Treehugger - Latest Comments in Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

WhoMadeThePipeCleaner — Tue, 17 Apr 2018 01:16:48 -0000

See www.kourispower.com for the original project. Zotloterer started after Kouris and Kouris holds the first patent.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Gaiatechnician — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:25:41 -0000

He says they swim through it. Seems possible, it is just a whirlpool. I have seen fish jump up a 6 ft weir when it was in flood and white water. I have the figures for how much of a "run" that fish need to go really fast somewhere. I think they only need a meter to speed up.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Gaiatechnician — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:19:17 -0000

The fish will use the oxygen before the algae get it. And the fish can survive regardless of algae growth just below the turbine, day and night because of the strong oxygenation.
Oxygenated fish and insects can eat plants and remove the bloom. I made a "pulser pump" that oxygenates water and the only place that I found lots of stonefly larvae was at the outlet of the pump.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

peterwebb — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 11:09:56 -0000

To add to my previous post what if the water temprature is 17degrees celcius how much would the water temprature be reduced by the vortex??

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

peterwebb — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 10:53:10 -0000

I am doing a hypothetic architectural project on a river under london. the maths of water flow of 1.6m/s and the 1.3 m head heigh can be attanined. If pool is contaned underground i am guessing it can be used as a natural cooling system for my building project in summer through evoprative cooling. does this sound viable if the project in contained undergound.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

alireza — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:49:36 -0000

hi friends
my friend in iran was made a water power station,but we dont know it has been made or not?!!!
thats my pleasure if someone introuduse me all kind of them which have been made

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Raymond — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:20:28 -0000

Great design I would love to see some plans.

Anyone have links to Patents etc ?

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Veralto — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:04:25 -0000

This is unique in that it takes advantage of the force of a vortex, a force of nature that should increase power output for a given flow.

A sink drain vortex spins one way in northern hemisphere, and the opposite in southern hemisphere. It won't spin much at all near the equator.

The pictured installation was designed for the northern hemisphere, as it will create an artificial vortex that spins counter-clockwise so as not to fight nature. If installed in the southern hemisphere, both the pool and rotor would need redesign.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Burnie — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 22:26:14 -0000

As currently presented at the minimum of 1 cubic meter of water per second is equal to 264.17 gallons per second or 15,850 gallons per minute or 951,019 gallons an hour or 22,824,465 gallons a day or the equivalent of 7 acre lake with an average depth of 10 ft.

Applications seem limited to locations with adiquate water supply that is replenished faster than drained and don't run dry.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

michelle Quimen — Sat, 31 May 2008 16:12:39 -0000

simply rocks!

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

sbo78 — Sun, 25 May 2008 22:50:33 -0000

Just a little hint: the links have apparently changed, since you get a 404 error. According to the engineer's name mentioned in the article, this should be the actual URL:

wasserwirbeltechnik

Found it via

http://www.ecodesign-beispi...

which gives other (Austrian) addresses that offer ecological solutions.

By the way (@downhill): The waterdepth was given with 1,6 m in the article (5.4 feet), if I'm not mistaken.

@mitra: I agree the math was a bit confounding, but one thing is not quite right in your part, either. Since a US-investor would hardly order his concrete in Austria, costs have to be converted using PPP (Purchasing Power Parity), with is estimated to be around 1.2 USD per EUR. Actual cost probably depends a lot on the site, local conditions (construction is suffering in the US currently, might give you better bargains), and # of repetitions (learning effect). My guess is, the system is cheap only if implemented during a renovation of the waterway when it is part of a greater total of constructive measures (eg. new flood protection, a new sewage plant inlet etc.).

@charles: blooming of algae REDUCES available oxygen in the water, due to oversupply of nutrients. If a stream contains too much of those, it needs more oxygen to be able to dispose of them. This means airation is not the problem, although the considerations you mentioned should be evaluated during the design of any system interfering with the existing waterflow (and almost never is being done).

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

adam — Wed, 21 May 2008 23:51:09 -0000

Viktor Shauberger...........author should have given credit to the original thinker....although good to see production!

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:50:13 -0000

AndyD,

That sounds great. If you invent a perpetual motion machine, I bet you will get a lot of interest. In the mean time, I guess we will have to harvest energy where we find it. That "magical energy" does sound good though.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

AndyD — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:27:21 -0000

Other than size, how is this different from current hydro-electric systems powering cities around the world?

I don't see magical energy here since there is an existing energy input. (Ignoring the numbers) It's simply converting some of the energy in the moving water into electrical energy. Now, if we could take some of that electricity and use it to drive a water pump to pump the water through the vortex to generate even more electricity, then we'd have something Schauberger and other wishful thinkers could sell to anyone who'd listen.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Wraithe — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:24:22 -0000

Good idea, ok may be historical in some ways, but hey there are few original ideas world wide, so 10 points for bringing a good idea up...

