When you compare a pulser pump with modern technology you are not comparing like with like and you should remember the hidden benifits that a pulser pump can give you.
Technology comparison
How to compare pulser pump efficiencies with high-tech efficiencies
Here are some power station efficiency figures. This figure is the
percentage of the energy released by burning the fuel which actually gets
turned into electricity.
Coal about 33%,
Oil 37%,
Nuclear 30%.
High head hydro 85% or more. Hydro is higher because mechanical
energy is
converted directly to electricity.
In the others, heat is transferred to steam and converted to mechanical
energy and then to electricity. Nuclear figures are lower because
of greater safety considerations. Some fossil fuel utilities combine the
generation
of electricity with the production of heat directly to heat houses
and apartment blocks. (the power company in Mannheim, Germany uses this
method ). I think that up to 80% efficiency can be achieved using this
method.
However with the average power station, 30% - 40% efficiency
isn't the end of the story of course! Read
on!
Energy conversions are the key to the really low end
use efficiencies.
Consider this (quite normal) situation. Using Nuclear electricity
to pump water.
Nuclear Power station (30% efficient) Electricity grid (80% to 95%
efficient) Motor (90% efficient) Coupling (98% efficient) Water pump (77%
efficient) Trottle (66% efficient) Pipe 69% efficient. That is a chain
of 7 links. To get the total efficiency, all those efficiencies must be
MULTIPLIED together.
( These figures and example came mostly from an edition of Scientific
America which was all about energy use.)
Total efficiency?
8.8% at best in this case!
Every end user is different, but our modern preoccupation with using
a sledge hammer to crack a nut means that this figure is fairly normal.
The sledge hammer controls are pretty sensitive so that they can do it
but they are still sledge hammers.
Now consider a pulser pump just producing low pressure air. Using
a half meter head, it can transfer about 30% of the kinetic energy
of the falling water to the air under pressure. Lets say that we use that
air in the aeration in the activated sludge process
for waste water treatment. Let us allow 20% losses of energy (pressure
drop, etc.), piping the air to the waste water plant.
Total efficiency will be 30% X 80% = 25%
Not only 1is it providing good total efficiency,
it is using an energy source which is unusable by any other method,
it is replacing a lot of fossil fuel and reducing CO2 emissions,
and oxygenating the river in which it works.
It should be an all win scenario.
But, people like complicated things, new technology, BIG power.
If we continue to use fossil fuels as we do, we may end up in a
greenhouse like venus.
Use nuclear and we risk being like the poor kids in the Ukraine.
Chernobyl changed the lives of most of the Laplanders. They couldn't
use reindeer meat.
Even some parts of Ireland had agricultural product bans for several
years afterwards.. Continent wide damage from one accident. Are we that
competent in the west that we can truly guarantee the safety of hundreds
more nuclear plants all over the world? Lets be honest and say no. Solar
power is on the way but nobody can say how quickly it will arrive.
The pulser pump is simple technology.
No bells, no smoke stacks, no waste. Lets use it!
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