on the shore of a river. The boat is spending a lot of energy to keep that speed, and if it pulls all of that energy out of drag or friction in any way, then it will immediately stop and not be able to keep going while it does that. You can absolutely take a small amount of energy from that motion using whatever system you'd like, but that's definitely going to slow the boat down and the engines will have to compensate by burning a little more fuel. There's no way to power the ship's motion with the ship's motion.

(By the way, I seem to recall having the exact same conversation on this forum a long time ago, but the vehicle in question was an electric airplane instead.)

[Arugela]

How does it slow the boat down? it doesn't add friction. You can apply the sensor to the inside of the boat. You are diverting resources already being grounded. It's already been generated...

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[cubinator]

Just now, Arugela said:

How does it slow the boat down? it doesn't add friction. You can apply the sensor to the inside of the boat.

It does add friction. That's where you're getting your energy from. To move energy from one system (water) to another (boat) you have to apply a force. If you're doing that with a turbine on the front of your boat, there is a mechanical force acting against the water which slows the boat down. If you're harnessing some kind of electrostatic energy through the hull, then there will be an electromagnetic force that slows the boat down. Think of how when you spin a motor with your hand, the coils exert a force back to your hand as they generate electricity. It is exactly the same that will happen if you try to grab electricity from the motion across the hull of the whole ship. It's like millions of infinitesimally small generators.

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, Arugela said:

And there are things that outway cost.

No, there aren't. Here's your problem. In industry, nothing outweighs cost. The point is to make money, and if you can lower costs, you can either increase your margin or lower the price to undercut the competition. The point of industry is making money.

If you don't believe me, try creating a company that prioritizes something else, like environment, innovation or ethics. See how long you last. Companies that prioritize profit are the ones that make the most money, which they can use to, among other things, buy out other companies that don't make as much, either because they want their assets, or just to remove them from the picture. This is also why you could count your fingers after you shake hands with a corporate representative, and then check with your lawyer if they still belong to you. Everything about corporations is optimized for cost, except when incompetence comes into play (which is often the result of someone being shortsighted when trying to optimize). This goes double for ones that only deal with other corporations, as most of the tricks that work on consumers are much less effective in that setting. So, any industrial supplier has to squeeze every little bit of cost efficiency and drive a hard bargain to make a profit.

Just now, Arugela said:

How does it slow the boat down? it doesn't add friction. 

It takes away your kinetic energy. That's what everyone been trying to tell you. Motion means you have kinetic energy. When you convert that kinetic energy to chemical (say, by storing it inside a battery), you end up with less kinetic energy, and thus you lose speed. This is a law of physics. It always applies, no matter what.

[HebaruSan]

8 minutes ago, Arugela said:

You can apply the sensor to the inside of the boat.

Can you? How does that work?

This is why folks are trying to get you to focus and stick to one single topic and flesh it out. You give no specifics of the idea(s) that may be bouncing around inside your head, then when any problem is pointed out, you sidestep it by declaring that your version of the idea doesn't work that way. But for that to hold water, you need to say how it does work!

Edited August 8, 2020 by HebaruSan

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

But for that to hold water

Well it's a boat, so I think we're covered in that department at least

[Arugela]

How would moving it from the hull to the inside of the ship change kinetic energy if it's in a battery inside the ship?

If you are already loosing the energy to the water wouldn't you be preserving kinetic energy by keeping it on the boat?

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[Shpaget]

26 minutes ago, Arugela said:

No, that is a gross simplification. It absolutely doesn't work that way. You are oversimplifying optimized.

If a newly designed product meets spec and requirements than the next step is to make is as cheap as possible, lowering the quality/quantity/whatever until it barely meets the spec. If an industrial product or service is not as cheap as it can possibly get, the only reason for it being so expensive is regulation. It really is that simple. Small scale production is different, since for small scale it is usually too expensive to iterate optimization process since the manufacturing cost reduction will not be recouped considering the small sales volumes and the cost of extended development time is not justified. But we are not talking about small scale stuff. We are talking global industry level.

8 minutes ago, Arugela said:

How does it slow the boat down? it doesn't add friction. You can apply the sensor to the inside of the boat.

Not mechanical friction, but electrodynamic drag, eddy currents, whatever. They are just as real as physical friction, and act entirely similar enough for this discussion. If there is static buildup on the ship hull, that energy came from the engine.

