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

Some Practical Considerations:

While the movement of the continents has the potential power to overwhelmingly provide the needs of mankind, collecting it presents some practical problems that need to be overcome by Engineering.
Foremost among them is the issue of scale. If one supposes the power plants will be built say 100 years in the future, and the magnitude of the facility will be such as to satisfy the needs of humanity then it is safe to say the Scale will be at least 100 fold larger than the largest presently known facility. The three gorges dam and power plant in China may be a useful reference for this visualization. At 100 fold that scale the price of electricity/kwh will be down (in constant dollars) by 100 fold, assuming no increase in process complexity. Basically that means hydro electric power with a similar hydrostatic head and volumetric flow.
Major Parameters of the TGHP units and abroad power plants
Parameters Three Gorges Project
CHINA Grand Coulee
U.S.A. Itaipu
Brazil/Paraguay Guri
Venezuela Krasnoyarsk
Russia
Turbine
Maximum Head(m) 113.0 108.2 126.7 146 100.5
Rated Head(m) 80.6 86.9 112.9 130 93
Minimum Head(m) 71.0(61.0) 67.0 82.9 111 76
Rated Output (MW) 710 612/ 716 715 610 508
Maximum Output(MW) 852 827 740/808 730 508(505)
Rated Spinning Speed(r/min) 75 85.7 90.9/92.3 112.5 93.8
Runner Diameter(m) 9.525(9.800) 9.86/9.22 8.45 7.163 7.5

Generator
Rated Capacity(MW) 778 718 823.6/737.0 700 500
Maximum Capacity(MW) 840 710/825.6 823.6/766 805
Frequency(Hz) 50 60 50/60 60 50
Cooling Water Cooling of Statar Water Cooling of Statar Water Cooling of Statar Air Cooling Water Cooling of Statar
Rated Voltage(KV) 20 15 18±5% 18 15.75
Insulation Levels F B F B
Thrust Load(t) 4,050(4,100) 4,700 4,056&4,400 2,667
Inner Diameter of Stator(m) 18,500(18,800) 18,790 16,000 13,650 16,100

Preferred Conditions:
While this article started off with cables, multiple cables, springs, cable velocity enhancers and the passage of large amounts of time, the scale, and volumetric constraints imposed by costs lead to preferred conditions as follows and utilizes the energy accumulated over millions of years (not just a one-time event).
• Use gravity vice cables and springs.
• Use of water as the motive force for electric turbines or direct mechanical connection to the delivery conveyer. That means on the coast, close to continental trenches.
• Hydrostatic head >200 ft., so use the continental trench at 10-20,000 ft., a scale advantage of 50-100 fold.
• Transport of the mass of the continent being sent to the bottom of the trench should be as a fluid itself. Examples of two such masses are (1) the sands of the Sahara Desert, and (2) the mud volcanoes near the Mariana trench and elsewhere. An additional alternative could be molten lava, for example in Hawaii where the ocean trenches are nearby. Using
• the lava that has been cooled by Nature but is in danger of sliding off the island and creating tsunamis could be considered but I will leave that and other alternatives to others.
• This alternative suggests that the rock should be pulverized and transported as a fluid to the sea. The Western Sahara is an example of where nature over time has pulverized mountains and the wind (fluid) has transported it to the sea shore (and beyond with a gradient of about 2% out to sea). A 100 mile pipeline will yield a head for the power plant of 2 miles (10560 ft.) vs. say the 3 gorges head of 200 ft., for a scale advantage of at least 50 fold.
• The water for the electric turbines and used to transport the solid mass to the trench, may well have to be pumped from the sea to the mine, but considering the power generated by a solid of 2.5 specific gravity, dropping 10,000+ ft. Compared to the water at 1.03 specific gravity being pumped a small fraction of that height, should not be a limitation.
• The transport of the solids to the bottom of the trench could be done by basically a bucket elevator e.g., rail cars (at least 100 times the capacity of the present cars, i.e. a 5 fold scale increase in 3 dimensions or 125 fold) with return. Such delivery and return may preferably be encased in piping.
• As mentioned initially some form of velocity enhancement (more leverage per Archimedes) should be included, and by moving continental shelf mass down to the continental trench at say 45 miles/hour is a velocity enhancement, over the 2.5 cm/year movement of the continent, of 2*10^10. Combined with the head advantage of 50 fold yields an overall advantage of 10^12 over collecting the energy at a fault line (2, 11).
• Transfer of power from the rail car chain to the electric turbines could be by mechanical gearing or by suitable sealing around the rail cars and a larger diameter return pipe conduit (up to 2.5/1.0 times the area of the delivery pipe and its discharge and specified elevation above sea level) to supply electric turbines. One could simply use the volume of water returned in the emptied rail cars by extending the return pipe in elevation of say 1000 to 5000 feet above sea level. Other alternatives may include magnetic levitation of the buckets (rail cars) and one supposes magnetic braking could recover the electrical energy without need for a separate turbine/generator/power station.
• Mining of the sand deposits on shore may not be necessary. Hydraulic dredging of offshore deposits as the source (mine) and sand slurry transfer to the pipeline system for delivery to the continental trench may be preferred. Combined with magnetic levitation and magnetic braking for electricity generation (maglev) the system could be out of sight and out of mind for whatever benefits that may be for financial and aesthetic appeal. Considering that there are continental trenches around continents the choice of location worldwide is almost infinitely variable. While it is true that larger facilities have lower costs there may be merit in multiple facilities for the various multiple countries that will be involved.
• Population density in the area being mined has positive and negative benefits. Lots of people help construction and product use. Zero people help minimize resistance to the project. Considering the scale of the project zero people would seem preferred and the Western Sahara would be preferred on land or under-seas for hydraulic operation.