Wind can be used 24/7, but to get that you would have to generate that some how...

A german company built a solar thermal tower in spain, some time back...

principle is, you heat a large tower(say min 400m), include an apron just above the ground, that will increase the heating action, and use turbines of a type to generate power from the wind flow...It works 24/7 as the heating of the concrete used in the tower, will take longer than a few nights, to cool....(cant remember what the figures, about cooling, where but i expect it would take a while to stop, if ever)

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

TDC — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:47:34 -0000

Isn't Las Vegas powered by that big Hydro Dam in the Grand Canyon?

TDC

Maybe use fuel generators as a backup ?

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

mkimagin — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 00:47:39 -0000

This is great idea. We nee more of this ideas.

I wonder if the system will work with steam, Can vortex chamber works like presure/temperature to velocity converte?

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

23 — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 10:13:07 -0000

How about the other extreme? I am working on a system that has a low flow rate, and uses vorticies to enhance efficiency.

I'm talking about a small head of water, and water pressure of up to 1 bar, with a flow rate of maybe 9 meters per minute. I'm currently building a small conical Schauberger turbine to test, and wonder if this system could be scaled down to a similar scale?

Also, where could I find a slightly more detailed plan of this system. My interests are purely experimental. Many thanks.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

s a m — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 11:52:04 -0000

i was just browsing for some alternative energy sources for a presentation, think this is a great idea. so many ways it can be improved and so many ways it can be applyied. top notch tho! gud luck wiv it!

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Mitra — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 04:15:23 -0000

I hope their engineering is better than their math!

E40,000 after a 40% subsidy is about Euro 66,666 before subsidy.

Which would be US91,252 at today's rates.

50,000 kwh/year = 5.7kw continuous.

So the cost is US$16 /installed watt, not the US1/watt claimed.

I'm not sure, but I believe that US$10/watt is typical for generation capacity e.g. from wind, but those numbers might be out of date.

Lets assume they were borrowing at the generous rate of 6% over 20 years. That would mean payments of 8000/year, which would mean a cost of 16c/kwh and I understand that the best US wind is running about 4.5c/kwh (again, that number might be out of date, and is for large installations, smaller alternative power I would expect to be about double that).

I don't have numbers for in-stream hydro power , which would be the direct competitor.

So .... it looks like a nice idea, and might have some application where there is adequate water flow, but these numbers suggest it would be an expensive solution.

- Mitra

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

h dejong — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 09:23:09 -0000

received some very interesting replies from Sepp Hassleburg. Thank you

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

howard dejong — Sun, 15 Jul 2007 23:06:34 -0000

very interested in this style, any scientific backup studies to prove power claims? Are patents only for Austria or other countries as well? Have any similar projects been tried in North America? Have access to perfect site, existing 2.7 m dam, low head by normal standards, avg mean flow of 3cm/s. With good proof of claims, may be willing to build a North American example. Possible ideas, not all water from supply has to be used allowing normal fish migration through normal creek bed, this also allows for higher than usable flows to bypass. Spill way before vortex can be constructed as a fish ladder to lower elevation, natural avoidance of mechanical in water would make a large percentage of fish to choose the alternate route rather than the turbine even if it is friendly. Congrats, now lets get on with some real data that can be proven so the rest of us can get on board with real projects

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

charles — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:17:05 -0000

This vortex is supposed to do two things: harvest the power of falling water and aerate the water. I see no reason why it won't do both, but as an aquariust I'm concerned that somebody thinks more aeration is what a stream needs. Most streams are already choked with algae and putting more air in the water will just create a algal bloom with fish/plant die offs for a couple cycles till it balances out. It's feasible for use, but you will do a lot of work downstream to accommodate it for years to come if you really care about the wildlife.

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

Kmuzu — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 22:38:16 -0000

Doesn't work for me brother. I live in Vegas and unless you can vortex sand, the casinos will still have to power their neon with oil.

Kmuzu

===auth. note===

Uh, hello? Vegas? Ever heard of solar power? Geothermal? Wind whipping across acres of otherwise little-used land? I bet there is enough energy there for the harvesting to power the LED-designs which will make neon look like buggy whips on the casino of the future? Who will be the first to build it?

Re: Gravitational Vortex Power Plant is Safe for Fish

downhill — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:15:02 -0000

Franz,

I see that you say 5.5 meters is the diameter of

the vortex basin , but you do not give the depth of the vortex basin ! In the picture showing the turbine blade in the water

it looks like the blades are barely covered !! Am I right in guessing that the vortex basin is fairly shallow in depth ?