Is there anything to this?

[Kayra]

A heat engine with no heat sink?

 

http://www.globalwarmingsolutions.co.uk/convective_energy_conversion_cycle.htm

[Qfwfq]

This guy seems to be confusing different possible types, designs and used of turbines. A gas turbine may exploit a pressure difference with gas losing heat to expand, but this decreases density. This guy wants to exploit the opposite density difference to create a pressure difference and this can only happen if there is absorbtion of heat on the opposite side to where it is supplied, since he can't have a greater volume flow after the turbine. His design in fig. 1 is far from optimal anyway.

 

He gives no indication of how he estimates the efficiency of the 19th century devices. The best way to make a high efficiency solar energy device would be by avoiding the involvement of heat. The low efficiency of photovoltaic cells is mainly due to the small fraction of incident photons producing a photoelectron.

[arkain101]

The concept similar to lessening air drag with a vacume design chamber in a long pipe near the end opening of the pipe. Like on certain exhaust systems. It creates a 'low pressure' section near the end of the pipe which assists in pulling air to the location of the low pressure.

 

I imagine you could set up the design like in the solar chimney design to use cold air from up high and hot air from down low, to create a pumping effect or cycling of air flow.

[Qfwfq]

That trick for exhaust systems is based on resonance and is most effective at a certain rpm. I don't see it pertinent here I think that author is simply confused and thinks the turbine would be cooling the air by converting heat into mechanical energy.

[Kayra]

The part under the "Solar Electricity using CECC" area seemed wrong somehow. It struck me that, since it is a closed system, and is thermally isolated except for input energy, that the entire system would eventually heat up.

 

Is that the case?

[Qfwfq]

Of course it would, but if that crank were right it wouldn't because input heat would all become mechanical energy.

[CraigD]

The part under the "Solar Electricity using CECC" area seemed wrong somehow. It struck me that, since it is a closed system, and is thermally isolated except for input energy, that the entire system would eventually heat up.

I agree. I think you’ve found the flaw in Dr. Williams’s proposal.

 

Shortly after figure 1, Williams claims “Post turbine, the air is cooler, contracts and falls under gravitation.” This is not supported by supported by thermodynamics, nor empirical evidence – it just doesn’t happen. While the collective speed of the air past the turbine is slower, its temperature will be slightly greater. Without a cold sink between the turbine and the heater in the bottom of the figure, the whole system would heat up until it matched the temperature of the heater, and air movement would stop.

 

There’s certainly no harm in the author attempting the experiment he proposed in figure 3, but, properly done, I'm certain it will demonstrate that the “closed solar chimney” he describes is much less efficient – possibly so much so that it produces no measurable turbine output at all – than the same apparatus left uncovered. The covered apparatus might still work, because hot air emerging from the chimney will be cooled when it contacts the glass cover.

 

Poor grasp of physics aside, The Right Honourable Dr. Alan Williams seems a fascinating fellow (see his CV which disagrees substantially with his wikipedia entry) – B.A (?) in Chemistry from Oxford, 16 or 40 years as a British Member of Parliament, currently a 75-year-old “freelance solar energy researcher”. I suspect his heart is in the right place, but, in the British vernacular, he’s gone a bit dotty.

[Kayra]

CraigD, I was just curious if you had read the private message I sent you a while back?