Unlimited Power from Continental Drift, 284207
Donald I. Garnett, Industrial Chemicals, Retired E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Corpus Christi, TX
Thursday, January 05, 2012
Overview: Given a place to stand and a long enough lever Archimedes (1) said he could move the world. Donald I. Garnett (2, 3) observes that anchoring one continent to another with a cable will let the world’s continental drift (4, 5) move you, namely: it will provide all the energy needed to power the entire worlds electrical (6) and other needs. To capture the energy of the moving continents it will be especially convenient to catenary a cable across a fault line and let the mass of the cable plus any added weights desired be lifted in elevation against gravity by the moving apart of the continents. Recovery of that energy can be accomplished using an electric generator driven by the pull of the cable in restoring the cables initial position.
Restraining the movement of a continent the size of North America in theory could generate 10^10 times the electrical usage of the United States. In principle its’ restraint might stop or prevent earthquakes in California, Oregon and Washington.
The magnitude of the energy available exceeds that of tearing down the Rocky Mountains (in cable cars attached to electric motors) and dropping the rocks into the Pacific Ocean. Had the erosion by Nature of the Rocky Mountains not occurred it would be closer to equivalent but still inferior?
While this method may be applicable in many places at continental plate boundaries it is easily visualized for the Rift Valley in Africa. Places where a cable would acquire tension by continental plate movement being preferred. Movement at the face of any type fault however can be harnessed. Lateral, vertical, or oblique plate movement energy recovery can be accommodated by inclusion of a spring in the cable. Multiple echelon faults energy similarly can be harnessed using a network of spring loaded cables.
Methods: The energy associated with the drift of a continent is its ½ *mass * velocity^2 from a given anchor point. In this discussion the anchor point is another continental plate reachable by a cable. Across a fault where the movement is “apart” is especially preferred. The velocity is low but the mass is extremely large. The usual ½ mass times velocity squared is also (½*mass*velocity/410.3Kw)*velocity, or Power*velocity. With mass of a continent being say 10^22 lbs and velocity of 2.5 cm/year the power available is 10^15Kw or 10^10 times the total U. S. Electrical power.
The anchor points need not be capable of restraining the continent but may be any amount consistent with the intended power output. The small movement of the continent and the preferred relatively high velocity of the cable driving the generator begs for a velocity enhancement like a block and tackle arrangement or a geared reducer run backwards. In any event a 1000 fold block and tackle on top of another (for leverage per Archimedes) , etc., etc., will likely be in the final design. Other methods of energy recovery are possible, including:
(1) Spring compression and release, (2) Hydraulic lifting of water for use in turbines, and
(2) Hydraulic lifting of water for use in turbines on release.
(3) Gas compression and release.
Historically of course part of the energy of the continents movement has raised mountains and provides the force multiplier and accumulator of millions of years of potential energy generated by the continents movement. Recovery of that potential energy is available by tearing down the mountains, for example in cable cars connected to electric generators and dumping the rocks into the oceans continental trench. The Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas for example are available at present. Over time both energy and material (mountains) are conserved
Results: The result of using continental drift for essentially unlimited power for the human race is probably unfathomable, but nearly infinitely describable, including: No green house gasesThe hydrogen economy.
1. The elimination of nuclear power plants.
2. Electric cars with no emissions and other transportations.
3. Electric aero planes.
4. Unlimited agriculture from electric agro-lights. Production can become volumetric vice area limited, further postponing Malthus effects.
5. The largest possible scale for energy production ergo least cost.
6. Waste disposal reduced to near zero.
7. Industrial production with only carbon, water and electricity.
8. CO2 impoundment or removal for its carbon content for global climate control.
9. Oxygen supplementation of the atmosphere for enhanced ozone protection of earth.
10. Population explosion from all of the foregoing.
11. Focused power into space.

Conclusions: Unlimited power from continental drift for the human race contains the essentials for future growth and sustainability of the race.

Some Practical Considerations:
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If the result of repeated activities by mankind always results in learning, what is it that causes mankind to adopt a new learned procedure? Why does it always work no matter what the activity is? And why does it affect cost of manufacture differently for different products?

The post “The Geometry of Experience Curves” in this blog shows that the answer is: “That Men minimize their Time per unit of dimension”. Thus providing the incentive (less time spent by men) and the reason (geometry difference) for each product being different.

