Saturday, October 23, 2010

Why Crowdsourcing?

I want to start some eco-friendly crowdsourced projects.  Mostly to prove that it can be done.  I have several ideas for some really neat projects.
1. A permanent magnet Generator (PMG).
     commercially available generators are really really expensive.
     many many things can turn the shaft of the PMG wind, and water are some of the most common.
     power plants owned and operated by utility companies use many things to spin the shaft of a generator.  Some examples include wind and water, also steam (whether it's created from a Nuclear reactor heating, or natural gas, or coal, or geothermal, it's the same concept).
plans for a PMG:   http://www.scoraigwind.com/pmgbooklet/itpmg.pdf
It's pretty easy to build.  Anyone who has taken a shop class in high school could pull it off.  The trick is converting the power to something that can be utilized by regular appliances.  This normally takes some sort of charge controller to control the charge of batteries that store power, that are hooked up to power inverters, that convert DC to AC voltage.
What I want:  a charge controller, or plans for building my own charge controller.  I know there are plenty of crowd source technologies out there, that use "open" technology.  I don't have an issue wiring up a diode, and rectifier to the circuit, but what I want is something that is controlled perhaps using a processor like an arduino micro processor, and I want it to have a built in web server, so I can access the information using a web based utility from my computer at home or work.  (I think it would be cool to check out my power consumption vs production using my laptop over Internet, from anywhere).  All that requires a bit of technical skill I don't yet posses.
I also want some way to tie this to my entire house, and to the utility grid.  If every house in a neighborhood was producing as much or more energy than it was consuming, the role of utility companies would be significantly diminished.  There would be less need for coal burning plants, and a significant drop in pollution.
Can you help?  Can you help with the design and implementation, and most importantly, make it so cost affordable, that anyone who has a utility bill would be silly not to implement the system?  I'm not talking about $10,000 worth of gadgets that take 20 yrs to pay themselves off, I'm talking about maybe a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff.  Something that would pay for itself in months rather than years.
So, the idea here is, if you know someone who is a tech, or an engineer, or a tinkerer, who has the skills and know-how, pass this request on, and get them involved in saving the earth.  It's the only one we've got, and I'm sick of big government, and big corporations controlling energy solutions.  They've proven they can't do it, and if they can, they are taking way too long.
Hence, crowdsource innovation!

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