As I'm sure you all know, I'm Bessler's biggest fan, but I think that when he set out to market his wheel he must have found it difficult to list the many benefits he hoped it could offer. He suggested raising heavy loads up the sides of high buildings; pumping water out of flooded mines; driving a carrilon; pumping air into a submarine; crushing rocks etc. Not a real attention-grabbing list! The truth is the wheel represented little more than a novelty item, mostly attractive to rich princes and just the kind thing that Andreas Gärtner - his number one enemy - had made a career out of, making novelty toys for his ruler.
Bessler's wheel could never have pumped water out of the mines. Thomas Newcomen's beam engine had it beaten before it started. The Newcomen Beam Engine at Elsecar in Yorkshire, England, ran from 1795 until 1923 when is was replaced by Electric Pumps. It also ran briefly in 1928 when the electric pumps were overwhelmed by flooding. At its peak it could draw 600 gallons a minute from a depth of almost 200 feet.
Newcomen's engine were heavy users of coal at around 12 to 20 tons per day. Cheap enough when it was used in a coal mine but expensive to run in Cornwall's copper and tin mines. But although the running costs were prohibitive they were regarded as a worthwhile expense.
Besslers's wheel, on the other hand, equired an enormous initial cost and then no return to speak of, regardless of how large it was. The implication was that a larger version of his wheel would do even more work than the Kassel wheel. In fact some people regard Bessler's suggestion that his wheel could easily be built to 20 feet and more in diameter and have several wheels in series on one axle, with considerable scepticism. They think that that was too big and could not be built at the time, but consider John Rowley's tidal wheel for pumping water from the river Thames to Windsor Palace which measured "twenty-four foot diameter and twelve foot broad; for the new brass engine with brasses to the crank, forcing rods," etc, and of course the mighty Newcomen engine itself, whose balance beam measured, in some cases twenty feet or more in length and over a foot thick, with a weight of several tons. The whole thing housed in a specially built and strengthened building. That was large.
So Bessler was, as we have noted before, some 300 years ahead of his time. There was no point in producing a machine for which there was little demand. Newcomen's machine were made in their hundreds all over Europe in the 18th century and despite their heavy consumption of coal regarded as indispensable for removing flood water from mines.
The truth is there was no real interest in buying Bessler's wheel, disregarding the fact that it was suspected of being a scam, it is hard to think of any genuine use for it at that time - but things have changed - turned full circle (apologies for an obvious pun!) - no longer is the potential for a gravity-enabled wheel zero. Bessler's time has come.
The obvious use is to generate electricity, maybe not on a large scale - who knows - but certainly by household or by street. There is no need to enumerate the potential for alterntive uses.
The materials that Bessler could use were limited to wood, iron, brass and lead, but now the range is enormous and there may be some with properties that might work perfectly with an electric wheel. Changes in the design, taking into account the special configuration necessary to obtain continuous rotation, might result in huge improvements to output, just as the Boulton and Watt improvements to Newcomen's engines in Cornwall in 1778 resulted in an increase in depth to 300 feet in mining and 75% less fuel consumption.
There are two major advantages in developing Bessler's wheel; free energy anywhere on the planet - and no pollution. Certainly worth striving for.
There are two major advantages in developing Bessler's wheel; free energy anywhere on the planet - and no pollution. Certainly worth striving for.
JC
