The recent disaster that occurred in Italy on 04.10.2024, after the commemoration of the seven people who died in the accident that occurred in the ENEL hydroelectric power plant in Bargi in Italy and while awaiting the examination of the black box of the plant, let’s talk, scientifically, about the the current production of hydroelectric energy on planet Earth. The black box will be able to help us understand the sequence of phases of the accident which are now completely unknown. In the meantime I searched the web for some information on the plant concerned, which I am reporting https://www.ilpost.it/2024/04/12/centrale-idroelettrica-bargi/
How the Bargi hydroelectric power plant is made.
Its ten floors extend for almost 60 meters immersed in Lake Suviana. However, the water that produces the energy comes from Lake Brasimone which is located a few kilometers away at a higher altitude. After producing the energy, the water is returned again to the upper basin of Lake Brasimone.
The hydroelectric power plant was built in 1975 by Enel and is located in the south-eastern part of Lake Suviana, a long and narrow artificial basin. The power plant is about two kilometers from the Suviana dam, which forms the lake, and is not affected in any way by the consequences of the explosion (which destroyed the power plant immersed in the lake).
The Bargi hydroelectric power plant is managed by Enel Green Power and is the most powerful installed in Emilia-Romagna: inside there are two 165 megawatt energy production groups for a total installed power of 330 megawatts. It is part of the plan for switching on the national grid in the event of a blackout. If there were to be a national emergency, it is able to deliver its maximum power in 4 minutes.
Like all hydroelectric plants, the Bargi one is also made up of a water basin, penstocks – that is, where the water is subjected to a certain pressure – and energy generators. The reservoir is formed by water stored thanks to a barrier, in most cases a dam. The water coming from the basin is conveyed through an entrance thanks to some bulkheads, which can be opened and closed on command, and then passed into the pipes. A filter system prevents the passage of logs or debris. The water then reaches the turbines and makes them rotate. The turbines are connected to an alternator that converts the mechanical to electrical energy.
The electricity obtained must then be transformed to be taken anywhere via the national grid. Before being fed into the grid, the electric current must pass through a transformer. In fact, transport takes place on high voltage power lines (above 30 thousand volts) to reduce losses, and a transformer is essential to raise the voltage compared to that coming out of the generator. After passing through the turbine, the water ends up in a discharge channel and is returned to the lake: hydroelectric power plants in fact do not “consume” water.
Unlike many hydroelectric power plants built in Italy, the one in Bargi is defined as “daily cycle generation and pumping”. This means it can produce energy and recharge the reservoir by pumping water in the opposite direction through turbines.
In Bargi, in fact, the water from two artificial lakes connected to each other is exploited: Lake Brasimone, higher up than the power plant, and Lake Suviana. The water of Lake Brasimone passes through a tunnel 4,757 meters long, with a diameter of 5.4 meters, built into the mountain. The tunnel ends in Stagno where the water is introduced into two parallel forced conduits of approximately 4 meters in diameter, for a flow rate of 104.6 cubic meters per second, which reach the power plant to operate the turbines and produce energy.
When the demand for electricity from the grid is lower – perhaps during the day due to the photovoltaic systems, or at night when some power plants produce it anyway, as they cannot be turned off – the turbines are activated in pumping mode: they push the water into the pipes up to to Lake Brasimone with a flow rate of approximately 47 cubic meters per second. The lake reaches the optimal filling level in about 6 hours (it is also an important activity for water recovery, especially in periods of low rainfall and drought). To exploit the pressure of Lake Suviana, which pushes the water naturally into the power plant favoring the pumping phase, the power plant was built “as a well”, that is, 54 meters below the level of the lake. The two 165 megawatt turbines built by the companies Riva Calzoni and De Pretto Escher Wyss are located on the eighth floor. On the lower floors there are other facilities. The ten floors of the power plant, all approximately one thousand square meters large, are connected by a vertical shaft that reaches the lowest part of the plant. On the surface there is an overhead crane, a machine for moving very heavy loads, capable of lifting up to 250 tons for maintenance operations
The explosion occurred on the eighth floor and partially destroyed the slab, one of the architectural elements between the seventh and eighth floors. The ninth and tenth floors were flooded and in the last few days the water also reached the eighth floor, completely flooding it. Before descending to the eighth floor, the firefighters had to understand where the water was coming from: the main pipes were closed and then pumps were installed, i.e. pumps used to suck up and move large quantities of water, to bring the accumulated water to the surface.
With rescue operations just concluded, it is difficult to reconstruct the causes of the explosion, which the Bologna magistrates will deal with in the investigation opened for manslaughter and manslaughter. According to experts consulted in recent days, the point most at risk of an explosion or fire is the alternator and not the turbine, which has a mechanical function.
Hell broke out suddenly in the Bargi hydroelectric plant, managed by Enel Green Power, immediately after lunch. A turbine would have exploded on the eighth floor – about forty meters below the water level – and would have first caused a fire and, then, a refrigerant pipe would have caused the flooding of the ninth floor and the collapse of an attic. The causes and possible responsibilities are yet to be ascertained but it seems that before the explosion a strange noise was heard which prompted some workers to move away. Meanwhile, Enel Green Power, in a note, explains that it is “collaborating with all the competent authorities”.
The hydroelectric plant usually consists of the dam that creates the related reservoir or artificial lake; from the penstocks that channel the water towards the turbine; from the hydroelectric power plant with the energy generation groups consisting of the turbine-alternator complex. The one in Bargi has the particularity of being able to exchange, depending on needs, enormous volumes of water between the two basins: when there is a high demand it is used to produce electricity while when the demand is minimal such as at night, restart the water from Suviana to Brasimone.
