The Train Break Turbine

Here's a quick energy generating idea. As well as all the usual green ways of energy production, why not tap into the wasted energy of breaks on a train.

You'd still keep the breaking mechanism on a train as a safety measure for the driver (and also for slowing near bends), but primarily breaking entering a station can be done by 'break turbines'. These are just a number of large turbine wheels built under the sections of track approaching the station, which will connect with long strips of break pad under each carriage. The break turbines will be adjustable from the signal box, so that they're only there if a train needs to stop. The turbines can be lowered so that they don't affect through-trains not intended to stop at the station.

For trains that should stop, the whole thing will be automated. There will be sensors on the track that register the speed of a train's approach to the station. The computer then knows how much pressure the turbine breaks need to initially exert on the train. This pressure is then gradually released until the train comes to a smooth stop at the platform.

Every time a train pulls into a station, a turbine will be turned which will generate electricity. Imagine the amount of power generated if every railway and tube station had these turbines spinning every time a train approached a platform. Enough to power the trains? Probably not, but I imagine there'd be a lot more force there than in wind or tidal power.

Naturally it would take much time and expense to convert both stations and trains to this method of breaking and energy production. But once all up and running, I should think they'd easily pay for themselves within a year.

Also, it would be easier to include this genius idea within the designs of new trains and train lines, rather than retrofitting it to existing ones.

I really like the proposed idea of the almost-frictionless vacuum tube train system* that they're gonna build in the USA or Japan**. I hereby give them permission to use my train break turbine generator idea as part of it's design. Just let me know if you've any questions guys.


* AKA The vactrain. A genius idea that's so crazy, it's like the sort of shit that I'd make up.
** I figure one of these 2 countries is bound to do it first.

Perpetual Super Fluid Motion

Yep, I'm giving the old perpetual motion machine a third and final stab.

Before I explain it in detail, I'd like to remind everyone that I am not a mathematician or a scientist, and my understanding of theoretical physics is basic at best. So perhaps you can chalk this one up to 'great idea, but the numbers don't quite add up'. On the other hand, perhaps I've stumbled upon something that no-one else has, and would therefore need to seriously consider removing the negative adverb from the title of this website.

It's all about superfluids. As with all my 'genius' ideas, this one is fairly straight forward ...(and ill thought out).

If you cool helium down to at least 2 degrees above absolute zero, it becomes a superfluid. Superfluids have many interesting properties. One of these is that they have no surface tension, and will continue to flow at a thickness of mere atoms over itself, the effect of which means it can effectively flow up the side of a bowl. My idea exploits this property.

If a superfluid can crawl up the vertical side of a bowl with a minimum of encouragement, then I see no reason why the same substance can't flow up the lesser angled slope, of a hellical structure. A reverse helterskelter if you will.

If enough liquid helium we're to make this trip, then at the top, when it reached an appropriate shaped spout, it would fall through a traditional water wheel turbine. This turbine would produce electricity. The superfluid would then return to the shallow pool where it came from, then it continues the cycle of moving up the hellical tower.

Now, if enough liquid helium was used in enough helterskelter/turbine systems, then a greater amount of electricity can be generated. In fact there has to be an optimum quantity of superfluid per turbine for it to run most efficiently (cos you don't want a surplus of superfluous superfluids). On top of this, there has to be an optimum scale of the turbines to produce the greatest amount of power, as well as an optimum number of such turbines per squared metre to produce the most power by recycling the liquid helium as efficiently as possible. If you take all these variables and make this gravity-defying liquid powerstation (for that is what it is) as energy efficient as possible, then you'll have your solution as to whether super fluid perpetual motion is possible.

Once you've figured out the optimum measurements, quantities and ratios, then you need to figure out the optimum freezer configuration, (which is to say, the minimum power input needed to maintain the necessary near-absolute-zero temperatures).

So then... you've figured out the maximum possible power output for the most energy efficient turbine/helterskelter/superfluid configuration (A), as well as the minimum power input required to keep this machine constantly cooled at the most energy efficient level possible (B).

Then you just do the maths to see if the machine can power itself as well as produce extra energy...

A - B = C

If C > 0 then you've got yourself a pepectual motion machine!

You're welcome.