In the world of Supply and Demand the money that one group of people are willing to spend for something is equal to the amount of Money another group of  people are willing to provide (sell) that something.  The something can be anything, either goods (a product) or services.  Money is identical to the time of Employed men times their Wage rate as that is exactly what one can buy with money.  The production of that something in a physical facility has dimensons, like the Radius of a spherical tank brewing beer, and the quantity of beer or its Volume is proportional to the Radius raised to the power of the number of dimensions.  In this case V=R^(N)=R^(3), since the number of dimensions is 3.  In general, the economy is evolving, that is, it is a function of Time.  The rate of change with time for the variable, say Employed is dE/dT, and Radius  is dR/dT.  The behavior of people when it comes time to change supply and demand is defined as Garnett’s Minimization Law:

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“People minimize their time per unit of dimension, namely d((dE/dt) / (dR/dT))/dT  = zero = 0 .

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The result is that the Log(Money)=(1/N)*Log(Volume).  Also,

Log(Price)=(1/N-1)*Log(Volume)

and other relationships that can be worked out from Money=Price*Volume=Wages*Employed=Wealth+Costs,

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and the fact that demand is frequently exponential with time.

Presentation made on August 24, 2009, in Montreal, Canada.

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Power Point presentation “with recorded voice”.  Research as Investment

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Once you accept that the investment for a tank or reactor or container scales up with the 1/3rd power of volume then the scale up with pressure naturally follows.

If the rate of reaction of a chemical reaction is proportional to pressure (P) then raising pressure will lower the volume required at the same time that it will raise the thickness of the walls to contain that higher pressure.  It follows that Investment will be:

Investment=k*(1/P)^(1/3)*P

Investment =k*P^(2/3)

If the reaction is proportional to the pressure squared (2 species->one species)

Investment=k*(P)^(1-2/3)=k*(P)^(1/3)

For a 3rd order pressure dependency on the reaction rate the Investment is independent of pressure, i.e.

Investment=k*P^(1-3/3)=k

For orders higher than 3 other things like heat transfer to/from the reactants (i.e. area or order 2),  or limiting conversion to limit temperature rise, or use of diluents to control temperature rise,  may become dominant, limiting the pressure effect between P^0 to P^(1/3).

By my memory the investment for polyethylene plants scale as the 1/4th power of Pressure.

The foregoing is applicable for a fixed production rate.  However if one is in the position of building a plant where the justification of the capital is a key element then one likes to consider investment per annual pound.  Larger plants tend to give lower investments/annual lb.  Since production rate is proportional to P raised to the power of 1,2, or 3 preceding the investment per annual lb will be proportional to Pressure raised to the power of -1/3, -5/6, -6/3=-2.  That being the case plants tend to be at the highest pressure and largest scale.

Is the Learning Curve the cause for the Experience Curve?

Bruce Henderson in his “Perspective on Experience” alluded to learning being responsible for the experience Curve being the way that it is. However, he never did quantify the relationship between price and cumulative volume much less their relationship to learning. Henderson’s lack of understanding of the cause and effect relationships is exemplified by the many assertions of not knowing why the curves were as they were. Michael Rothschild in his Bionomics: Economy as Ecosystem asserts Henderson as writing:

“The experience curve phenomenon is as real as gravity. . . . [Its] effect can be observed and measured in any business, any industry, any cost element, anywhere. . . . The reason for the experience curve effect are not particularly important. The important fact is that the experience curve is a universally observable phenomenon.”

Clearly Henderson did not know and did not want to know the reasons behind experience curves as long as his experience curve phenomenon continued to be acknowledged.

See link for more:

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Why do scale up rules of thumb work and why is the historic six tenths power six tenths?

The cause and effect relationship is shown in this link (publication)

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Experience curves show the scale factor or number of dimensions “m” of the production facility, the growth rate constant constant, and contain cycles with time.  The full equation for the experience curves depends upon the scale of the production facility at a given time, the number of men currently working on it and the expansion effort currently underway.  Using men(t) as a variable, which is proportional to money via wages, and an exponential demand from the population gives the following differential equation and its’ solution.  The periodicity is shown to be a fundamental part of the solution.

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I was talking to Gregory S. Patince recently about Research being an Investment, or not.  My view of course is that it can be if managed to be an investment.  Just how that is so is included in the following documents.  The criteria of what is required is defined.

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These documents are part of the continuing dialog about what Experience Curves are and how they can be extended beyond historic data.

The equation for the slope of an experience curve is (1/m-1)*(1-exp(-kg*t)) or
(SF-1)*(1-exp(-kg*t)), where: t is time typically years, kg is the exponential growth rate

constant, SF is scale factor from the slope of an xy plot of scale of the facility vs investment

 in constant dollars, m is the number of dimensions of the production facility eg. 1 for linear

 like a pipe line, 2 for an area facility like a plate and frame filter press, and 3 for a volumetric

 facility like a tank. For a mature product slope becomes (1/m-1) or (SF-1).

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