Personal considerations of the undersigned, former designer and installer of water lifting and purification systems.
From the news reported in the two articles cited above and from the photos published on the internet, I tried to form a personal opinion of what happened. In my publications, I have always written that I am in favor of the energetic exploitation of natural hydraulic jumps, but against the construction of dams and artificial reservoirs in the mountains because the water must follow its natural path. These expensive works have produced more damage than benefits to humanity, both due to the failure of the dams and the increase in the severity of the floods due to the fact that the heavy rains, finding the water basins in the mountains already full, arrive with greater speed in the plains unprepared to welcome the large rainfalls, unfortunately increased by the immense quantities of steam produced by current global energy production.
My solutions, proposed in vain by a retired inventor, propose water management in the plains where agricultural, industrial and urban activities are mainly developed, without hydraulic jumps and with stepped lifting to move the water from one area to another. My solutions produce hydroelectromagnetic energy at atmospheric or compressed pressure and can replace all current terrestrial energies with lower costs by extracting energy directly from the terrestrial environment, both to create fixed and mobile (transport) systems.
I would like to connect in particular to a previous article of mine entitled “Relativity and technology in the new hydrology” published on 07.22.2016 https://www.spawhe.eu/relativity-and-technology-in-the-new-hydroelectric-energy/, https://www.spawhe.eu/it/relativita-e-tecnologia-nella-nuova-energia-idroelettrica/, of which I report a small summary and the main figures
1. SUMMARY
With this research article, I refer above all to the fathers of science who, in the era before the industrial era, used reasoning alone to find links between the laws of space, matter and nature. With industrialization, specializations were born and the global reasoning of science was lost. As a modest designer, but above all system installer, who has had the opportunity to explore industrial, environmental and energy technologies, I could not help but notice that there are enormous gaps between one system and another, even within the same systems, both in the purification and energy sectors and in the management of water resources. The science of the past was universal while the modern one that develops in laboratories has become biased. Technology that didn’t exist has started down the same path. It has made enormous progress and modern companies are super specialized in individual sectors, but from an environmental point of view, there is no complete plant in the world. I do not doubt the good faith of the professionals, but I also believe that complete environmental reasoning cannot be carried out if transversal technical and scientific knowledge is not brought together and global work cycles are not set up that are simultaneously purifying, energetic and managerial. This publication is a summary of some environmental patents, above all, linked to water management and the production of hydroelectric energy, different from the current one, which are making a very difficult journey to be understood, precisely due to the fact that none of the people involved works, public and private, he is used to thinking globally, but going into the details, purification, energy and management. Unfortunately, this is the only way to achieve the synergies needed to achieve global environmental management that does not waste resources. Those who believed, for economic reasons, to neglect the global management of the environment, concentrating only on the production of energy, more or less clean, to be sold on the international market, will be surprised and disappointed because the global management of the environment will make it possible to produce energy clean dozens of times cheaper than the current ones. We just have to wait to see until the authorities, biased science and the economy pretend not to understand these inventions, which are available to everyone, especially the poorest and those looking for work. Because there is work for everyone if they want to correct the mistakes of the present and the past.
INTRODUCTION AND METHOD
The famous scientist Albert Einstein, with his theories on relativity, demonstrated that matter and energy can be considered as a unit, given that one can transform into the other according to a precise mathematical relationship. A practical confirmation of this statement can be found in the action of the wind which can produce electricity through wind turbines but can also break the inertial balance between the troposphere and hydrosphere, creating kinetic energy in marine currents. This, for the undersigned, is the energetic aspect, underestimated worldwide, since we too can break this balance, artificially by means of the intubation of a small current of water and a pump placed in the depths of the water and concentrate all the kinetic energy produced on the blades of a hydraulic turbine. There is no law of energy conservation that can prevent this and no energy balance to be made, other than that between the energy spent and the energy produced, since we take energy from an infinite source. The difference between energy spent and produced is immense, in favor of the energy produced, since we are not in an isolated system like Newton’s pendulum. In fact, the entire weight of the intubated water column (m*g*h) acquires kinetic energy (1/2 mV2) braked by the turbine blades, whose connected alternator produces electrical energy, by virtue of the weight of the water masses conveyed onto the turbine by the effect of gravity and atmospheric pressure, once the underlying masses of water have been moved by means of the pump. In fact, Einstein states that the energy supplied does not increase the speed of the body, but its mass: the body becomes increasingly “heavy”. This is also confirmed in the practical calculations of the heads of the lifting pumps from which the positive head on the suction side is subtracted, being considered an energy in all respects. This energy becomes even more important if instead of raising the water we want to use pumps to produce energy. In this case, it is advisable for the pumps to direct the flow rate in the direction of the force of gravity and atmospheric pressure. Using this system the difference between the energy spent and the energy produced becomes enormous also because the surface water has the same density as the water below and therefore does not need to rise to the surface, if we find ourselves in a narrow basin (the water simply change position). It is enormous, as in hydroelectric power built in the terrestrial environment, at atmospheric pressure, because at the exit of the turbine the hydrostatic pressure of the water cannot oppose the residual kinetic energy. In fact, since water is incompressible, at whatever depth the outlet is located, the hydraulic resistance at the outlet is always the same (v2/2g). Therefore, the energy spent can be multiplied by one hundred, two hundred etc. It depends only on the column of water that weighs on the pump and turbine. In fact, the system is similar to an open hydraulic circuit, under head, which ends at the turbine exit with a submerged outlet in an open vessel. Obviously, no comparison can be made with the efficiency of the energy produced by a thermal power station or a heat engine which does not reach forty percent of the lower calorific value of the fuel. To these low yields it is necessary to add the costs of extraction, transport, refining and purification of the fumes produced.