Conservation of the Environment: Unless the entire world’s continental drift is totally constrained the creation of mountains, volcanoes, rain, mud, sand, rocks etc., will be conserved over time. Mass is neither being created nor destroyed, rather some of it is being returned to where it was at another time. Basically material on the continental shelf is being returned to the continental trenches. What people do with the product power will either help or harm the environment. The creation of the power provides the opportunity to mankind to decide the environments’ and their own fate.
What Scale is needed? For the entire United States requirement in 2006 of 4.5*10^12 kwh or 600 gigawatts generating capacity the facility would be 300 times the scale of three gorges project in China or the U.S. Grand Cooley dam project using similar water flow and head. With a 50 fold head advantage the scale would be 300/50= 6 times that of either of these facilities. Assuming a water flow of 3 fold increase for that facility would require an overall 2 fold increase over either of these facilities. The total world electric demand would be satisfied by 10 such facilities.
Where are the facilities located? Considering that there are continental trenches at the boundary of the continents and over millions of years of erosion by wind and water, that have accumulated on continental shelves, they can be almost any where one desires. At some locations like Chile the continental trench is close by (e.g. 60 miles to 20,000 ft deep water) as well as having high elevation mountains near the coast. Others have broader continental shelves. It is not unreasonable to consider the exits (mouth) of major large rivers but the continental trenches may be less deep and farther away. This article is not a geological survey of the most economic locations; rather it is to observe that there are a very large number of candidates.
When will these facilities be built? Probably the time frame is 100 years in the future, say 2120. Plants are seldom built to provide greater than 20 years of visualizable needed capacity so something like 5 generation of concept and engineering evaluation followed by plant expansion will likely occur.
How much will electricity cost from a plant that is 300 greater capacity than the at present world’s largest? If $0.10 will buy a kilowatt hour today then in 2012 dollars it will cost $0.10/(300)^(1/2)=$0.006/kwh.
Why will Continental Drift Power (CDP) be preferred? Depletion of oil and gas reserves are forecast to diminish significantly in 100 years, but it will be scale of operation and the low cost associated with the largest single plant output that drives Continental Drift Power (CDP) over the options of thousands of oil/gas wells and thousands of miles of distribution piping for its delivery (basically a 1 dimension activity). Green energy is basically a one year at a time event (in 2 dimensions), yet the proposed continental drift energy source has been accumulating for millions of years. In a way it has a 10^6 scale advantage over any earthbound green energy (and is scalable in 3 dimensions). Energy sources that have advantages of scale and accumulation over time include continental shelves, coal (strip mining is essentially 2 dimensional), oil, gas and nuclear energy materials, and are concentrated forms of energy. The competition between these accumulated sources will continue to play out on a cost basis.
How will Continental Drift Power (CDP) come about. I suppose it is not fair to misappropriate Winston Churchill and say “It is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning” but the long road ahead would seem to make it appropriate. The need for energy from something other than fossil fuels is well known but the scale of presently discussed alternatives are so low as to make them expensive and ineffective in meeting the needs of the future. In the end it will be the scale, and accumulation of energy that will make continental drift energy prevail.
Is CDP conserved and sustainable? I am reminded of deriving differential equations in college wherein:Input – Output – Reaction=Accumulation. The input output difference is our desired power with zero chemical reaction required and the accumulation is over millions and millions of years. Over similar time frames it is conserving and fun to rewrite the equation: Input – Output – Reaction –Accumulation = 0. In other words it is conserving and sustainable for the human race for some time to come.
Is there Historical president or perspective? Tearing down mountains and dumping them in the sea is not a new concept but doing so to generate power for the world may be. There is a centuries old fable (7) in China where mountains are moved for the convenience of the human residents. Using hoes and baskets the family set out to dig up the mountain and dump it in the sea. Persisting for generation after generation ad infinitum they expected to accomplish their task; the moral of the story being many tasks appear unachievable but with determination anything can be achieved. It has also been exemplified in Mao Tse Tung’s telling of “Yu Gong Yi Shan,” in a very famous speech.
No philosophical or political motive for this article is intended though it is agreed that it will be the people of the world that will cause the mountains to be moved to generate the power. It is, after all, people that build the facilities in 3 dimensions over time and consume the product that is produced.
Rather it is to emphasize that the Scale of this proposal is markedly greater than the fables (hoes and baskets, vs. hydroelectric dams and volumetric flows greater than major rivers) and that the accumulated material (ground up mountain over millions of years vs. the original solid mountain) provides the energy basis for and from moving mountains.
Vertical Farming:
The use of electricity for light source for farming in a vertical as well as areal dimension (2 horizontal) is not new and has been discussed in the Economist (9). ‘Vertical farming: does it really stack up”. The conclusion there is correct, namely that the economics of doing so demand large scale low cost electricity. Given large scale low cost electricity farming can become 3 dimensional and therefore can be expanded at a greater rate than the growth rate of the population. In the very long term feeding the population can become a limitation that can be avoided by making farming a 3 dimensional activity.
World Population:
Presumably the world energy needs will grow with its population. Regardless of whose estimate one uses a significant increase beyond present will be required (10). Production of energy will preferably be proportional to the population, or greater, simply emphasizing the need for very large power generating facilities. Development of continental drift power (CDP) can presumably meet the demand within the next 100 years where population may increase 4 fold and continental drift power (CDP) can increase by 300 fold for each facility and 3000 fold for the world. Enough margin for growth and reduced costs too.

