Cold plasma in shipping boats?

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

What if you only apply it when moving with the flow of water and it's doing part of the work?!

If you're moving with the flow of water, then the relative velocity of the ship with respect to the water is zero (or very small), and you can't extract energy.

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

You could even turn off the engines and sacrifice time with a large intake of the hulls energy potential and use existing energy.

Then you'd just slow down even more, probably not what the shipping company wants.

[cubinator]

4 minutes ago, Arugela said:

What if you only apply it when moving with the flow of water and it's doing part of the work?!

Like if you were riding a wave and the wave was accelerating you? Then sure, you could maybe gather energy from that if the water was moving relative to the boat, but maybe your boat would hold its speed instead of accelerating. It definitely would not accelerate as much as if it were just gliding through the water.

It's basically like regenerative braking in an electric car. That takes the kinetic energy of your car and stores some of it back in the battery for later use. It makes the car a bit more efficient, but the thing to note is that the act of storing the energy is what slows the car down: it's the brake! You might be able to do something similar with a boat, and if you could invent regenerative braking for a boat that would be a very cool invention indeed, but there's no way to do it without slowing the boat down.

Edited August 8, 2020 by cubinator

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, cubinator said:

Like if you were riding a wave and the wave was accelerating you? Then sure, you could maybe gather energy from that, but maybe your boat would hold its speed instead of accelerating. It definitely would not accelerate as much as if it were just gliding through the water.

So what we're talking about is ocean transport ultimately driven by the power of... Poseidon.

[Arugela]

The point isn't to move. It's to gather energy for a battery.

8 minutes ago, cubinator said:

Like if you were riding a wave and the wave was accelerating you? Then sure, you could maybe gather energy from that if the water was moving relative to the boat, but maybe your boat would hold its speed instead of accelerating. It definitely would not accelerate as much as if it were just gliding through the water.

It's basically like regenerative braking in an electric car. That takes the kinetic energy of your car and stores some of it back in the battery for later use. It makes the car a bit more efficient, but the thing to note is that the act of storing the energy is what slows the car down: it's the brake! You might be able to do something similar with a boat, and if you could invent regenerative braking for a boat that would be a very cool invention indeed, but there's no way to do it without slowing the boat down.

You don't need to invent a break. It's already generated by the fat hull of the metal ship being in the water. Plus physical realities of the boat act like an arc producer naturally.

And if said application were turned on and used for a few minutes it doesn't matter if it's inefficient. The point is the function. Or if it's on for a small amount over the whole trip. The batteries storage could be massively less than the energy of the system. Then it doesn't matter if it's efficient. Only if the battery intake is on the same scale as the ships entire potential.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, Arugela said:

The point isn't to move. It's to gather energy for a battery.

Ships already do that though. As mentioned, you can charge your phone on a cruise ship.

[cubinator]

Just now, Arugela said:

The point isn't to move. It's to gather energy for a battery.

That's fine. You can use the energy for whatever you want, including boat-mounted laser turrets. Your motion will take a hit while you're gathering energy, though.

[Arugela]

5 minutes ago, cubinator said:

That's fine. You can use the energy for whatever you want, including boat-mounted laser turrets. Your motion will take a hit while you're gathering energy, though.

If the maximum of the entire system electrical intake were 0.00000001% at maximum of the boats kinetic/electrical potential that doesn't matter to start with. It depends on the details. I'm assuming any electrical intake system would be far smaller than the hulls potential. Could be wrong, but I'm assuming it is.

Plus the fun idea of blimps to do stuff in clouds. Again, useful without question if the boat is not moving and the sky and clouds are. We live on a giant generator. Even if moving function could outway fuel usage in application.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

Just now, Arugela said:

If the maximum of the entire system were 0.00000001% at maximum of the boats kinetic/electrical potential that doesn't matter to start with. It depends on the details.

If the energy requirements are so small, you'd just use the ship's already existing electrical system.

