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I am not an electronics guy or mechanics guy, making progress, and I will, I think, get around to working on this but just wanted to provide this framework for people who are currently far more adept than me in these areas. Tesla, I think I read once, towards the end of his life was looking for a more individual or desktop way to provide free energy.
So why a steam turbine for electricity? First, this is the way the overwhelming majority of electricy is produced, it is a proven technology and then some. Second it can be downsized without, I greatly suspect, a significant loss in efficiency. It is an extremely simple engine, there is one moving part. It will run off any available fuel from coal to diesel to junk mail. There is the issue that Parson's turbines use superheated steam (800C) to avoid the sand blasting effect of non-vaporized water particles. This issue can be eliminated through the use of a Tesla turbine, where there is no direct impact from the motive providing material. A Tesla turbine is extremely easy to create, though I purchased one from gyroscope.com as my future testbed. A Tesla turbine, especially if daisy chained to further turbines may have an efficiency even greater than the state of the art large current turbines. There would also be the issue of loss in transmission lines to consider.
This is the fallback position, not a bad one I would say. Let's consider the possible "SciFi" improvements. First off, to talk theory, it is often noted that heat pumps and/or refrigeration units under certain conditions will have a Coefficent of Performance(COP) greatly exceeding one. Such is also the case say with solar cells or hyroelectric plants or windmills or plants for that matter. Now if you spend any time looking at heat pumps or refrigeration units and/or steam engines you can notice that the steam engine is basically the "photo negative" of the heat pump. If a heat pump can have a COP > 1 then so can a steam engine.
I've heard about this ZVS driver circuit, I noted one individual on the board built one of these in a couple days where it might take me weeks or longer. This bears noting in relation to the following hobby project I saw Simple DIY Induction Heater - RMCybernetics. This project uses a ZVS driver as a relatively low wattage induction heater. There is an impressive amount of heat generated from this low wattage. Induction heating is said to be quite energy efficient. Actually water is circulated through copper tubing (which also serves as the circuit) to keep the thing cool as it heats things in the interior to red hot. Per a question on this board I was told that the heating effect would be expected to be greatest towards the outside of the coiled copper water filled tubing. Hmmmmm, That sounds like a darn efficient way to evenly heat water to steam, nes't pas?
The second idea I have is pretty simple. After mentioning it to an engineer brother of mine he was still speaking to me a couple weeks later. I can't see a problem with it. If correct it could be implemented in all closed loop steam generation. YEAH BABY ... YEAH!!!, perhaps I'm an idiot and my brother has grown used to ignoring me. In the spirit of the ancient Pythagorean troupe I can't just tell you this. I will however make it pretty damn obvious. You just need to think about ole Bobby Boyle for a moment. There is absolutely no reason why a closed loop steam engine can't behave exactly like an Organic Rankine Cycle Engine is there? Is there?? YEAH BABY ... YEAH!!! sorry
My last idea is much more speculative. There is some inefficiency in closed loop steam engines from the boiler pump. It is possible that the boiler pump might be replaced by Tesla's patented valvular conduit.
So why a steam turbine for electricity? First, this is the way the overwhelming majority of electricy is produced, it is a proven technology and then some. Second it can be downsized without, I greatly suspect, a significant loss in efficiency. It is an extremely simple engine, there is one moving part. It will run off any available fuel from coal to diesel to junk mail. There is the issue that Parson's turbines use superheated steam (800C) to avoid the sand blasting effect of non-vaporized water particles. This issue can be eliminated through the use of a Tesla turbine, where there is no direct impact from the motive providing material. A Tesla turbine is extremely easy to create, though I purchased one from gyroscope.com as my future testbed. A Tesla turbine, especially if daisy chained to further turbines may have an efficiency even greater than the state of the art large current turbines. There would also be the issue of loss in transmission lines to consider.
This is the fallback position, not a bad one I would say. Let's consider the possible "SciFi" improvements. First off, to talk theory, it is often noted that heat pumps and/or refrigeration units under certain conditions will have a Coefficent of Performance(COP) greatly exceeding one. Such is also the case say with solar cells or hyroelectric plants or windmills or plants for that matter. Now if you spend any time looking at heat pumps or refrigeration units and/or steam engines you can notice that the steam engine is basically the "photo negative" of the heat pump. If a heat pump can have a COP > 1 then so can a steam engine.
I've heard about this ZVS driver circuit, I noted one individual on the board built one of these in a couple days where it might take me weeks or longer. This bears noting in relation to the following hobby project I saw Simple DIY Induction Heater - RMCybernetics. This project uses a ZVS driver as a relatively low wattage induction heater. There is an impressive amount of heat generated from this low wattage. Induction heating is said to be quite energy efficient. Actually water is circulated through copper tubing (which also serves as the circuit) to keep the thing cool as it heats things in the interior to red hot. Per a question on this board I was told that the heating effect would be expected to be greatest towards the outside of the coiled copper water filled tubing. Hmmmmm, That sounds like a darn efficient way to evenly heat water to steam, nes't pas?
The second idea I have is pretty simple. After mentioning it to an engineer brother of mine he was still speaking to me a couple weeks later. I can't see a problem with it. If correct it could be implemented in all closed loop steam generation. YEAH BABY ... YEAH!!!, perhaps I'm an idiot and my brother has grown used to ignoring me. In the spirit of the ancient Pythagorean troupe I can't just tell you this. I will however make it pretty damn obvious. You just need to think about ole Bobby Boyle for a moment. There is absolutely no reason why a closed loop steam engine can't behave exactly like an Organic Rankine Cycle Engine is there? Is there?? YEAH BABY ... YEAH!!! sorry
My last idea is much more speculative. There is some inefficiency in closed loop steam engines from the boiler pump. It is possible that the boiler pump might be replaced by Tesla's patented valvular conduit.