Apple's wind turbine technology uses heat, not rotational energy to generate electricity
In a rare non-computing related patent filing discovered on Thursday, Apple proposes a wind turbine that generates electricity from converting heat energy rather than rotational energy created by the rotation of the unit's blades.
Source: USPTO
While Apple is best known for inventing, and patenting, technology for computers and mobile electronics, the company also dabbles in seemingly radical ideas for an OEM. Such is the case with a an application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the "On-demand generation of electricity from stored wind energy," an invention wholly dedicated to solving problems of variability associated with the alternative energy production method.
The application, filed for in June 2011, notes that most contemporary wind turbines convert kinetic energy from wind into mechanical energy, or in some cases electricity. Basic windmill technology is well known: wind energy is asserted on a mill's sails or blades and is converted into rotational energy through a drive shaft, which then powers machinery or, more recently, electric generators. It is apparent that the process is dependent on a steady supply of wind which, as Apple's filing notes, is highly variable.
To mitigate these inconsistencies, the filing proposes a system that converts rotational energy from the turbine into heat, which is then stored in a "low-heat-capacity" fluid. From storage, heat can be selectively transferred to a "working fluid" that is used to generate electricity during lulls in wind activity.
In some embodiments, heat is generated from the friction created between blades connected to the rotor shaft and the low-heat-capacity fluid, such as mercury, ethanol or an inert gas, in which they are immersed. Thermal energy is stored in an insulated vessel. A thermally insulating component like a radiator or conductive rod can be used to selectively transfer heat from the low-heat-capacity fluid to the working based on electrical demand. Finally, the working fluid boils and creates steam which rotates a turbine connected to an electric generator.
Heat from the low-heat-capacity fluid (110) stored in the thermally insulating vessel (202)
is transfered to the working fluid (114) through a thermally conductive component (204).
According to the patent application, the "on-demand" electric generation system can reduce costs associated with natural variations in wind supply. Further, the method can be used as a replacement for current conventional energy storage methods such as batteries.
Whether Apple plans to deploy such a wind turbine system is unclear, but Cupertino is investing heavily in alternative energy sources like solar and natural gas "energy servers," as seen at the company's Maiden, N.C. data center.
Source: USPTO
While Apple is best known for inventing, and patenting, technology for computers and mobile electronics, the company also dabbles in seemingly radical ideas for an OEM. Such is the case with a an application published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for the "On-demand generation of electricity from stored wind energy," an invention wholly dedicated to solving problems of variability associated with the alternative energy production method.
The application, filed for in June 2011, notes that most contemporary wind turbines convert kinetic energy from wind into mechanical energy, or in some cases electricity. Basic windmill technology is well known: wind energy is asserted on a mill's sails or blades and is converted into rotational energy through a drive shaft, which then powers machinery or, more recently, electric generators. It is apparent that the process is dependent on a steady supply of wind which, as Apple's filing notes, is highly variable.
To mitigate these inconsistencies, the filing proposes a system that converts rotational energy from the turbine into heat, which is then stored in a "low-heat-capacity" fluid. From storage, heat can be selectively transferred to a "working fluid" that is used to generate electricity during lulls in wind activity.
In some embodiments, heat is generated from the friction created between blades connected to the rotor shaft and the low-heat-capacity fluid, such as mercury, ethanol or an inert gas, in which they are immersed. Thermal energy is stored in an insulated vessel. A thermally insulating component like a radiator or conductive rod can be used to selectively transfer heat from the low-heat-capacity fluid to the working based on electrical demand. Finally, the working fluid boils and creates steam which rotates a turbine connected to an electric generator.
Heat from the low-heat-capacity fluid (110) stored in the thermally insulating vessel (202)
is transfered to the working fluid (114) through a thermally conductive component (204).
According to the patent application, the "on-demand" electric generation system can reduce costs associated with natural variations in wind supply. Further, the method can be used as a replacement for current conventional energy storage methods such as batteries.
Whether Apple plans to deploy such a wind turbine system is unclear, but Cupertino is investing heavily in alternative energy sources like solar and natural gas "energy servers," as seen at the company's Maiden, N.C. data center.
Comments
Heat Energy is a form of Kinetic Energy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer
Heat Energy is a form of Kinetic Energy.
Wrong you are my friend. A quick lookup in Wikipedia provides us with this.
The kinetic energy of an object is the energy which it possesses due to its motion.[1] It is defined as the work needed to accelerate a body of a given mass from rest to its stated velocity. Having gained this energy during its acceleration, the body maintains this kinetic energy unless its speed changes. The same amount of work is done by the body in decelerating from its current speed to a state of rest.
Whereas what is described here is more related to thermodynamics.
Heat flow from high to low temperature occurs spontaneously, and is always accompanied by an increase in entropy. In a heat engine, internal energy of bodies is harnessed to provide useful work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by russiancommie
Heat energy is not kinetic energy. It is potential energy in that it has no inertia. You must be thinking about the molecular level which doesn't apply in Thermodynamics.
Thermodynamics add a level of abstraction to the uncalculable physics underneath. So heat energy is in reality just a form of kinetic energy.
But, in market terms I am sure you would end up better off. Some of the wind farms actually pay the utilities to take their energy at peak wind periods, so storage can help increase the price per kWh you earn. The efficiency penalty is likely comparable to grid scale sodium-sulphur batteries...
The real innovation would to be to combine this with the heat for the sodium sulphur batteries though, so you operate the batteries with near-zero losses and have combined thermal and chemical energy storage. Or, put a reasonable energy consumer in close proximity to the wind farm that keeps the energy off the utility grid.
It makes me worry that Apple is unsophisticated enough to chase the myths of green energy. All such concepts produce at least ten times the release of heat into the environment as that of simply burning fuel at the wheels. Please check where the wall plugs are in these magical schemes.
What do you suggest? Nice clean coal?
I would imagine that conventional wind turbines give off a fair bit of heat anyway (friction from moving parts). If that waste heat could be captured and stored for later use it would increase the overall efficiency of wind turbines while also reducing the variability of supply.
I wonder if there's any aspect of what Apple is doing here that would support a combined system like that...
Researching ways to improve things is a natural by-product of investing. Storing energy is hard; you have chemical, kinetic, potential, and thermal energy storage mechanisms, and they all have challenges. Matching consumption to production is even harder, unless consumption is buffered by some energy storage mechanism such as a hot water tank or batteries in equipment. Smart grid approaches such as staging devices to enforce diversity assumptions have limited benefit above the substation level.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
What do you suggest? Nice clean coal?
The US doesn't even know how to build one, so that's moot. (China builds one of those -- oxymoron noted! -- every couple of weeks).
Sooner or later people need to wake up and embrace newer nuclear technologies. In the end it is the only way to leave behind the negative impacts of current generation techniques. Apple would be far better off using a few of its billions to research advanced nuclear techniques than to waste more of our natural environment on this crap.
As a side note this simply might be Apple helping out one of its designers/engineers with a personal idea or project which is actually cool. Navigating the patent system isn't all that fun nor easy, so if Apple helps out one of their employees so that they get a bit of personal satisfaction, I'm all for it. After all being able to say you have your name on a patent is a bit rewarding.
By the way I'm not against the idea of solar energy, I'm against the senseless waste of land mass in the way Apple has approached solar energy at its data centers. Such systems should be integrated into the buildings themselves. Apple has set a very poor example at their data centers.
And, and, not only that, but I read on Cnet that Apple windmills will be 'locked in' pointing straight east, making them incompatible with 45% of winds!
Seriously, every single time Apple invents anything, people heap on the vague criticism with inverse proportion to their individual expertise of the field in question. "The less I know, the more I don't like it." And that's why it's impossible to debate with the anti-green mindset; to this day there are still practicioners of geocentrism, so some people will just never understand that harnessing the sun's 5 billion year supply of energy makes more sense than using up Earth's 50-100 year supply.
Heating water directly by having a windmill directly drive paddles immersed in a tank of water is actually an old idea and fairly well-known in the wind energy field. It's not as inefficient as the naysayers think.