Will there be adequate Financial Capability: The financial capacity to do theses large project will grow in time with the population hence should not be a limitation. For example the U. S. GDP alone may grow 10^4 over the 100 year period.

Other Benefits: All of the results (benefits) listed on page 2 naturally flow from very large scale availability of electric power at low cost. Nearly all are unattainable absent low cost power, e.g. the hydrogen economy, no green house gases, electric cars and airplanes, waste disposal reduced to total recycle, atmospheric modifications, vertical farming, even unlimited growth of the human race. And the visualizable list goes on limited only by ones imagination and can include space exploration, human colonization of planets and stars for the propagation of mankind etc. , etc.
Summary:
(1) The combined accumulated energy sources that make power from continental drift possible are:
• The radioactive decay of elements in the earth’s interior that cause continental drift.
• The sun powered wind that erodes the mountains, evaporates the seas and causes rain to fall.
• The potential energy from elevated mass acted upon by gravity.
• Subduction Zones. When two oceanic plates collide, the younger of the two
plates, because it is less dense, will ride over the edge of the older plate.
• Continental drift power (CDP) has tremendous scale, ergo cost, advantages vs. other alternative power sources.
• Continental drift power (CDP) is conservative and sustainable.
(2) A velocity enhancement over continental drift of 10^10 is achieved by gravitationally transporting mass to trenches at a higher velocity than the continental drift rate.
(3) The low cost of Continental Drift Power (CDP) owing to its scale will become the preferred alternative power source.
(4) “It is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, but it is the end of the beginning”, per Churchill.