However, to exploit the positional energy of surface waters in a more versatile way and to use this energy also in mobile plants, the invention of pumps and turbines with double power on the suction side was also necessary, which are the simplest invention of the undersigned. In fact, with this invention the circle is completely closed, demonstrating that in addition to the world’s purification plants, water lifting systems are also wrong. Even the famous Mose in Venice, which cost 5.5 billion euros, could have been conceived differently: cheaper, more efficient, becoming, thanks to the invention of these pumps, also an energy producer.
The absence of such pumps and turbines, which are simple to create with current technologies, has prevented the correct sustainable development of industrial, environmental and energy systems. In fact, if they had been born at the beginning of the industrial era, the energy solutions summarized in this publication would probably have made the construction of large heating systems useless; Energy transportation that wastes resources and pollutes; the large pumps, the large turbines and the large engines, which with the new lifting systems coupled with hydroelectric energy, would not be needed. The new hydroelectric energy, if I’m right, can be produced everywhere, with yields tens or hundreds of times higher than other energies, including fossil energy. Even much of the underground extraction of oil and gas, the transportation and refining of these fuels, would be economically useless. Consequently there would have been no motive, which accounts for over 90% of total pollution. Obviously, even solar and wind power cannot compete with the new hydroelectric, not only because they do not ensure continuity of operation and therefore require energy storage systems, but also because they cannot exploit position or pressure energy. Unfortunately, even the obvious need for these pumps and turbines was met with silence from the manufacturers. They don’t look at the new market that would open but only at the one that would close. This invention published on 08.31.2016 is an international patent. https://www.spawhe.eu/pumps-and-turbines-with-separated-double-supply-until-to-the-impeller/, https://www.spawhe.eu/it/elettropompe-e-turbine-con-doppia-alimentazione-separata-fino-alla-girante/. I have not found the time to develop concrete projects even on turbines with dual separate power supplies. I focused above all on pumps which, with separate dual power supplies up to the impeller, used as turbines, allow the flow rate to be added and the input pressure of two fluids entering the same impeller with different pressures to be uniform upwards. While turbines used as pumps but modified in the same way would reduce the flow rate and output pressure. In essence, they would reduce performance by behaving like energy sinks. These are also useful but in particular cases.
We must ask ourselves why, above all, the pump with the double separate power supply was not invented by those working in the purification sector, since mixing and recycling dirty and clean water in an environment pressurized with compressed air produces the oxygenation of both due to the of Henry and Dalton’s laws? Why wasn’t it invented by energy production workers, since mixing and recycling water with different inlet pressures in an environment pressurized with compressed air produces pressure uniformity as a result of Pascal’s law?
This modification could not arise from the pump testing laboratories, nor from the tenders made by public offices, nor from the multinational procurement companies, but from the global design of the systems, which no one wants to develop, preferring mono-thematic applications, which cannot exceed the own technological and scientific limitations. The undersigned made the invention to reduce the energy costs of raising the water which should have produced artificial rainfall on calcareous material in order to produce carbonates in the water by consuming the CO2 which stratified on the waters of the purifiers, sedimentation plants, lakes and of the seas being heavier than air.
Unfortunately, public and private silences demonstrate that no one is working in this direction. At least public planning should be able to bring together technicians with different experiences, especially industrial ones, which cannot be acquired in universities. Today, environmental and energy systems are combined with the machines offered by the market and the market offers what creates the greatest profit for manufacturers. But machine builders are specialists in machine construction, not in overall plant design. The dog will continue to bite its tail forever if public designers do not learn to update the global state of the art on a daily basis with working groups that meet daily, as happens in a very large manufacturing company that produces a complex and high-tech product, like the automotive industry. It’s a shame that this industry, in one hundred and twenty years, has not realized that the energy source of the engines also had to change. This could be another challenge of the future: to make the mobile hydroelectric energy generator as small as possible, proposed by the undersigned, by increasing the operating pressure of a compressible gas on incompressible water, without fuels, with path autonomy that is inconceivable today, if not dangerous nuclear energy is used. But nuclear energy will hardly be able to be mounted on means of transport. Naturally, the electronic technology developed for controlling the speed of electric motors, opening valves and controlling pressures is also essential. But even this invention would not be possible without the pumps with dual power on the suction side, which will not allow the dispersion of the operating pressure or even the water, which together will produce energy. But manufacturers of thermal engines are developing hybrid engines that will reduce pollution, not eliminate it, while electric cars will entail large costs for disposing of accumulators, little power and little range. Half-solutions could be fine when complete solutions were not in sight, such as the pressurized mobile hydroelectric plant, invented by the undersigned and not created by anyone.
Is there anyone in the world, public or private, with greater economic means than a pensioner who wants to go against the grain? I think that the world, so big, is getting lost in a small glass of water, because only a few thousand dollars or euros are needed to verify the basic principles of these inventions. If everything works, and I have no doubts, industrialization can be achieved quickly under fair competition between all the companies involved, giving to Caesar what is Caesar’s. It could also be a simple thank you. As an inventor, I do not believe in the current rules of intellectual property, which have never protected inventors but only industrialists, who can pay for protection. Current industrial property seems designed to protect only multinationals and commercial products.
