Re-capture overflow energy

[lego]

Has anyone every tried to design an overflow that uses the energy of the falling water to supplement power for their tank?

i.e. instead of the return pump drawing full power from the electric company, you use some power from the electric company and some from capturing the energy of the overflow water.

Perhaps instead of powering the AC return pump it could power the DC fans for a hood? You get the drift...

Seems like if this could be made for a reasonable cost, over time something like this could possibly pay for itself and begin to save money month over month.

[Fishbulb2]

I love the idea but just have no idea of where to start. My only fear is something like flooding. My guess is most designs would involve the drain water to turn sometype of turbine to generate eletrical energy. That automatically means resistance in your drain. And worse yet, if it jams or stick, instant overflow. I don't know enough about this kind of stuff but i am intrigued.
FB

[samtheman]

Calculate the volume of water and the fall that will power your generator. Most dams are a minimum of 50' tall as anything less will not overcome the mechanical losses and still generate enough power to be economical. If you have a generator that will work on 20" of head you will be as rich as Bill Gates in less than a year.

[BeanAnimal]

Sam have you ever replied to a thread in a kind manner or are you perpetually like that?

You may be correct that the idea is not going to pan out for a small aquarium... but as usual you just do not have your facts correct yet you come off as an expert and use them [the made up fact] to put somebodies idea down.

Have you ever been in a power house sam? I have been in plenty of them. The last power house I was in was York Pa, right across the river from TMI (Three Mile Island). The head on the power house is nowhere near 50'. I spent 2 weeks grouting water leaks in the limestone turbine pits. A waterwheel in a stream can generate power to turn a gristwheel or a generator. In any case I worked in nearly a dozen power houses that range from those at the base of dams to those that are as tall as the "dam" they sit in from of.

Sam the power "Dams" you are talking about produce enough power to light several cities.... there are plenty of smaller power houses that produce enough power to light a single city and do so with maybe 20' of water head.

There are plenty of people who have gensets that work off of a 5' or less drop in a stream.

Last I checked they were all able to overcome the mechanical losses enough to be economical.

Anyway lego what sam was trying to explain in his oh sooo polite way, was that it is not going to work very well in our little aquarium situation.

It does come down to energy... and the small amount we are putting into the system. We can only expect to get a little bit of it back out. That little bit is not worth the effort.

Lets just assume you could come up with a system that recovered some of the energy (say 20% of your 100 Watt pump). That would give you 20 Watts of power to do something with. You may be able to run your LED moon lights or something. With a LOT of work you could setup something to charge a set of cells. However the problem then becomes one of losses in voltage conversion and storage. All in all it just simply is not worth the trouble. You will spend more building the setup than it will ever save.

In the real world, you will have to come up with a salt safe water wheel that has enough torque at low pressure to generate even a little bit of current. It will have to turn a transmission that spins a small generator. That means gears, seals, etc etc.

Nice thought... but not feasible.

[samtheman]

Originally posted by BeanAnimal
Sam have you ever replied to a thread in a kind manner or are you perpetually like that?

You may be correct that the idea is not going to pan out for a small aquarium... but as usual you just do not have your facts correct yet you come off as an expert and use them [the made up fact] to put somebodies idea down.

Have you ever been in a power house sam? I have been in plenty of them. The last power house I was in was York Pa, right across the river from TMI (Three Mile Island). The head on the power house is nowhere near 50'. I spent 2 weeks grouting water leaks in the limestone turbine pits. A waterwheel in a stream can generate power to turn a gristwheel or a generator. In any case I worked in nearly a dozen power houses that range from those at the base of dams to those that are as tall as the "dam" they sit in from of.

Sam the power "Dams" you are talking about produce enough power to light several cities.... there are plenty of smaller power houses that produce enough power to light a single city and do so with maybe 20' of water head.

There are plenty of people who have gensets that work off of a 5' or less drop in a stream.

Last I checked they were all able to overcome the mechanical losses enough to be economical.

Anyway lego what sam was trying to explain in his oh sooo polite way, was that it is not going to work very well in our little aquarium situation.