[cubinator]

2 minutes ago, Arugela said:

If the maximum of the entire system electrical intake were 0.00000001% at maximum of the boats kinetic/electrical potential that doesn't matter to start with. It depends on the details.

Yep. And your boat will take a 0.00000001% reduction in propulsion efficiency from it, just like Jupiter's orbit is brought down slightly by slingshotting space probes.

Edited August 8, 2020 by cubinator

[Arugela]

But that's not important in a practical application as it's not significant enough to avoid using it potentially. This is what I'm referring to when I say real world application. And no, if there are multiple inputs and you are only taking from one input you are only reducing the one input by said amount. It could be independent of the other input which proportionally could be in an direction depending on design or circumstances. This is another example of oversimplifying a complex system. Just like a circuit you could have multiple converging sources at one point in the system and then you can have reduced loss. Because it's not really reduced cost. It was a mistaken premise.

If you have two inputs. And this action results in the loss from only one intake source it reduces the whole in the end, but it does not reduce it as much if one input was used. If even proportions exist it literally halves the overall loss. Because assuming all input is from the engines would not have as much of a loss if part is from the water or other things in play. A boat in the water is in a big bunch of water with kinetic force. That is why the water can move the massively heavy ship to start with. So, we are already working with massive kinetic forces. If you take just from the waters inputs you can lessen the loss on the engines and maybe adjust things to be more efficient. Or if it's useful enough it doesn't matter. Or if it's used in a specialized matter it doesn't make any difference. That is part of a machines design. So, if your inputs from your water or other forces it take to make an additive and it outweighs the energy net loss from the ship you could hypothetically have a net gain. It depends on the circumstances. And a big boat is being pushed by a lot of water. So who knows. The potential is there.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

3 minutes ago, Arugela said:

But that's not important in a practical application as it's not significant enough to avoid using it potentially. This is what I'm referring to when I say real world application.

In a practical real world application you'd just use the ship's already existing electrical system (which runs directly off the fuel/engines without some Rube Goldberg contraption in between involving ocean water and the hull).

[cubinator]

9 minutes ago, Arugela said:

But that's not important in a practical application as it's not significant enough to avoid using it potentially. This is what I'm referring to when I say real world application. And no, if there are multiple inputs and you are only taking from one input you are only reducing the one input by said amount. It could be independent  of the other input which proportionally could be in an direction depending on design or circumstances.

It's definitely not independent on a boat, which is floating freely in the water. Any push to the boat will be a push to the water as well, and vice versa. If you're referring to my diagrams on the previous page, I'm afraid you're misconstruing a physical law of the universe discovered by Newton which dictates that you can't gain energy in one place without spending it someplace else. Ever. The reason we simplify the system so much is not to ignore large parts of it, it's because everything evens out and the amount of energy in the whole bubble stays the same. Energy can't be created from nothing, and it can't be created from some part of the system that was bundled into the simplified version, no matter how complicated you make your idea. Detailing all that stuff only serves to hide the spot where the laws of physics fail.

As for the "practical, real-world", things in the real world always work less well than expected. Things get hot and lose energy. Things make noise and lose energy. Things are not constructed perfectly, and the materials have friction, and electric wires have resistance. Combustion gases don't mix perfectly. Your suggestion that something could work 'better than perfect' when moving it from paper to the real world is impossible.

Edited August 8, 2020 by cubinator

[Arugela]

You are correct you can't gain without spending.(assuming that isn't wrong to start. Technically we could be wrong.) But if the spending is done by the earth rotation and moving the water itself. It's already spent. The motions is created by the massive universe, solar system, and galaxy we exist in. We live on a giant rotating ball of dirt and water. Moving at insane speeds. That is why wind power works.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

Just now, Arugela said:

if the spending is done by the earth rotation and moving the water itself

Is it? How so? How do you propose to tap into that energy?

