CA2526527A1

CA2526527A1 - Tri mode generator

Info

Publication number: CA2526527A1
Application number: CA002526527A
Authority: CA
Inventors: Alain Painchaud
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-11-21
Filing date: 2005-11-21
Publication date: 2007-05-21

Abstract

The subject matter of this invention is to use the energy from Sun, High Altitude Winds and Earth Heat to create heavy and constant winds in order to generate electricity. This is made by use of Chimneys, Air Intakes, Heating Chambers and Wings arranged in a manner that will produce heavy and constant air circulation that will be converted in Electricity. This generation technique is better than traditional wind farms in the sense that we produce massive air circulation with renewable energy sources instead of running after the winds and then convert it to electricity.

Description

Disclosure 1 The general character of the class of article or the kind of process to which the invention (i.e.
the inventive idea) relates The subject matter of this invention is to use the energy from Sun, High Altitude Winds and Earth Heat to create heavy and constant winds in order to generate electricity. This is made by use of Chimneys, Air Intakes, Heating Chambers and Wings arranged in a manner that will produce heavy and constant air circulation that will be converted into Electricity. This generation technique is better than traditional wind farms in the sense that we produce massive air circulation with renewable energy sources instead of running after the winds and then convert it to electricity.

The massive air circulation is produced by creating a difference in pressure and temperature between the air that is inside the heating chambers and air that is outside of the heating chambers.
These pressure and temperature differences are kept by use of renewable energy sources from the Sun, High Altitude Winds and the Earth Heat.

It has to be noted that the tri modes generator could also be used with only two modes ( Sun and High Altitude Winds ). In such case, it becomes a two mode generator. Indeed, in general terms, all of the modes can be used separately or with any combinations.

2 The nature in general terms of the articles or processes previously known or used which are intended to be improved or replaced by resort to the invention and of the difficulties and inconveniences which they involve The Wind Farms technology consists in looking for places where there are winds and then try to recuperate this renewable energy in order to produce electricity. This new invention changes the concept of looking for winds and then recuperate it. In fact, we will be using renewable energy sources in order to produce massive winds into Chimney and then we change this massive air circulation into electricity, by the means fans blades and electrical generators. More or less, it is equivalent to create a river of air and put it in huge Chimney to be able to recuperate it easily and with a higher level of predictability.

It is also possible to install wind driven generators in the underground pipe network. We also believe that some wind farm applications could be developed in the vicinity of these generation plants.

4 A full description of the best way of using or putting into operation the inventive idea. If there are drawings, the description should be preceded by a list of these drawings and should be related to them by the use of the numerals which appear upon them.

Patent Title : Tri Mode Generator.

In drawings which illustrate embodiments of the invention:

The number 1 represents the Wing that will generate a positive pressure on the Chimney.
The number 2 represents the Chimney The number 3 represents blades that collect the wind energy to transform it into a rotation of the shaft The number 4 represents alternator / generator that will transform the rotational energy into electrical energy The number 5 represents the buried air intakes that are used to heat air with earth inherent heat The number 6 represents the heating chambers that are used to collect solar energy to heat air and create a pressure difference with outside ambient air.
The number 7 represents the outside air intake The number 8 represents the shaft that drives the alternator / generator.
The number 9 represents the alternator The number 10 represents the DC bus The number 11 represents the addition of a future DC - AC Drive The number 12 represents the AC Bus, once the DC-AC Drive will be added and will convert the DC Current into AC Current.

Figure 1 is a side view of the Tri Mode Generator, Figure 2 is an electrical diagram of the Tri Mode Generator The preferred applications for the tri mode generator would be in areas where the combined effect of High Altitude Winds, Sun and Earth Heat completes each other. The invention consists of chimneys combined with huge solar heated chambers, that are fed by the use of air intakes / exhaust to renew the air that goes up in the Chimneys. This invention uses wind driven generators to recuperate the wind energy and convert it into electricity.

Because there is a lot of others planets around the Earth and because the Earth rotates on herself and the first layer around the planet is gas, this naturally produces differences between the rotating speed of the planet and the rotating speed of air surrounding it. More or less, there is almost always winds at higher altitude and our Newton Device, which is a wing, takes care of creating a positive pressure in the Chimneys. By using Newton laws, it is possible to prove that the Lift generated by a wing will be equal to:

Lift = CI * 0.5 * Air Density * Speed2 * Wing Area, where CI is a constant determined experimentally and that depends on the shape of the wings.

On Figure 1, you can see the positioning of the wing and the device that allows it to turn in order to always face the wind and create this upper lift that will be sucking air from the Chimney. Indeed, on the top of the wing, you will see this aileron that is straight when the wind is facing the front face of the wing and creates positive pressure. In counter part, when the wind shift and lift the wing, then the aileron shift the wing in order to position the wing as to create a sucking pressure in the Chimney. This allows and ensure that the wing produces sucking pressure on the Chimney or, in the worst case, does not create anything.