It does come down to energy... and the small amount we are putting into the system. We can only expect to get a little bit of it back out. That little bit is not worth the effort.

Lets just assume you could come up with a system that recovered some of the energy (say 20% of your 100 Watt pump). That would give you 20 Watts of power to do something with. You may be able to run your LED moon lights or something. With a LOT of work you could setup something to charge a set of cells. However the problem then becomes one of losses in voltage conversion and storage. All in all it just simply is not worth the trouble. You will spend more building the setup than it will ever save.

In the real world, you will have to come up with a salt safe water wheel that has enough torque at low pressure to generate even a little bit of current. It will have to turn a transmission that spins a small generator. That means gears, seals, etc etc.

Nice thought... but not feasible.

Do you understand the term "Most"?

I have been an industrial customer of BPA and paid as much as $4,000,000 per month for our power supply. I have been in most of the power houses on the BPA system including Grand Coulee. Can you show me a dam on the Columbia or Snake river system with an elevation drop of less than 50'? So how does that effect this discussion?

Has your input effected me in any way? Keep trying, but I doubt it will have any effect.

What do you mean nice thought? Does turning a battery around recycle it. Nice thought, right. No substance. Is that being kind?

[Dale Carlisle]

While not a recapture of electrical energy here is an idea to ponder.

I made a biofilter out of a 5G. water bottle. The plumbing is 1/2" PVC and the whole thing operates using the siphon effect. Just close the gate valve, prime the system, open the gate valve and you have a perpetual motion machine. 0 energy requirement.
Could this same principle be applied to other pieces of equipment???
Here's a schematic:



and an early pic of the filter on a tank (I need 3 more gallons of bioballs for it):

[Tang Salad]

Great idea Dale.

That looks like the best way to make use of the overflow water's energy.

As explained by Sam and Bean- yes, they seem to agree with each other- there's simply not enough energy to drive more than the tiniest of turbines.

[lakee911]

Well, it depends on where your overflow is going. Some tanks have sumps in the basement. You could easily get 8-15 feet of head from those.

If you're worried about overflow, why not put in a bypass slightly above as a failsafe?

[BeanAnimal]

Originally posted by samtheman
Do you understand the term "Most"?

I have been an industrial customer of BPA and paid as much as $4,000,000 per month for our power supply. I have been in most of the power houses on the BPA system including Grand Coulee. Can you show me a dam on the Columbia or Snake river system with an elevation drop of less than 50'? So how does that effect this discussion?

Has your input effected me in any way? Keep trying, but I doubt it will have any effect.

What do you mean nice thought? Does turning a battery around recycle it. Nice thought, right. No substance. Is that being kind?

Sam, the point is you make half baked comments, state them as fact and use them to rip apart peoples posts. Most of the time you do it in a rude or smartass maner. The point is sam, that you never really get it right and instead are just rude.

Sam what does $4,000,000 worth of power have to do with anything. You said that you need a 50' drop to overcome the mechanical loses. I said your full of it sam. Of course there are power houses that have a head of over 50', nobody said there were not. Are we now limited to talking about the Columbia and Snake River power generation topology? Get a clue sam, there are other hydro power generation statations on other bodies of water.

Your problem is that you make comments and aver fact based on your narrow understanding of things and do so in a very srcastic condescending manner. If you acted like a jerk and had your facts straight it would be one thing. However, you don't get your facts straight and along with your rude tone, that makes you foolish.

Do I have an effect on you? I could care less. I would hope that one of these days you figure it out... but it really has no effect on me. When you are rude and wrong, I will point it out, as will the other folks who you seem to rub the wrong way.

Enjoy the afternoon and your $4,000,000 of power.

BTW sam, could you please break that $4,000,000 of electricity into KWh and attempt to show me how much current that would be and let me know how many substations fed your business? I will get your started. That is $133,333 a day in electricity costs, or $5,555 an hour. At the expensive rate of $0.1 a kWh, that would be 55,550,000 watts or 55,550 kWh every hour. So sam you own a company that uses the entire output of a 55 Megawatt plant? Very large steel mills with large electric ovens pull 50-80 MW.