[Arugela]

1 minute ago, HebaruSan said:

Is it? How so? How do you propose to tap into that energy?

Any other way you can besides wind sails. Anything that works. You know wind sails also create friction. But because of this same reality one force can overcome the other circumstantially.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

Just now, Arugela said:

Any other way you can besides wind sales. Anything that works.

But which way specifically, in your scenario? What is the plan, what is the design?

[Arugela]

None specifically. The point of the argument was to go over methods. Have you read the other hundreds of thread in this forum doing the same thing? The point was cold plasma application. I've said this repeatedly.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[HebaruSan]

Just now, Arugela said:

None specifically. The point of the argument was to go over methods.

OK, and you've had your answer over and over: There are no such methods that would make this worthwhile. But instead of accepting the answer, you counter-assert that there might be some method that would make your idea work, somehow, somewhere. At what point do you finally put this to rest as a totally non-viable notion?

[cubinator]

6 minutes ago, Arugela said:

But because of this same reality one force can overcome the other circumstantially.

I think you're talking about violating the law of conservation of energy again. It's not circumstantial, it's a law of the universe. It's been this way everywhere in the universe for 13 billion years. A force in one direction exerts an equal force in the opposite direction. You can't tweak one of them to be a little bigger than the other, that's a violation of the laws of physics.

[Arugela]

6 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I think you're talking about violating the law of conservation of energy again. It's not circumstantial, it's a law of the universe. It's been this way everywhere in the universe for 13 billion years. A force in one direction exerts an equal force in the opposite direction. You can't tweak one of them to be a little bigger than the other, that's a violation of the laws of physics.

No, I'm not.

the other fuel idea is the extremity of removing all things that cost money into the ship and trying to lower cost with fuel generated on the ship itself for autonomy. Obviously you can do this on the shore for independent fuel, but you could design a ship around it's own fuel generation for specialized tasks or for future ships in general. I would assume cold plasma is one of many methods usable. And it may be useful along a chain of other things. Either for efficiency or functional reasons. You might be able to lower overall costs also depending on changes. Probably depends on specifics like crew costs or other realities. Automated ships could reduce costs. Or at least adjust them. Maybe have a single crew running a small fleet of ships on a single run of automated vessels in a smaller boat moving along side them. It's a more radical change, but you never know. We're probably going that way to start with. But a crewless ship can do much more dangerous/radical things. cold or hot plasma or other methods could be intermixed in the ships design. It would depend on the ship. You could turn the entire hull into a massive machine designed for self maintenance. Cheap could be eventually replaced with added function by not needing dock based equipment.

Edited August 8, 2020 by Arugela

[cubinator]

8 minutes ago, Arugela said:

No, I'm not.

the other fuel idea is the extremity of removing all things that cost money into the ship and trying to lower cost with fuel generated on the ship itself for autonomy. Obviously you can do this on the shore for independent fuel, but you could design a ship around it's own fuel generation for specialized tasks or for future ships in general. I would assume cold plasma is one of many methods usable. And it may be useful along a chain of other things. Either for efficiency or functional reasons. You might be able to lower overall costs also depending on changes.

Yeah, that could be done. Fuel up on the water, if you burn hydrogen or something you could have a boat that almost never needs to dock - IF you had solar cells or a wind turbine to power the fuel converter.

Edited August 8, 2020 by cubinator

[Arugela]

Obviously this isn't cold plasma. But it's similar. It's base application could be shared.(Components heavily using electricity as a primary source.) It could allow very specific long runs or other odd things to very specific circumstances. It could added to a boat. It could be a cheap easy system thrown into an existing ship to some extent. It could be emergency boats for rescue. If this could have cold plasma it could help decontamination features for those long dock quarantines. This could be a use for large boats. even if you keep current procedures you could reduce risk. It's fundamentally good for replacing UV and cancer concerns. Especially with increased use.