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

How would moving it from the hull to the inside of the ship change kinetic energy if it's in a battery inside the ship?

If you are already loosing the energy to the water wouldn't you be preserving kinetic energy by keeping it on the boat?

The idea is to get rid of that static charge as soon as possible so you experience less of drag.

[Arugela]

16 minutes ago, cubinator said:

It does add friction. That's where you're getting your energy from. To move energy from one system (water) to another (boat) you have to apply a force. If you're doing that with a turbine on the front of your boat, there is a mechanical force acting against the water which slows the boat down. If you're harnessing some kind of electrostatic energy through the hull, then there will be an electromagnetic force that slows the boat down. Think of how when you spin a motor with your hand, the coils exert a force back to your hand as they generate electricity. It is exactly the same that will happen if you try to grab electricity from the motion across the hull of the whole ship. It's like millions of infinitesimally small generators.

You use a probe and make sure the electrical potential is higher going towards the battery compared to towards the water. The energy is already there flowing in a circuit.

11 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

The idea is to get rid of that static charge as soon as possible so you experience less of drag.

And by diverting it inside the ship instead of the water how is it a net loss? It's being gotten rid of by converting it. Or a small amount of it. Not to mention how much of that is actually used compare to the boats entire potential to have any significant impact. If you are charging a battery, even at a loss it's useful for the sake of the battery. If it's used for alternative system even if it's net loss it's useful. Even if it's for an additive it can be useful if it's need on demand for a specific time. that can outweigh general efficiency and cost. It depends. Practically realities outweight this. And such a device can be turned on and off. Can you generate any power without the engines running as the boat floats and the water naturally moves? The earth and solar system are literally doing the work then. which is again already in the equation when moving. It's not all done by the engines fuel usage!!! You could have modes for active travel with very low intake and high intake modes for sitting in the water. Assuming you are correct. You have to look at the entirety of an existing system. You are insisting it's all from the engines burning fuel. This is blatantly false. How much energy is from other things? The system is not by definition even just the ships equipment. As I said this is all a massive oversimplification.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

7 minutes ago, Arugela said:

You use a probe and make sure the electrical potential is higher going towards the battery compared to towards the water.

And if the probe tells you it's not? What do you do then?

[cubinator]

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

How would moving it from the hull to the inside of the ship change kinetic energy if it's in a battery inside the ship?

If you are already loosing the energy to the water wouldn't you be preserving kinetic energy by keeping it on the boat?

It's because of what you're doing to get that energy back. You can think of the energy as a resource spread between two places: The kinetic energy of the boat moving through the water, and the electric energy in the battery inside the ship. When the boat is moving, the energy is like this:

X                
X                
X                
X                
X                
X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

When you grab energy from the boat's motion to store it in the battery, the energy starts to go like this:

                
                
X                
X                
X                            X
X                            X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

With less energy in the Kinetic department, the boat will slow down, because its mass can't change from what we're doing (not at this fraction of the speed of light, anyway ). Eventually all the energy will be in the electric storage:

                              X  
                              X
                              X
                              X
                              X
                              X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

Then the boat will be stopped. 

What you're proposing is that the boat keeps its kinetic energy while also gathering electric energy. That would look like this:

X                
X                
X                
X                
X                
X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

X
X               
X                
X                
X                            X
X                            X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

X                            X
X                            X
X                            X
X                            X
X                            X
X                            X
_                              _

Kinetic energy    Electric energy

See how that's impossible? There is more energy being created somewhere in the second case, and it is a law of the universe that that can't happen.

7 minutes ago, Arugela said:

You use a probe and make sure the electrical potential is higher going towards the battery compared to towards the water. The energy is already there flowing in a circuit.

If that is the case, then you will have a force on the boat against its direction of motion through the water, and it will slow down.

[Arugela]

What if you only apply it when moving with the flow of water and it's doing part of the work?! You could even turn off the engines and sacrifice time with a large intake of the hulls energy potential and use existing energy. What about other oddities in the flow of water on a minute scale? Could they be utilized easily?

The point is the boat is moving in a large existing system that could be accounted for and utilized. The ship is not an isolated system. Why do you have to be moving for this. What if you use it while sitting in dock.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela