Bessler's wheel was not just a toy.

I think it's time to question the apparently widespread assumption that Bessler's wheel, which, while it might make an interesting toy, could not generate  any useful electrical power because it would be too puny.

The Kassel wheel was just over eleven feet in diameter and eighteen inches thick and, with a rope wrapped around the eight inch axle, it could raise a box of stones weighing seventy pounds.  The Merseberg wheel, which was a similar diameter but only one foot thick could also raise the same weight of seventy pounds. Both wheels could turn in either direction but the Merseburg turned at 40-50 RPM whereas the Kassel one achieved a maximum of 26 RPM.  

Wolff describes how the Merseburg lifted the 70 pounds through a pulley which had to be reduced more than four times, making the lifting quite slow. Now on the face of it this would indicate that the wheel was barely able to lift the seventy pounds, however it may also indicate that Bessler wanted a slow lift to make more impact on his audience.  At 40 - 50 RPM the lift would be over too quickly and would require him to lower it and relift it too often or too soon.

If, as I have often suggested, in the two-way wheels, the driving mechanisms are mirrored within the wheel to provide rotation in each direction, logically the one-way wheels had more power than the two-way versions. This is because the redundant mechanisms in the latter, would have to be turned in the wrong direction and must therefore have added resistance to rotation.

The narrower Merseburg wheel was designed to spin faster than the larger Kassel wheel, and yet was capable of raising the same weight of seventy pounds, aided by the load-reducing pulleys - there was no record of the pulleys being used on the Kassel wheel.  .I suggest that Bessler deliberately designed the Kassel wheel to turn more slowly, and I have argued previously that this was done in order to allow it to complete the long endurance test with out fear of it stopping prematurely due to wear and tear. It seems reasonable to assume that the internal design of each machine differed in some way, and it will be recalled that Bessler mentioned in Apologia Poetica, "if I arrange to have just one cross-bar in the machine it revolves very slowly, just as if it can hardly turn itself at all, but on the contrary, if I arrange several bars, pulleys and weights, the machine can revolved muster faster." So perhaps the Kassel wheel had fewer cross-bars but then Bessler added more weight to compensate for the reduction in power.  These would be added in line sideways or horizontally, leading to the increased depth or thickness of the wheel.

The second wheel was nine feet in diameter and only six inches thick and yet it turned at 50 RPM too - as did the first one which was only four feet wide and four inches thick - it seems as though 50 RPM was the normal spin speed.

Bessler said that he could design his wheels to turn fast or slow with greater or lesser power.  We can believe him because he showed it with the four wheels he exhibited, and of course he hadn't sold one at the time of writing, so his integrity would have been called into question if he could not do as he claimed.

It's worth pointing out the limitations within which Bessler worked.  70 pounds was probably the most he would want to handle during his exhibitions. Also the rope used to lift the weight had to be thin enough for use in the pulleys and yet have sufficiently high breaking strain to lift 70 pounds, probably not a problem.  He repeated his lifting and translocation demonstrations many times and most likely tried to make it as easy for himself as possible, hence the extended slow lifts.

One more thing; any engine can be scaled up to produce more power and this applies to Bessler's wheel just as in other instances.  This being the case it stands to reason that there is much more potential power to be had from Bessler's wheel than anyone seems prepared to admit.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Looking for a modest investment with a guaranteed return? Look no further than Bessler's wheel!

Occasionally, it suddenly hits me, what a massive wall of scepticism faces us in our determination to convince others that Bessler' wheel was a real machine.

To me the evidence is clear, but convincing anyone else is not so much an uphill climb, as a verticle ascent of the severest difficulty with a multitude of overhangs, loose rock and perilous falling boulders - in bare feet!

I think we all understand the difficulties of explaining how it is possible to have a wheel turn continuously, purely from the falling of weights which have to be lifted again at every revolution - we can't ....yet! Hopefully, if you are here, then you probably believe it is possible to achieve this without violating any laws of physics.  You are not alone - I have received, over several years, many emails in support of my contention that gravity-enabled wheels are a legitimate source of power for charging batteries and driving mechanical systems.

Three of those emails have come from professors who were openly supportive of the idea, but left it to me to discover how! Others came from people who wanted to express their support in writing but could not be seen publicly expressing their approval.  Then there are the hundreds who have over the last sixteen years (my goodness, has it really been that long!) supported my efforts and agreed that there is something worth looking into.  The fact that these people are educated and familiar with the laws of physics has given me some optimism that at least a working model would be accepted by them, but what I would really like is for some large company with a decent research budget to take a look at the evidence and put some money into finding the solution.

