Prime-mover dynamo plants – Electric control – Fluid-current motors
Reexamination Certificate
2001-02-22
2003-03-11
Ramirez, Nestor (Department: 2834)
Prime-mover dynamo plants
Electric control
Fluid-current motors
C290S042000, C290S053000, C290S054000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06531788
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements on a submersible electrical power generating plant. More specifically, my invention is primarily intended for providing an improved electrical power generating plant that is able to generate electricity from the kinetic energy contained in steady ocean currents.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The wealth of the United States has been created largely through the exploitation of cheap energy provided by the past abundance of fossil fuels. Because of the increasing shortages of natural gas in North America and the approaching worldwide shortages of oil, and because of the growing danger of global warming caused by the combustion of fossil fuels, reliable sources of renewable energy are needed.
A growing percentage of the efforts to utilize renewable sources of energy has been concentrated in the creation of wind farms. Although wind powered generating systems should be encouraged, they do have a problem: wind energy is inherently intermittent. Wind speeds can fluctuate hourly and have marked seasonal and diurnal patterns. They also frequently produce the most power when the demand for that power is at its lowest. This is known in the electricity trade as a low capacity factor. Low capacity factors, and still lower dependable on-peak capacity factors, are the major source of wind power's problem. Because of the steadiness of the Coriolis force driven ocean currents, submersible generators can have capacity factors equal to those of many fossil fuel plants. The fact that these ocean currents can produce a steady supply of electricity, makes that power much more valuable than the intermittent power produced by the wind-driven turbines. For the submersible turbines to achieve the high capacity factors, however, proper placement is very important.
Ocean currents flow at all depths in the ocean, but the strongest usually occur in the upper layer which is shallow compared to the depth of the oceans. The main cause of surface currents in the open ocean is the action of the wind on the sea surface. A wind of high constancy, blowing over great stretches of an ocean, have the greatest effect on producing current. It is for this reason that the north-west and south-east trade winds of the two hemispheres are the mainspring of the ocean's surface current circulation. In the Atlantic and Pacific oceans the two trade winds drive an immense body of water westwards over a width of some 50 degrees of latitude, broken only by the narrow belt of the east-going Equatorial Counter-current, which is found a few degrees north of the equator in both of these oceans. A similar westward flow of water occurs in the South Indian Ocean, driven by the south-east trade wind. These westward surface currents produce giant eddies that are centered in latitudes of approximately 30° N. and S. that rotate clockwise in the northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in the southern hemisphere. Currents of over 3.5 mph are confined to very restricted regions. They have been recorded in the equatorial regions of the oceans, and in the warm currents flowing to higher latitudes in the western sides of the oceans, with the exception of the Brazil current. The book,
Ocean Passages of the World
(published by the Hydrographic Department of the British Admiralty, 1950), lists 14 currents that exceed 3 knots (3.45 mph), a few of which are in the open ocean. The Gulf Stream and the Kuro Shio are the only two currents the book lists having velocities above 3 knots that flow throughout the year. Both of these currents are driven by the Coriolis force that is caused by the Earth's eastward rotation acting upon the ocean currents produced by the trade winds. Because these currents are caused by the Earth's rotation, they will continue flowing as long as our planet continues to turn on its axis.
The Gulf Stream starts roughly in the area where the Gulf of Mexico narrows to form a channel between Cuba and the Florida Keys. From there the current flows northeast through the Straits of Florida, between the mainland and the Bahamas, flowing at a substantial speed for some 400 miles. It hits its peak velocity off Miami, where the Gulf Stream is about 45 miles wide and 1,500 feet deep. There the current reaches speeds of as much as 6.9 mph in its narrow central axis, which is located less than 18 miles from shore between Key Largo and North Palm Beach. Farther along it is joined by the Antilles Current, coming up from the southeast, and the merging flow, broader and moving more slowly, continues northward and then northeastward, where it roughly parallels the 100-fathom curve as far as Cape Hatteras.
The Kuro Shio is the Pacific Ocean's equivalent to the Gulf Stream. A large part of the water of the North Equatorial current turns northeastward east of Luzon and passes the east coast of Taiwan to form this current. South of Japan, the Kuro Shio flows in a northeasterly direction, parallel to the Japanese islands, of Kyushu, Shikoku, and Honshu. According to
Ocean Passages of the World
, the top speed of the Kuro Shio is about the same as that of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream's top flow rate is 156.5 statute miles per day (6.52 mph) and the Kuro Shio's is 153 statute miles per day (6.375 mph). Other possible sites for the underwater generators are the East Australian Coast current, which flows at a top rate of 110.47 statute miles per day (4.6 mph), and the Agulhas current off the southern tip of South Africa, which flows at a top rate of 139.2 statute miles per day (5.8 mph). Another possible site for these generators is the Strait of Messina, the narrow opening that separates the island of Sicily from Italy, where the current's steady counter-clockwise rotation is produced—not by the wind—but by changing water densities produced by evaporation in the Mediterranean. Oceanographic current data will suggest other potential sites.
Submersible turbine generating systems can be designed to efficiently produce power from currents flowing as slowly as 3 mph—if that flow rate is consistent—by increasing the size of the turbines in relation to the size of the generators, and by adding more gearing to increase the shaft speeds to the generators. Because the Coriolis currents can be very steady, capacity factors of between 70 percent and 95 percent are possible. This compares to capacity factors for well-located wind machines of between 23 percent and 30 percent. Because a well-placed submersible water turbine will operate in a current having even flow rates, it is possible for them to produce usable current one-hundred percent of the time.
Most water turbines are impulse and reaction turbines, which are very different from those that would be used for these underwater generators. Most water turbines obtain their kinetic energy from a head of water, making them well suited for dam sites. These submersible turbines would obtain no energy from a head of water and could be likened more to a child's pinwheel that would be powered by water rather than air. Although the turbines on the invention would have more in common with the wind turbines than the impulse and reaction water turbine, there would be major differences. The water would be much denser and would be moving much more slowly.
The amount of kinetic energy contained in a moving fluid can be calculated using the following formula:
KE=
½×
M×V
2
.
M=mass per second
V=velocity
The mass is the weight of the fluid that passes through the diameter of the turbine's blades per second. This is obtained by calculating the area of the blade's sweep and multiplying that quantity by the distance the fluid traveled in one second. This volume is then multiplied by the weight of the fluid per cubic unit to get the mass. Because the mass passing through the blades in one second is a factor of the velocity, the power produced by the current does not increase by the square of the velocity, but by its cube. Therefore, th
Gonzales Ramirez Julio
Meroni & Meroni P.C.
Ramirez Nestor
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