The true fathers of science and progress were those who studied non-partisan solutions, even going against the grain, such as Aristotle, Archimedes, Galileo, Pascal, Newton, Einstein. The undersigned quotes, unworthily, these great men who demonstrated, even before industrial development took place, without the support of industrial and information technologies, that everything in the environment and in nature is connected with a precise logic, which probably would not be never been found in modern society, where research is motivated only by profit. Today, the genius of these great men would have been absorbed by some multinational company and they would never have made those great discoveries motivated only by the love of science. For practical purposes, especially environmental ones, the discoveries of these great men are not used to their full potential, since they have rarely been used synergistically. Private profit has taken over and scientific applications have been cut into slices, so that there are lobbies for various types of energy and various types of purification, which leave enormous technical and legislative gaps. No one realizes that in the entire world there is no rationally connected set of systems to complete the inorganic and inorganic cycles left pending by various human activities. But the undersigned, who unsuccessfully proposed global purification systems, in this article wants to talk, above all about the new hydroelectric energy, which is making an even more difficult journey, not even receiving the support of the patent offices. Aristotle in his “Physics” of the 4th century BC. he asserted that the natural state of bodies is stillness, i.e. the absence of motion, and that any moving object tends to slow down until it stops, unless it is pushed to continue its movement. The figure below (extracted from Wikipedia) shows Newton’s pendulum, composed of various small spheres (usually five), which is used to illustrate the laws of conservation of momentum and energy.
This simple experiment is an isolated system that demonstrates that as time passes, air friction progressively dissipates the energy initially imparted to the beads. Consequently, the period of oscillation of the pendulums progressively decreases until the motion of the spheres stops. As Aristotle said, it is necessary to provide energy to keep it moving. The problem of humanity, as well as purification, which as mentioned above, no one wants to seriously address, is also that of clean energy, which is used to keep human activities moving. We don’t even want to address this problem seriously, if no one wants to discuss the new ways of producing hydroelectric energy that the undersigned proposes, not only on the basis of theoretical knowledge, but also practical design and construction experience. I reported above the very well-known and simple pendulum experiment, as a premise for a much broader discussion, not on the conservation of energy, which is obvious, and it is certainly not myself who questions it, but on the transformation of energy, which it’s something else, much more important. In fact, mechanical perpetual motion cannot exist but the synergistic, multidisciplinary one, between scientific principles, technology applied to hydraulics, mechanics, pneumatics, can exist even with very high efficiency, as I demonstrate in this publication.
The figure below shows how the positional energy of the shallow waters (without the hydraulic head) could be used to produce energy instead of raising the waters to the surface by means of a pump which increases the water flow rate and pressure, exploiting the gravity of the intubated water column and therefore, concentrating the energy on the blades of a turbine, which produces electrical energy. In fact, the static energy released by the drilling of the connecting pipe (m*g*h + ½ m v2 = constant) between the two basins is that provided by the pump and the gravitational force, released by the breaking of the state of inertia caused by the same pump, if they do not produce mechanical energy by lifting the water, as represented in the figure above, nor electrical energy by means of a turbine, as shown in the figure below, they can only produce heat due to friction with the atmospheric air in the which the water would disperse, or with the water molecules, if the water is reintroduced into the basin without the reduction in speed that the turbine would produce. In fact, water, contrary to those who think to the contrary, can be reintroduced into the reservoir even in the presence of high hydrostatic heads since the hydrostatic pressure does not oppose the kinetic energy, but with the classic pressure drop at the outlet (V2/ 2g).
The figure below shows how the positional energy of the shallow waters (without the hydraulic head) could be used to produce energy instead of raising the waters to the surface by means of a pump which increases the water flow rate and pressure, exploiting the gravity of the intubated water column and therefore, concentrating the energy on the blades of a turbine, which produces electrical energy. In fact, the static energy released by the drilling of the connecting pipe (m*g*h + ½ m v2 = constant) between the two basins is that provided by the pump and the gravitational force, released by the breaking of the state of inertia caused by the same pump, if they do not produce mechanical energy by lifting the water, as represented in the figure above, nor electrical energy by means of a turbine, as shown in the figure below, they can only produce heat due to friction with the atmospheric air in the which the water would disperse, or with the water molecules, if the water is reintroduced into the basin without the reduction in speed that the turbine would produce. In fact, water, contrary to those who think to the contrary, can be reintroduced into the reservoir even in the presence of high hydrostatic heads since the hydrostatic pressure does not oppose the kinetic energy, but with the classic pressure drop at the outlet (V2/ 2g).
The figure below explains the reasons why we included in the diagram a pump with dual power supply on the suction side (which does not exist at the current state of the art). In fact, you can see that the water basin on the left side has been lowered, therefore, two flows of water with different pressures enter the pump. The details of how the pumps are made internally are described in the chapter which talks about modifying the pumps, at this stage it is sufficient to say that with this pump, the waters in the pump can be mixed and come out with the sum of the flow rates and the pressure provided by the positional energy of the surface waters of the upper basin. If the passage sections are adequate to transmit the entire pressure even to the waters with lower pressure, since the thrust force is equal to the unit pressure for the section, we can also produce energy by lifting the waters from the lower basin to the upper one , for the simple fact that water does not need to be raised for two reasons:
1. Because the water level on the suction and delivery is the same;
2. Since the density is the same throughout the basin, it is sufficient to simply insert it at any point in the volume of the basin or in an extension of similar large section to the same, since the water takes on the size of the tank that contains it with the minimum expenditure of energies, not attributable to external forces.