Certainly feasible, but not common. Maybe you own a steel mil, or a dozen industrial complexes... I dunno. It still does not make your power generation comments valid

Have a nice afternoon sam.

[Stoney Mahony]

OH SNAP!

[perpetual98]

And the Bean Backhand is delivered!

[RichConley]

FWIW, theres a dam in my town that drives a turbine, with a 4-6' drop....


I've always thought the idea of using your overflow drain to power a venturi/beckett skimmer would be interesting, if you had a basement sump. A 10-12' drop should put enough pressure on the venturi to get atleast decent bubbles.

[goda]

is that teh same sam as samatsls? it sounds like it




this sounds like an ok idea but i dont think it could be made cheeply. rememebr this is saltwater so all the parts need to be saltwater resistant

[Adam]

Hi all,

First of all.... Bill,

Anyway... I have also thought about this idea, and the best solution is not to try to recapture the energy but rather to use it directly as Dale has described.

You can make a manifold in the drain line and use the taps to feed skimmers, chillers, filters, calcium reactors, etc. instead of using a separate pump. If you are worried about separating the air from the drain water, you can use a grant.

A grant is a small tank that acts as a holding tank for the drain water before it actually goes down the drain. It would be just like the biofilter in Dales system, except that you would have several small diameter drains feeding each device and a standpipe to maintain a constant water level and prevent overflow. The grant acts to maintain a costant water level (and head pressure) while also eliminating bubbles from the stream.

HTH

Adam

[BeanAnimal]

Rich, your town relies on volume to drive the turbine. In our aquarium we have neither volume or sufficient head to do much work. Is that an emergency power turbine or do they use to to generate off peak power and suppliment their operating costs by selling to the power company?

Remember what you get out can only be a fraction of what you put in

If anybody is serious about generating electricity from their tanks... the setup would consist of a water wheel connected to a gearset. The larger the wheel, the slower it will rotate, but the more torque it will have. Of course there is a happy medium someplace, if the wheel is to large, the water will not turn it.

In any case case, that large wheel (lets say 4" diameter and spinning at 60 RPM) would have to turn a gearset connected to small DC hobby motor (a generator). It would have to turn that hobby motor at maybe 1000 RPM. Voltage regulation and a small battery array would provide a filter/buffer and you could run your moonlights off of the setup. Saving money is not going to happen... but it would be a fun and rewarding project.

If anybody is serious about building something like this... let me know and maybe we can search out the needed hobby parts and come up with a design (I have no desire to build such a beast, but would be happy to try and give some help to anybody who does have the desire). This would make a great science project for a kid. In the end it would show that mechanical and electronic losses are real, and just how hard it really is to create an efficient system even when the principles are so basic.


Bean

[Fishbulb2]

Hey adam,
Thanks a lot for the tip on the "grant". I used similar ideas to feed recirculating skimmers and will consider adding it to feed my calcium reactor and chiller too. I never wanted to do it with the chiller before because I was afraid of the air intake but the grant should do the trick.
I'll set something up and post pics later.
FB

[stugray]

I drive my AquaC EV 120 with the gravity feed from my upstairs display. It works fine as long as you can 'back-up' the flow from one overflow all the way to the top. This increases the head pressure, but obviously slows the flow.

When I cut back the flow enough to make the skimmer work well, the overflows cant keep up with my Barracuda return.

I am replacing the EV120 with a recirc model, and the overflow will feed the skimmer directly.

Stu

[timrandlerv10]

1) I want to pick up the turbine challenge, as I am building a house on a mountainside, and we will be building a turbine in the stream on our property. this flow v head v volume v energy v 50' v etc has been pretty funny.
2) Calfo came up with a de-nitrifier that only required quick flow across the top of a sand bucket with no light and no macro/critters/etc. this sounds perfect--have it drop, go across the top of a bucket, and then down again.

$1 says i can prove Sam wrong by using my 'tiny turbine' to charge a deep cycle marine battery for a UPS system to make the power failure a moot point.

