Una, I’m looking at you!
http://www.wowenergies.com/pages/1/index.htm
http://www.wowenergies.com/images/DOEPresenRevt.pdf
Basicaly it uses propane instead of water as the working fluid in a turbine system.
(NB: The propane isn’t burned, it is vaporized/liquefied)
I haven’t found anything fundamentally wrong, but I’m going off dim memories of Thermo class, and I haven’t crunched the #s (or looked up the specific heat, etc of propane)
Brian
The part that caught my attention was the first option they gave for going into business with them. They offered to purchase your “waste” heat and build their own plant.
If they are willing to put their money where their mouth is there may be something to it. Though my first thought was, “Cold Fusion.”
Looking over their resumes it appeared they were a rather “hands on” sort of group.
Be interesting to see where this goes.
As usual, I’m reluctant to base anything other than general impressions on marketing material.
The general concept of using volatile liquids in this way has been well-known for a long time, but generally due to the low quality of the heat the efficiency is very low.
The claims for efficiency and power increase made by the company just seem…words fail me. 150-600% more power? Ummm…hm.
There is so much marketing gibberish on each page of their Powerpoint Presentations that I could make a paragraph of criticism about many of the slides. And that worries me - I shouldn’t be able to find at least one incorrect generalization, mis-statement, or meaningless marketing phrase per slide, like I am with this.
I hate to dismiss the claims in general without seeing any actual study results or real technical papers. I will only say these things:
Don’t be fooled by attractive websites that talk about presentations to the DoE, World Bank, etc. It’s meaningless - I’ve known the DoE to see more than a few perpetual motion machine presentations, and I’ve been at two “impossible tech” presentations to other government agencies, both here and in the US.
Where’s the pilot scale tests with independent verification? Typically, that’s where the claims end.
Agreed. At first glance it appears thermodynamic gibberish. I wish I could remember enough to be able to demonstrate this (probably I never did!). But I can’t. If there was a better way to turn heat into energy than thermodynamics says, you can be sure that bigger companies than wowenergies would be involved.