Not only is this system the absolute best for energy production, it is also the best for the management of surface water, not requiring accumulations of water in the mountains which produce floods nor extraction of water from aquifers which are becoming enriched with nitrates and heavy metals such as arsenic. The continuous circulation of water guarantees constant oxidation and therefore, by producing energy, we can distribute water for drinking, irrigating, purifying and even conserving low water where high water is a danger for people and crops. However, these concepts will also be taken up in the chapter which talks about modifications to lifting systems
The silence on this topic on the part of professionals, especially science, is very serious since in existing systems the intubation of water upstream of the turbine already takes place. It is the indispensable condition for the water to exert its own weight force on the turbine poles, therefore, in a system full of water, where the state of inertia prevails, the insertion of a simple pump with very low head is sufficient, before the turbine. It is not true that this system can transform only the head of the pump into energy. The entire column of water acts on the pump. If this were not true, the height h would not have been included in the Torricelli formula, which concerns precisely the distance of the surface water from the point of withdrawal of the kinetic energy, and until proven otherwise, in all hydraulic calculations the positive head on the pump must be subtracted from the head of the system calculated for the lifting of the water. But in the specific case they must not be raised since the hydraulic circuit ends at the outlet of the turbine with an outlet in an open vessel, which is independent of the depth of the outlet, but depends only on the outlet speed (V2/2g), which is slowed down precisely from the turbine, as also happens in hydroelectric plants built at atmospheric pressure. The hydraulic back pressure at the turbine outlet is apparent, not real, since the water is incompressible, The hydrostatic pressures are balanced but the total pressure is greater on the turbine side and the residual kinetic energy must only overcome the friction between the molecules. In the same way as in an atmospheric outlet it must overcome the friction with the air molecules. In essence, current hydrology applies the principle of energy conservation in small details such as variations in sections, rightly stating that a decrease in speed corresponds to an increase in pressure and vice versa but it is lost in complete systems, using water like a weight to be exploited to produce energy and to be lifted to distribute water and defend the territory. Unfortunately, the second part of hydrology, which raises the water, is against the conservation of energy, because water in the liquid version is impalpable, indivisible, and incompressible and takes the shape of the tank that contains it, therefore, in tanks always full, the water does not absorb energy for lifting, as it does not need to be lifted, but at the same time, if intubated, separated from the surrounding waters, it can assert its own weight, as in current hydroelectric power, which is achieved at pressure atmospheric. The only difference is that it is necessary to insert a pump that powers the turbine, not to create pressure but only to break the inertial equilibrium that Einstein talks about. Obviously, the hydraulic scheme of the always full basin can be created in many versions, both to raise the water and to produce energy, one of which, even in the pressurized mobile version, which could replace the heat engines. Therefore, this incorrect interpretation of the principles of energy conservation has affected the entire industrial and environmental development of planet “Earth”. It is the global environmental authorities who must ascertain this truth, immediately stopping energy waste for water pumping and the production of polluting and expensive energy.
Submerged hydroelectric henergy
There is a big difference between the above solution which raises the water in steps from one basin to another as the water is used by the subsequent basins by exploiting the positive head on the axis of a pump with the separate double supply which powers the turbine which produces a quantity of electrical energy greater than that absorbed by the pump instead of consuming it as in current lifting systems, such as the one shown below, which in addition to absorbing enormous quantities of energy (it is sufficient to read the table which shows the power of the electric motors installed), they must also spend a lot of economic resources to prevent disturbances of various motion (water hammer) every time the motors that raise the water against the gravitational force stop, instead of circumventing it with the stepped lifting proposed by the undersigned and not made anywhere in the world.
For what reason has the entire world science excluded water from world energy production, apart from the hydraulic jump, which is a scientific banality, based on simple positional energy. World science has underestimated the electromagnetic and fluid dynamic properties of water and air and overestimated the technology developed by man.
For the undersigned, general relativity is the most authoritative confirmation of the possibility of producing electrical energy within the same volume of water, even if it is easier to understand the other physical laws, uselessly cited in patent filings and other publications of the undersigned. Who did not find any publication online that talks about the experiments carried out on the combination of pumps and turbines in line in the same water descent, to overcome the state of inertia and concentrate the moving mass on the piles of a turbine. This is also confirmed by research reports received from the European Patent Office. Therefore, no one in the world has ever tried to exploit the relative position energy between surface waters and underlying waters within the same reservoir, artificial or natural basin, sea, ocean, by means of water intubation and series coupling of pumps and turbines. No one has taken this energy into consideration due to an incorrect interpretation of the law on the conservation of mechanical energy. This law states that, in a conservative force field, the total energy, i.e. the sum of kinetic energy and potential energy, is conserved in the motion of a body under the action of the field forces. It is clear that this law refers to an isolated system and cannot be invoked in the case of the solutions I propose. Questa legge non spiega l’origine delle forze del campo, che è il vero problema da risolvere, insieme al sistema per conservare queste forze nel tempo. This law, at the time it was conceived, could not foresee that by putting together three elements, non-existent at the time, things could totally change: vertical intubation of surface water, a pump and a turbine in series at the bottom of the pipe, in the same water basin, or in the vertical extension of the same without interruption. With this simple, cheap system, we can solve one of the greatest mysteries of nature and create an infinite, one-way flow of water, which during the descent simultaneously exploits the gravitational force, the atmospheric pressure and the weight of the ducted water, while the rising water is not necessary, as the density of the surface water is the same as that below. Therefore, combined perpetual motion: hydraulic and mechanical is possible, consuming a small part of the energy produced. The primary source is not oil, but free cosmic energy, which no one wants to use and experiment with, this solution being contested with the infamous accusation of not respecting the principles of energy conservation.
