Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[texaslabrat]

I went to the site too…and the ideas for extracting energy from periodic motion (eg waves) are interesting. However, the claims of perpetual motion and “something for nothing” energy generation are entirely misguided. Klaudio, you said you had your “engineer friend” look over your calculations and he thought they looked good? I suggest you find another technical reference. I did a quick energy analysis of the proposed system and it suffers a substantial energy deficit (no surprise there..). Both scenarios of filling the bell completely with air at the bottom of it’s cycle (100m…approx 10atm) and filling it just enough to start an upward motion (and therefore relying on linearly decreasing pressure to increase the upward force as it continues to ascend) result in substantial net input of energy to maintain the cycle. The “full air bell” scenario comes out to a deficit of about 8100 kJ…and the filled-just-enough scenario comes to about 1465 kJ deficit. I can post the full calculations if anyone is interested…I’ll leave it at just these final results for now if no one cares since it’s a heck of a lot of typing :p All of those calculations don’t take into consideration any friction losses and the like…and I used an isothermal compression scenario for the work required for the air because the process becomes isothermal by default since it will be in virtual direct contact with a huge isothermal heat sink in the form of the bell and the surrounding water.

Also…FYI Klaudio…standard atmospheric pressure is not 101300 kg/m^2 but rather 101300 N/m^2 (1 kg exerts 9.81 N at the earth’s surface) … although that wasn’t the biggest problem in your calculations. Anyway, long story short (too late, I know…) Homer Simpson can rest assured that the laws of thermodynamics are still being followed in the house (http://www.thesimpsonsquotes.com/characters/homer-simpson-quotes-13.html)