References:
1. http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/biography/Archimedes.html
2. This article: Copyright: Donald I. Garnett, 14206 San Felipe Dr., Corpus Christi, Texas, Tuesday, 26 April 2011.
3. http://experiencecurves.com/ecblog/
4. http://library.thinkquest.org/17457/platetectonics/2.php
5. http://www.stockton.edu/~hozikm/geol/Courses/The%20Earth/Content%20Web%20Pages/Bugielski/webpage.htm
6. http://www.eia.gov/emeu/iea/Notes%20for%20Table%206_2.html

7. http://english.cri.cn/4426/2007/01/15/167@185195.htm
8. http://www.story-lovers.com/listschinesestories.html
9. http://www.economist.com/node/17647627
10. http://www.sustainablescale.org/areasofconcern/population/populationandscale/quickfacts.aspx
11. http://physics-edu.org/energy_from_continental_drift.htm

Cost therefore is Employed*Employed*Employed*Employed, or Employed^4.
Ergo, GDP=k*Employed^4.

While the industrial and agriculture revolutions have increased the number of dimensions being used, agriculture to date has remained limited to two dimensions and is therefore areal (n=2) not volumetric (n=3).

This limitation can be overcome by providing agro-lighting of the fields. They could/can become volumetric vice area limited. What is needed is a source for that electricity that is essentially unlimited.

One essentially unlimited source of electricity is to use continental drift as that source. As the continents move apart at a given fault line a cable across that fault can be loaded with weights and when the continents move apart the lifted weights can have their energy recovered. An accumulation of the energy of continental drift of the continents over millions of years exists in the mountains that it has built and some have been ground to dust (sand) by the winds powered by the sun and blown out to sea (e.g. off shore of the west Sahara desert of Africa). At such a place the gradient (of about 3%) down to the subduction trench can supply a head of >10,000 ft hydraulic head for a dredge supplied, reasonable length, pipeline driving a power station. All continents have such subduction trenches and gradients to them, arising from wind or water born deposits of ground up mountains, ergo the world power needs can be supplied by such.

Copyright, Donald I. Garnett, 7/11/2011, Corpus Christi, Texas.
Copyright, Donald I. Garnett, 12/6/2011, Corpus Christi, Texas.

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.

For a change in Production of a Product with time the Behavior of Men is to Minimize their time/Per unit of Volume of the product, i.e. that ratio (dMen/dRadius with time)=0.

Using reduced values, or indexed values of these variables based on a given year for GNP, Price, Volume, etc. and the Fact that Dollars=Price*Volume=Wages*Men, and Volume=Radius^m gives a Slope for the Experienc Curve=(1/m-1)*(1-Exp(-k*t)) wherE k=growth rate constant for the product and t=time (usually years) .

Because “All Men involved minimize their time per unit of space dimension, with time”.  Thus this Law of Nature is claimed as Garnett’s Minimization Law

(more)

Inherent in the foregoing is also the fact that Investment=Scale^(1/m).

.

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

.

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,

.

and the fact that demand is frequently exponential with time.

recent-us-deaths

Which has slope of 2.

The number of dimensions m, normally being used is: Slope=1/m-1, hence in this case 1/m=2+1=3.

However, we are not infecting the virus it is the other way around.  Hence from the viruses point of view the number of dimensions is 1/m not m, and therefore=3.  It is a volumetric production rate.  Presumably the graph of deaths vs. invections will continue until the number of uninfected people is beginning to diminish, somewhere over half of the population.

The death rate per thousand infected people (the “fraction”) has been rising but recently has been diminishingas shown in:

recent-us-deaths1

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

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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.