It is the classic case of the ox calling the donkey horned. Who respects the principles of energy conservation? The world ruling class with oil, shale gas, nuclear power, or myself who has seen thirty patents on environmental protection and alternative sustainable energy thrown away? Even when they granted me the patents the result didn’t change because no one wanted to invest in it. The reason is very simple: if the system is complex, despite having the recognition of the patent, no one implements it since the legislator does not issue international regulations that bind everyone (For example, to neutralize CO2, or not to discharge acidic water into water bodies: today the laws allow the discharge of purified water with PH 5.5 and CO2 and fine particles into the atmosphere because the official state of the art has not yet solved these problems, while the undersigned in 2012 vainly patented the neutralization of CO2 in greenhouses limestone which would also have produced alkaline water and reduced part of the fine particles, if the system is also used in urban centres, see chapter 6. Therefore, the patented system, ignored by the authorities and entrepreneurs, surpasses the state of the art it is not competitive. It could only be uprooted at a later stage, when the legislator intervenes, but the legislator does not intervene unless he sees at least one functioning system and the results of laboratory analyzes of the water and air. In these conditions, the dog chases its tail endlessly, because the invention was presented by a private inventor who has no economic strength to carry it forward. When it comes to public utility plants, the ministries of economic development, the environment and the United Nations should intervene, but for unknown reasons they do not intervene. I report in its entirety chapter 6 of the article cited above.
6) THE MODIFICATION OF WATER LIFTING SYSTEMS FROM ABSORBERS TO ENERGY PRODUCERS
Current global water management is against the general principles of conservation of resources, energy, physics and mechanics. It is easy to understand the waste of one-way use of water, which could be recycled. Today recycling is too expensive from an energy point of view since no plants have been built that circumvent the universal gravitational force. In fact, everyone knows that from an energetic point of view, it is much more economical to lift a body through an inclined plane, overcoming the sliding friction resistance than to lift it directly. But to improve this system, for thousands of years men have invented rolling friction, the belt or gear transmission ratio between wheels of different diameters, and today, traveling along inclined planes we consume hundredths of energy of what would be necessary for the direct lifting of masses against the universal gravitational force. In the hydraulic sector, the equivalent of the inclined plane is the exploitation of the variations of sections legislated in Bernoulli’s formulas, Pascal’s principle and that of communicating vessels. But these principles alone have not been sufficient to significantly reduce the costs of hydraulic lifting, since the hydraulic sector has lacked the invention of something equivalent to rolling friction, which improves the general performance of mechanical transport and lifting machines. In the hydraulic sector, the invention that can be considered equivalent to rolling friction is the invention of the pump with double power supply on the suction side, which, combined with the Bernoulli and Pascal principle and the principle of communicating vessels, allows exploiting the one-way gravitational force, even raising the waters. By modifying the current hydraulic lifting systems with the introduction of these pumps, the efficiency of water lifting comes very close to the efficiency of mechanical lifting that use the inclined plane and rolling friction, despite being based on completely different principles. In fact, mechanical lifting uses much longer paths, while hydraulic lifting moves a quantity of water much higher than that to be lifted in always full circuits, since it is the same water with the higher geodesic height that lifts the water of the basin placed at lower level. Therefore, if we recycle 1000 L/s at low speed, we can lift around 500, with yields very similar to those allowed by mechanical lifting on an inclined plane and rolling bearings. But, once pumps have been invented, continuing to think about modifying hydraulic systems, one can easily understand that hydraulic systems will largely surpass mechanical systems. In fact, mechanical systems, while increasing efficiency, remain consumers of energy, while the hydraulic system contains matter that can be transformed into energy, exploiting, as mentioned above, the energy of the position of the water positioned at the top compared to that positioned below, without dispersing the water. Furthermore, if a hydraulic system is coupled to a pneumatic and mechanical system, a single, even more complete system can be created which contains other matter that can be transformed into energy, such as compressed air. In fact, even compressed air has a positional energy compared to uncompressed air. The skill of the designer of the mechanical and pneumatic hydraulic scheme is to make the most of the principles and technologies that do not waste energy, transferring them from one system to another.
Obviously, consuming a small part of the energy produced for water recycling, including that which passes through a turbine and is reinserted into the recycling circuit by a suction mouth of the dual-fuel pump. Another small energy consumption is required by the restoration of the compressed air cushion which requires the dissolution of the gases in water. But these are small consumptions compared to the energy transformed without the use of fuels. The compressed air system is described in detail in chapter 9.
Considering that current technology allows the construction of multistage pumps with heads up to 100 bar (1000 m), as written in chapter 5, we can use the pump bodies of current multistage pumps (to resist hydrostatic pressure) but couple them differently using only the first and last stages, saving both in the power absorbed for lifting, and in the construction of the pumps, and in the construction of the motors.
