Hydropower from our mains & drinking water pipes
 

Why has nothing been done about this?



It looks the perfect way to create electric. Even homes can have these generators in pipes or behind sinks, storing the electric in a battery like solar power, creating our own electric.

Has anyone else heard of this or seen this?

Most places pump the water so this is a joke.

Right, so water pressure goes down due to the turbins in the pipes or they use more electricity to pump water pressure up to compensate, makes sense.

I was a little skeptical at first. I was thinking that it was a dumb idea because the energy it would take to generate the electricity is lost downpipe, or, they have to use more energy to pump the water through the pipe to offset the energy converted back to electricity. Dumb..!

...but actually, this makes sense if like they say in the video, the water is flowing down. The energy that the water gains from gravity is converted into electricity. For a while it is slower coming out the other side (energy lost) but it can pickup more energy again thanks to gravity as it travels further down the pipe.

Smart!

What do you propose to do with all the wasted water that would need to flow through your pipes to create the "electric"?

Could work in a situation where the water supply is well above the consumers, and there's too much pressure, but otherwise, if the gen robs too much energy from the flow then it will need supplementary pumping to increase pressure to an acceptable level... which defeats the purpose.

I remember one of the potential Y2K consequences was that running water could be affected, because delivering it typically uses electric pumps.

Evidently they make in home mini version of this hydroelectric generator you can by online that generate a fair amount of electricity. This one does 13 watts

I think you're confusing watts and volts. He doesn't seem to be measuring amps or watts, only volts, so there's no way to tell how much power the generator (actually a pump used in reverse, which is far less efficient) is putting out. The battery also complicates things because that's going to have a stored charge.

This could be used in a situation where you have a low power device which cannot be powered by mains or solar for some reason, and can get by with a small recharge at regular intervals as someone runs the tap or shower, but as a general power source it's not going to put out much energy, and it will be horribly inefficient. You're basically robbing energy from the water supply to convert it (at a great loss) to electricity. Not to mention the potential for wasting all that water...

it's through the pipes that lead to your home. So every time you flush the toilet or run a bath, the pipes behind the taps have these generators, creating electric & channeled into a battery reserve similar to solar electric.

the water supply would remain the same & the pressure wouldn't need to be changed much. Have you seen the new wind turbines, they run on little breeze, free flowing.

This system would work, but to change the pipelines would cost a future :2 cents:

it's the watts that are important for energy. An average home uses about 1250w per hour, which would mean either each home would need power cells able to put out over this & charge over this.

For a city, that's a huge amount of Electric to create :helpme

A hint:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...erk-Bratsk.jpg

The hydro station in China's the biggest in the world, but sadly to build it, they flooded numerous amounts of villages. You can guess how people were treated when asked to leave their homes they had lived all their lives. Villagers were forced out of their homes by the government & insider of the plant :disgust

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/hybiggest.html

https://water.usgs.gov/edu/pictures/...-China2009.jpg

I hear they have new homes now, but were treated old school to move out & build this impressive structure :2 cents:

here's a bigger image

https://lpdaac.usgs.gov/sites/defaul...orges_2008.jpg

It's massive! :thumbsup

Same thing the US did when the TVA built their dams - and people in those areas are still very anti-government even some 80 years later...it's pretty sad listening to the old-timers talk about it

Cry me a river. They did this where I grew up. It's a fact of life. We need to build reservoirs and damns to control flooding and ensure the population has water when they take a bath.

While I'm with you Rochard, also, the Chinese were all rehoused...

it's still such a shame to hear stories of people living in their villages for over 300 yrs, the same towns & communities, then told to up & leave.

We're a different generation, moving around, flying from one country to another. Some of these old folk deserved maybe time or patience. Or even just sympathy & respect, love & support. They got nothing from what I hear :Oh crap

Water moving through household pipes would generate a tiny amount of energy.

The large pipe in the OP would supply water to a lot more than the 150 homes it can generate electrical power for. It's not a 1:1 thing.

No. If you add more and more of these pressure robbing devices, the water utility will need to compensate to maintain sufficient pressure.....usually by using electric pumps. That's a very inefficient and convoluted way for them to 'send' you electricity.