At the same time, when the Sun does it job, it generate around 1 kW per square meter. For example, in Boston area, there is an average of 3.6 kwh per day per square meter of energy coming from the sun. In desert areas, it is a lot more. As you can see on Figure 1, the air is heated in the heating chambers due to the sun effect and these chambers are connected to the Chimney, to allow hot air to climb in the Chimney. This hot air pressure adds to the Lift Effect created by our Newton device.
When the sun is present, it is easy to calculate the contribution in pressure created by heating the air inside, compare to the air outside. Since the air behaves like a perfect gas in our applications, we can use the approximation of the Thermodynamic Law of Boyles and Charles, known as the Equation of the Perfect Gas:

P1*V1/T1 = P2*V2/T2 where P is Pressure, V is Volume and T is Temperature.

With the fan blades counter force, we adjust the pace at which the air circulates to allow us to store a bit of solar energy in the ground, surrounding our heating chambers. This will allow us to dampen the fact that clouds may pass and reduce/ruin our solar production period. The Chimney could be insulated to maximize its heat storage capacity so as to maximize the pressure difference between ambient air and air in the Heating Chambers. The inertia of this mass of gas renders it very tuff to stop, once it has started to move. There is also a pulling effect in the Chimney, like every Chimney has. It is possible to see this effect on a fire place, when the Chimney is hot. At this moment, the air in the Chimney is heated and tend to go upward. So, insulating the Chimney allows us to keep the Heat inside our System as long as possible.

The Third Generative Mode comes from the Earth Inherent Heat. This mode will be used only when is it possible to take advantage of it. For example, in Canada, during winter, sometimes the ambient air temperature goes as low as -30 Degrees C, while the Earth temperature at 10 foot under ground is above 0 degree C. This is very easy to take advantage of this difference of temperature by running a network of buried pipes. As you can see in Figure 1, in order to take advantage of that, we pass the air intake that feeds the heating chambers with a network of pipes that pass underground and that naturally heats the air. We can use this to bring additional pressure to our system during cold nights. More or less, it is a question of managing available resources in order to have a source of energy that is predictable. This generative mode could be used near a volcano, for example. In this case, it could be used very effectively at any time during the day.
In certain cities, we could use the air from the sewer network as the intake of the system, during cold periods. This will save on the overall cost of the project. However, before doing that, calculations must be done to ensure that it is not going to freeze the sewing waters. This mode is not used all the time. For example, during the day, we would not normally use it because we want the earth to heat up naturally. In fact, when we use this mode, we retrieve heat from the earth, so that the earth surrounding the pipes will be colder after we operated with this mode. After a few hours at rest, the earth will heat up to its normal temperature. So, as you can see in Figure 1, there is a simple valve to determine by which path we will take our air intake for the heating chambers. For the case where it is too expensive to use this generation mode, the 2 others modes are used alone.

Regarding the electrical side, since this generation technique is more predictable than simple wind farm, it will be possible to generate directly in AC, at the right Frequency and Phase. In our case, since it is a prototype and we wanted to save on cost, we decided to generate with DC Car Alternator. These alternators have a very poor efficiency but they are perfect for a prototype job.
In Figure 2, you can see the electrical arrangement of our prototype, that has been made with car alternator, to save on cost. Obviously, the alternator generates at 12 V DC
and we decided to keep the energy in DC, because it is only a prototype. This is why we have indicated that point # 11 and # 12 represents respectively the future addition of a DC-AC Drive and the future AC Bus. It is anticipated that a real generating plant would operate with more efficient machines than car alternators because when operated continuously, the lost energy becomes very expensive.

There are no patents on this to the best of my knowledge and after I made several searches.

I have never given away any information about the subject of this invention other than to say to some of my friends that I found a way to generate electricity with gravity and that I was trying to obtain a patent for this idea.

Finally, it is my intent to patent this invention in the maximum countries as possible.

Claims

Claims Claim 1 A Tri Mode Generator converting solar energy, high altitude winds and earth inherent heat into sustained air circulation inside a Chimney where it is converted into electricity or any form of useful energies, which comprises Heating Chambers, Chimneys equipped with wind driven electric generators, Wings and a network of buried pipes that creates a sustained pressure and temperature differences between external air and heating chambers air.

Claim 2 A Two Mode Generator converting solar energy and high altitude winds into sustained air circulation inside a Chimney where it is converted into electricity or any form of useful energies, which comprises Heating Chambers, Chimneys equipped with wind driven electric generators and Wings that creates a sustained pressure and temperature differences between external air and heating chambers air.

Claim 3 A Two Mode Generator converting earth inherent heat and high altitude winds into sustained air circulation inside a Chimney where it is converted into electricity or any form of useful energies, which comprises Chimneys equipped with wind driven electric generators, Wings and a network of buried pipes that creates a sustained pressure and temperature differences between external air and heating chambers air.