To help understand the extent of the energy saving, a table is attached below showing the pressure drop of the pipes calculated with the Bazin-Fantoli formula: (1,000*4*V2/C2*D) where (C= 87/(1 +2g/√D). From this table we can find the pressure drops of a thousand meters of pipes with different flow speeds and different roughness coefficients (gamma coefficient) most used in hydraulic calculations only two diameters to set the reasoning Dn 100 and Dn 1000. If we analyze a flow speed of approximately 1.5 m/s for both dimensions, we can note that since the power absorbed by a pump is equal to Q*h, we can consider the pressure drops shown in the table, such as the head “h” necessary for a pump to lift the same quantity of water. The energy ratio between the recycled water (which does not require lifting) and the water raised at atmospheric pressure, in the two cases examined is the following:
in the case of the Dn 100 pipe (with a flow rate of 11.8 l/s) it is equal to 48.3 / 1048.3 = 0.0460 = 4.6% of the power necessary for lifting;
in the case of the Dn 1000 pipe (with a flow rate of 1180 l/s) it is equal to 2.079 / 1002.079 = 0.002074 = 0.02074% of the power needed for lifting.
The notable difference between the two ratios, given the same flow speed, is due to the greater contact between the flow rate and the walls of the tubes that exists in smaller tubes. But even in such cases, less advantageous, regardless of the technical advantages (which will allow new hydraulic circuits that will lead to energy production in fixed and mobile hydroelectric plants, exploiting different hydraulic regimes, as described extensively in the relevant patent filings), the economic advantages to choose these types of pumps and systems for lifting alone are immense. In fact, from the table below, we can see that if we double the flow rate of the water, to maintain approximately the same speed in the pipe, the size of the DN 100 pipe must be increased to DN 150:
In this case, the Dn 150 pipe (with a flow rate of 24 l/s) will have the ratio of recycled water to water raised to atmospheric pressure equal to 21, 68 / 1021.68 = 0.02122 = al 2 .12% of the power needed for lifting.
Therefore, we can see that, by increasing the size of the pipes, while maintaining the same speed in the pipes, the pressure drops and therefore the power absorbed by the pumps decrease exponentially. The advantage becomes even more evident with large flow rates and large pipes, where pressure drops have an even less impact. In fact, in the case of the DN1000 pipe, we spend the same energy to raise 1,180 L/s of water to a height of 2,079 m or to recycle it in one kilometer of pipe.
This very simple reflection led the undersigned to modify the water lifting systems and pumps, not to contrast the law of energy conservation, but to support it. In fact, it is first necessary to design the systems, accommodating atmospheric pressure and gravity, then the machines used to create the systems are designed. The first ones that need to be changed are the current pumps, which are hydraulic operating machines which, receiving mechanical energy from an electric or thermal motor, transmit it to the liquid that passes through them to increase its pressure. This pressure, in most cases, is used precisely to overcome the force of gravity and atmospheric pressure. The figure below shows a classic water lifting system without water recycling.
This plant, designed by the autonomous body of Flumendosa, with pumps from the Termomeccanica Company, engines from Ansaldo, built by the Impregilo company, with the electromechanical works subcontracted to the company Ing. Caccavale e C of Naples where the undersigned worked , as can also be seen from my curriculum vitae published on https://www.spawhe.eu. This system, in light of the reflections and subsequent experiences of the undersigned, should be redesigned, according to the hydraulic schemes and pumps that I propose. Because if it is true that it has the capacity to lift 18,000 m3/h of water to a height of 200m, it also has the capacity to consume around 15,000 Kw/h, while with the hydraulic schemes proposed below, carrying out the lifting with four steps by means of the combination of dual fuel pumps and turbines we could produce approximately. 4000 Kw/h consuming only about forty for water recycling. Furthermore, the aforementioned system involved complex calculations of the variable motion disturbances, carried out by the University of Naples and for the neutralization of this phenomenon, eight steel tanks pressurized with compressed air with a capacity of 70 m3 were necessary, with a pressure test pressure of 30bar. The cost of this system could also be avoided by creating the stepped lifting with water recycling and pumps with dual power on the suction side, as described not only herein but also in Chapters 5 and 8 of the original article.
Mine is not a criticism of the project carried out and of Italian technology, so much so that as an installation technician, I proudly participated in the creation of this work. But knowing that there are many thousands of water risings of all kinds in the world, I think it was useful to reflect calmly on these works, as a pensioner. Because public bodies, large contracting companies, universities consider the state of the art of lifting systems to be acquired and do not look for alternative solutions, instead, the creativity combined with the experience of those who have seen many systems built, even carrying out modest roles , can lead to the development of alternative solutions, which cannot be rejected without any discussion. The problem is how to convince large public bodies, large companies, universities, that they may have got the solutions wrong without hurting their professional pride. The problem is not local but global. I think the stakes are so high that personal pride must be put aside. Everyone can make mistakes, especially myself, who cannot compare with anyone and cannot spend a few thousand euros on experiments, but it is worth trying these solutions. A pensioner’s reputation is worth very little. Those in power who underestimate these solutions are at greater risk
What I want to say with this publication is the fact that in the Bargi power plant I did not notice any of the sustainability criteria of the interactive hydroelectric design between water and atmospheric air and I did not even notice any protection device from water hammer which is certainly the main cause of the destruction of the hydroelectric power plant. Instead, protection against water hammer is very present in the water lifting system designed, designed by the autonomous body of Flumendosa, with pumps from Termomeccanica, motors from Ansaldo, built by Impregilo, with the electromechanical works contracted to the company Ing . Caccavale and C of Naples where the undersigned worked. In fact this system, which raises 5000 l/s to a height of 200 m, which as a retired inventor I have criticized because it consumes a lot of energy unnecessarily, is at least well protected against water hammer by eight 70 m3 pressurized tanks with compressed air with nominal pressure of 30 bar. It is very strange that a hydroelectric power plant that exploits a hydraulic head of 375 metres, with flow rates of 104.6 m3/s (376,560 l/sec) and which works in both flow directions, has no protection against water hammer. Furthermore, in the lifting station, with much lower flow rates and operating pressures, we have five pumps, which are put into operation one at a time and stopped one at a time, precisely so as not to produce various motion disturbances in the lifting pipeline. However, as I wrote above, I also consider the plant built in Sardinia to be wrong, although it was well protected against water hammer, since, as demonstrated by the undersigned, by building the plants with submerged or compressed hydroelectromagnetic energy, we we can also produce energy by raising the water, with step lifting and feeding the subsequent basins with the water that comes out of the overflow. Therefore we do not need the hydraulic head to produce electricity and by raising the water in this way, we do not even produce water hammer, as the water always remains within the system that produces energy. What comes out of the plants is only the electricity and the water that is discharged from the overflow drains for agricultural, civil and industrial uses.