Efficiency doesn't have to be a problem if you waist time or collect a lightning bolt or something. There are ways to practically get rid of the issue if desired. You can use another resource fundamentally. Plus one system being added makes the others potentially cheaper.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Arugela

[SOXBLOX]

Sure. But, it takes energy to crack water into oxygen and hydrogen. You add the energy to the atoms themselves; they gain chemical potential energy.

     Imagine you have a bowling ball. It is sitting on the ground, in the bottom of a valley. You can roll it up the side of the valley, to the top, but you add energy to do so.    (Please note that this energy comes from you, and thus from the food you eat. It does not come, and cannot come, from the motion of the ball over the ground.)    This energy you add is converted to gravitational potential energy. Later, you can come along and roll it down. If you do that, you turn the grav. pot. energy into kinetic energy. The ball releases the grav. pot. energy until it uses it up when it reaches the bottom of the valley. After that, you cannot extract more energy from it; it has reached the lowest energy state possible for it. Also, some of this energy is lost as entropy, or waste heat, due to friction. Every time you convert between forms of energy, you lose some as entropy. We can come up with a rule of thumb; the process using fewer steps is more efficient. This is knowledge found in the first pages of any high school physics textbook. You can go read yours.

Your schemes, ignoring your attempts to create energy ex nihilo , add more complexity, more steps, reduce efficiency, increase transit times for ships, increase maintenance, and serve no practical purpose. So in the real world, it is better just to use the system we are using, or an evolution of it. "Cold plasma" has no place in the energy industry.

If you want a boat, just put solar panels on it with batteries for the nights. Of course, hydrogen could be a more energy-dense storage medium than batteries, so maybe you should sacrifice simplicity for compactness, and do like the folks in the above video. There! There's a taste of real life engineering!

We also do not need to disinfect cargo. If we did, though, chemical sprays would have a better range and potency, and would not require massive transformers for voltage your plasma requires.

[Shpaget]

It is a common theme and pattern wih people proposing overunity devices. They take a simple concept, than bury it in countless layers of complexities, until the entire thing is so convoluted that they lose the sight of where the energy comes from, and where all the losses lurk.

Some of the most efficient devices we are capable of producing are electric motor and generator. If your ship is anchored in a moving body of water, then dropping a turbine will be the most efficient method of harnessing that energy. But as soon as your ship has to move, that turbine is only going to cause losses.

There is a proposal for auxiliary power source for large ships, called SkySail, which is basically a kite. During tests it reduced fuel consumption by about 10 to 15%. On a cargo ship that equates to saving thousands of dollars in fuel each day, yet it still is not attractive enough for shipping companies.

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Arugela said:

Obviously this isn't cold plasma. But it's similar. It's base application could be shared.(Components heavily using electricity as a primary source.) It could allow very specific long runs or other odd things to very specific circumstances. It could added to a boat. It could be a cheap easy system thrown into an existing ship to some extent. It could be emergency boats for rescue. 

Again, read the article you're linking to:

Quote

The energy system encompasses 3 renewable energy sources (sun, wind and hydropower) and two types of storage (li-ion batteries for the short-term and hydrogen for the long-term).

Emphasis mine. This is a solar-powered sailboat able to charge its batteries from hydropower while at anchor and while under sail. The latter case is actually wind power, in that instead of for propulsion, a small part of wind energy is used for power generation. Presumably, it's more convenient than those little wind generators used on some sailing yachts (I heard some negative opinions about those). Hydrogen is only used for energy storage. Yes, in this case, I suppose cold plasma could help increase the efficiency of hydrogen generation. However, this will only to reduce energy losses, not create gains.

However, it's utterly impractical for cargo ships. It could perhaps become practical if the governments of the world band together to legislate fossil fuel powered ships out of water. That, or fossil fuels run out. However, it's far more likely hydrogen would instead be produced on shore and pumped into the tanks just like oil is. That would likely be cheaper and more efficient than onboard generation.

Edited August 9, 2020 by Guest