Trolly Tractors & Other Grid Powered Farm Implements

Those center-pivot irrigation systems have no electic motors. They are powered by water motors, driven by the pressure from the central well. A system of purely mechanical control lines operates the valves that control the water motor at each pair of wheels. There is enough power to move the pipe and sprinkler assembly around, but I don't think you could pull a plow with it without wasting an awful lot of water.

A better way to reduce dependence on petroleum would be to use the farm's waste biomass to make methane and alcohols.

Why do people always assume that electrons get pushed through wires by magic? Much of the electricity that's generated in the world is done so by burning fossil fuels, and any extra electricity demand that you create with electric tractors (or electric cars, for that matter) will have to come from fossil fuels until we either develop effective solar (don't hold your breath) or we go all nuclear (hold your breath, particularly when the air is glowing).

Circa Mon, 06 Aug 2007 06:26:54 -0700 recorded as looks like Bret Cahill sounds like:

Adding to the other answers: 1) the entire mechanism would have to be replaced. The structure has only one purpose as designed, and that is to deliver water. As such, it has an optimized design weight. Adding the transformers, motors, plow hardware and control electronics would increase the load on the structure far past the collapsing point.

I do like the idea as a work of imagination, however.

'Bret Cahill' is a notorious idiot.

Graham

Well, we were hoping you guys could figger out some other way than by voodoo.

OK, that does it!

I'm getting together a team of oxen so _you_ can stagger around behind a plow for awhile.

I bet you come back begging on your knees for coal and nuke plants.

"Puleeeeze, Mr. Cahill, I was just a callow young 'n foolish greenola WAY back in 2007. The safety of those nuke plants is as certain as a jury getting ready to convict Dick Cheney."

Bret Cahill

It's such a big structure, it would frighten little kids.

Moreover it is only going 1/2 rpd (rev per day).

The thing already weighs 10 tons and spans 1/4 mile.

The real concern is meth heads figgering out how to short / flip the circuit breakers to steal the wire.

We're either going to get sustainable or die trying.

Bret Cahill

Circa Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:18:05 -0700 recorded as looks like Bret Cahill sounds like:

None of that matters. As I said, the structure is only going to be strong enough to support its intent. If it weighs ten tons and spans a quarter mile, it weighs ten tons because it has to be strong enough to span 1/4 mile, and bear the weight of the irrigation water. Adding the weight of a plow, the support hardware, and the massive torque load required to turn dirt is going to crush it.

Not all thieves bother to figure out how to trip breakers. Thieves are killed each year trying to steal copper from substations.

That comment begs elaboration.

Circa Tue, 07 Aug 2007 21:07:40 -0700 recorded as looks like Bret Cahill sounds like:

Many entities are trying to "figger" ways to generate energy other than the burning of fossil fuels, or the splitting of atoms. Hydroelectric power is an excellent alternative, but political pressure stifles hydro because of valid concerns about declining salmon populations. Evidence may eventually show that sea lions kill far more salmon than dam turbines, but in the meantime dams may be destroyed and a fairly benign source of energy lost.

Other alternative energy solutions are killed by politics over concern for aquatic wildlife, justifiable or not. For instance, tidal turbines are political fodder over concerns about harming Orca and other wildlife. Wind power is all the rage, but is unreliable and unable to generate spinning reserve. Solar generation is hugely expensive both in terms of material and real estate.

Your reply is disingenuous to the previous poster's comments. His point is that your idea spends fossil fuel energy converted to electricity in the hopes of saving fossil fuel energy converted to motive power (tractors). One of the things that your idea overlooks is that the irrigation devices are not designed to handle a tremendously increased load, and that the supply of electrical energy needed to eliminate tractors from the equation probably will be more costly in terms of spent fossil fuels than their use to power the tractors. Then you have to add the engineering, materials and construction costs to convert the use.

Like I said before, it's a good exercise of the imagination to envision such a project, but the real world has to be confronted if such an idea is to be put to profitable use.

So, are you sufficiently prepared to face the real world in the presentation of your ideas on energy? Rationally and intelligently dealing with the comments you receive here would be a good start.

Dams devastate salmon populations not so much by killing them outright as by preventing the migrating fish from reaching their spawning grounds and reproducing. The salmon mortality stats of dams versus sea lion predation are a red herring (snort, chuckle).

'Salmon runs' seem to work ok in the UK.

Graham

It's actually a truism.

If we _don't_ get sustainable, then by definition . . .

Bret Cahill

But coal isn't going to double in cost in the next decade.

They can be beefed up.

We'll have to go nuke. If the Bay Area can build an earthquake proof bridge, then we can suspend a reactor and steam generator.

. . .

I'll get a team of oxen and a plow. If they start to whine about nuke plants, I'll show them to a field and tell them to plow it.

Bret Cahill

Don't. use a winch on a rail at either end.

Bye. Jasen

I wonder who this "we" is supposed to be.

Thanks, Rich

On Wed, 08 Aug 2007 19:57:01 -0700, in message , Tolstoy scribed:

That isn't accurate, at least according to the myriad of studies and reports on salmon migration in the Northwest. AFAIK, most concerned parties are satisfied with the performance of fish ladders. Lately, the bogey man has become slow rivers, and consequently a too-slow movement of the fish from spawning grounds to the ocean. This has resulted in court orders to run water over spillways in the hope of decreasing the time from spawn to ocean.

Another known fish mortality problem is pelicans and gulls. When young fish get spit through turbines or hurtled over spillways, they are momentarily stunned and easy prey for the birds. One solution to that problem is posting a person with a wad-loaded shotgun at the dam, shooting away at nothing in an attempt to scare the birds away.

The numbers in this game are skewed all over the map, depending upon which special interest group is posting the numbers. I don't know if any of the stats, from any source, can be cited as trustworthy.

I know one that is - the price of salmon at the store. :-)

Cheers! Rich