Of the Bargi hydroelectric plant which produced 330 MWh at a high cost, all we can say is that it is one of the many wrong plants that have fueled the Italian public debt. It is a coincidence that it was demolished by a water hammer in the year 2024 because it could have happened much earlier. I only feel sorry for the workers who died and their families. Making the turbines turn backwards to raise the water may seem like a brilliant idea but it is not. Or rather, it is a solution acceptable only from an electromagnetic point of view as an alternator can also function as an electric motor. From a hydraulic point of view, things work very differently as the turbine, designed with very high efficiency to exploit the kinetic energy of the water in the natural direction of the flow exiting the turbine, greatly lowers the efficiency when it rotates in the opposite direction to raise the waters. Personally, I only know about the Bargi power plant what I read in the newspapers and the photos published before the disaster. But this is enough to make me understand that this system is completely wrong from a hydraulic point of view because the lifting and distribution of water has been the main work I have done in my life as a system installer technician and above all as an inventor unwanted by public bodies and by multinationals. In fact, neither public bodies nor multinationals have financed my forty inventions on these topics. In the Bargi power plant, the water from two artificial lakes connected to each other is exploited: Lake Brasimone, higher up than the power plant, and Lake Suviana. The water of Lake Brasimone passes through a tunnel 4,757 meters long, with a diameter of 5.4 meters, built into the mountain. The tunnel ends in Stagno where the water is introduced into two parallel forced conduits of approximately 4 meters in diameter, for a flow rate of 104.6 cubic meters per second, which reach the power plant to operate the turbines and produce energy. When the demand for electricity from the grid is lower, the plant managers took advantage of this to operate the turbines in pumping mode: pushing the water into the pipes up to Lake Brasimone with a flow rate of around 47 m3/s, which compared at the descent rate of 104.6 m3/s it is much lower. This demonstrates the low efficiency of the turbines in the lifting phase, but also the high energy cost of water recovery. But above all, the serious risk of having a water hammer in the two penstocks in the lifting phase due to the interruption of the current of the turbine motors which function as pumps. The situation is aggravated by the fact that compressed air tanks to cushion water hammer were not provided and by the fact that the power station was built submerged in water. Therefore, even if only one of the two lifting pipes fails, the power station is forced to flood completely, destroying all the electrical management and control equipment of the system.
The good intention of recovering water for energy purposes has caused immense damage. I am not surprised at the severity of this damage and even more serious ones such as the collapse of dams and floods due to the overflowing of artificial reservoirs in the mountains. For these reasons I proposed the production of submerged and compressed hydroelectromagnetic energy without the hydraulic jump that the entire terrestrial science pretended not to understand and consequently, not even the politicians who govern did not understand it, including the Italian ones who governed from 2010 to 2024. Years in which I proposed these alternatives.
Water must not be wasted, but used in other hydroelectric energy producing plants that are more modern than the current ones, which do not require hydraulic jump, do not consume fuel and do not produce water hammer. These plants which would have produced submerged hydroelectric energy were proposed in 2014 without finding public and private interlocutors (including Enel and Enea). Only due to fortunate circumstances did the water hammer at the Bargi power plant not occur until 04.10.2024. Unfortunately, luck does not last forever. Sooner or later this accident had to happen, more serious than other accidents of the same type as the hydroelectric plant was designed with the turbines placed at a depth of forty meters precisely to exploit the hydraulic head of the water in the lifting phase. Designing a plant of this type without the protection of pressurized tanks with compressed air was authentic technical and scientific folly, of which Italian science cannot be proud and should assume its responsibilities. While all terrestrial science should have understood that on planet Earth electrical energy can be extracted everywhere, even at the poles and in deserts without the need to build hydroelectric, thermal, nuclear power plants and without the need to transport energy from a placed on another in the form of fuels (except in rare cases) or electricity. Water must never be raised against the gravitational force but pumped in the direction of the gravitational force to produce energy through turbines or pumps used as turbines (powered in reverse) compared to current use. Only in this way is it possible to produce cold electricity which would allow the Newtonian and Lorentz thrust to be added together and also create sustainable and non-polluting aeronautical and space systems. The entire world of science must also answer for this. But this is another topic that does not concern the Bargi power plant. It concerns the entire earth’s energy.
Luigi Antonio Pezone