Tim

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Interesting idea. I would like to throw this in.

Not all of us have small aquariums. Would a 2" diamater overflow pipe flowing 3500 GPH work to turn a small gearset turbine?

What about using a gear reduction to go from high speed low torque to low speed high torque to turn the turbine? Theres plenty of them around.

[timrandlerv10]

Sam was obvsiously never in the Military, Master Chief...

initial calculations say that, with my 44G and 3' of head, i will have enough power to run my moonlights

more to follow...

[Fishbulb2]

just my thoughts,
Can we lay off sam for a bit? This is a cool thread and i'd like to see it keep going...productively. I've seen people here be WAY more negative and this thread is on the absolute edge of a cliff about to go over. Let's just keep trying to see how we can power or feed devices using our overflows and such.

sorry, i may not know much about dams but I know a lot about reefcentral threads turning negative fast.
FB

[perpetual98]

I think slamming Sam is just part of the fun. The thread isn't completely off topic yet.

[Crusty Old Shellback]

Originally posted by timrandlerv10
Sam was obvsiously never in the Military, Master Chief...

initial calculations say that, with my 44G and 3' of head, i will have enough power to run my moonlights

more to follow...

Reduction gears at their finest.

[lego]

Strugray your solution sounds like the coolest idea.

So let me make sure I understand. One overflow backs up and provides enough pressure (due to travelling to the basement) to take the place of a pump for your protein skimmer. The other overflow serves as a "bypass" so that your tank doesn't overflow due to the backup of the first overflow. You must have one hell of a pump for the return - which you would have to have anyways if you wanted a basement-based sump.

Obviosuly if you were trying to conserve power you would opt for a sump much closer to your display and just power the skimmer with a pump (since the return pump and skimmer pump would most likely consume less power than your basement-based return pump - correct?).

Very creative idea!

[samtheman]

Originally posted by BeanAnimal
Sam, the point is you make half baked comments, state them as fact and use them to rip apart peoples posts. Most of the time you do it in a rude or smartass maner. The point is sam, that you never really get it right and instead are just rude.

Sam what does $4,000,000 worth of power have to do with anything. You said that you need a 50' drop to overcome the mechanical loses. I said your full of it sam. Of course there are power houses that have a head of over 50', nobody said there were not. Are we now limited to talking about the Columbia and Snake River power generation topology? Get a clue sam, there are other hydro power generation statations on other bodies of water.

Your problem is that you make comments and aver fact based on your narrow understanding of things and do so in a very srcastic condescending manner. If you acted like a jerk and had your facts straight it would be one thing. However, you don't get your facts straight and along with your rude tone, that makes you foolish.

Do I have an effect on you? I could care less. I would hope that one of these days you figure it out... but it really has no effect on me. When you are rude and wrong, I will point it out, as will the other folks who you seem to rub the wrong way.

Enjoy the afternoon and your $4,000,000 of power.

BTW sam, could you please break that $4,000,000 of electricity into KWh and attempt to show me how much current that would be and let me know how many substations fed your business? I will get your started. That is $133,333 a day in electricity costs, or $5,555 an hour. At the expensive rate of $0.1 a kWh, that would be 55,550,000 watts or 55,550 kWh every hour. So sam you own a company that uses the entire output of a 55 Megawatt plant? Very large steel mills with large electric ovens pull 50-80 MW.

Certainly feasible, but not common. Maybe you own a steel mil, or a dozen industrial complexes... I dunno. It still does not make your power generation comments valid

Have a nice afternoon sam.

You need to look up electrolytic reduction of aluminum. I ran an Aluminum Reduction Plant near Portland OR. It did in fact use more power than the city of Portland. At one time there were 11 of these plants on the BPA System. We had one Substation fed by the BPA Grid. Why don't you check your facts? It’s obvious you are out of your depth.

I stand by my comment: "Most dams require 50' of drop to be economical" If you want to point out that a water wheel will turn a generator, go ahead. It does not effect my statement.


You would do well to control your own posts, as your concern with mine is useless.