The amount of money being spent on alternative energies which don't include gravity-enabled wheel is huge and doubly frustrating when our own efforts which cost peanuts in comparison, could revolutionise the energy market overnight once the correct solution is known.

Here are a few figures gleaned from google.  There is, for instance, the failed solar company, Solyndra,  which received $535 million in federal aid before it went bankrupt in 2011, what a waste!

In the California Valley Solar Ranch, a 250-megawatt utility project is being built by NRG Energy on more than 4,000 acres of dry, sun-drenched land in San Luis Obispo County, northwest of Los Angeles. The ranch's 1 million solar panels will provide enough power for 100,000 homes, but at the cost of $1.6 billion — nearly all of which, according to the Times, will be paid for by government subsidies.

Last year, global spending on new renewable energy projects hit a record of $195 billion. According to the analysists at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, annual spending on new clean energy projects will not only surpass that amount in the coming years, but double it. By 2020, annual investments in adding clean energy capacity will reach $395 billion, driven largely by fast-paced growth in solar and offshore wind. Spending levels will grow to $460 billion by 2030, the group said in a report released today.

When is someone going to direct their attention towards Bessler's wheel and inject some of that money to prove that it works?  I know the answer of course, not until someone produces a working model!

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

Storing electrical energy in liquid air.

On the news this morning: from  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19785689

Turning air into liquid may offer a solution to one of the great challenges in engineering - how to store energy. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers says liquid air can compete with batteries and hydrogen to store excess energy generated from renewables.  IMechE says "wrong-time" electricity generated by wind farms at night can be used to chill air to a cryogenic state at a distant location. When demand increases, the air can be warmed to drive a turbine.

Engineers say the process to produce "right-time" electricity can achieve an efficiency of up to 70%. IMechE is holding a conference today to discuss new ideas on how using "cryo-power" can benefit the low-carbon economy. 

The technology was originally developed by Peter Dearman, a garage inventor in Hertfordshire, to power vehicles. A new firm, Highview Power Storage, was created to transfer Mr Dearman's technology to a system that can store energy to be used on the power grid. The process, part-funded by the government, has now been trialled for two years at the back of a power station in Slough, Buckinghamshire.

You can see a video of the engine at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOImbv_xcT8

I've posted about this because this technology for storing electrical energy might also be applicable to electricity generated by Bessler's wheel.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.

The tax advantages of the Bessler automobile.

What follows is speculation based on numbers obtained from a variety of sources and they may be open to question but the basic argument  remains unaffected by any discrepancies later revealed.

I had to fill up my car's fuel tank today and it cost me £75, or $120 US dollars.  Petrol or gas costs upwards of  £1.36 per litre here in the UK, which works out at £5.14 per US gallon, or $8.20.  Suppose that one of us succeeds in replicating Bessler's wheel and further development eventually results in an automobile engine that can replace the traditional internal combustion engine..  

In the UK, about £27.3 billion was raised through fuel tax in 2010/11, so if our little enterprise should result in the eventual demise of the old gasoline engine, or at least to its reduction to an insignificant level, where will the government be looking to find their missing billions? Not hard to guess!  Scary as this thought is, it is going to happen sooner or later regardless of which engine replaces the current ones.  So I'm sure that somewhere some accountant has already worked out how to screw similar amounts from the poor old taxpayer.

I suspect numerous road tolls will proliferate - we don't have many currently, here in the UK - and maybe an annual tax, or excise duty, will be applied to each car, just to be allowed to use it on the roads.  But even if that happens will they find the £27 billions from the, roughly, 31 million cars on the British roads?  And that is a falling figure.  That works out at approximately £840 or $1344 per annum from each driver.  All they (the government) have to do is slap a £1000, or $1600, tax on every car using Bessler's wheel - every year -  and they're covered!  However although that sounds like highway robbery think of the savings in not having to buy fuel.  In 2010 it was calculated that we spent about £1500 a year on fuel for our cars, so there's saving of £500 already!

Of course the Bessler engine will (should) be simpler and cheaper to buy as well as to run, so perhaps it will work out even better for us in the long run...and very much greener.

This is not too serious a comment, just a bit of musing for those interested in the possible long term  potential ramifications of replicating Bessler's wheel.

JC

10a2c5d26e15f6g7h10ik12l3m6n14o14r5s17tu6v5w4y4-3,’.