rain catchment + water turbine = Pico Hydro Power

[thatguitarguy]

Like I said, water law is complex. Mineral rights laws too. You can "own" a piece of property and not have the rights to streams that flow across it, or under it, or the rights to gold that is discovered on your property, or oil or natural gas that is discovered beneath your property, or even the trees growing on your property.

Believe me it's being looked into all the time, and the people benefiting the most are lawyers.

[Christ]

I know all about mineral rights. There are 1,000 companies trying to buy them from people out here because of shale oil and natural gas pockets in PA.

NY doesn't have to worry about it, because in NY, your land isn't really yours, from what I'm told. In other words, the deed only covers the ground you can see, and no depth of earth.

[bestclimb]

There is a high doller remote hunting/fishing camp that I had delivered stuff to. They had a 2 inch pipe running 100 feet down a stream (with about 15 feet of head) they ran a small fridge and an FM radio.

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by thatguitarguy

Believe it or not, in Colorado it's illegal to catch rainwater unless you have water rights, and hardly anyone in Colorado has the water rights to their own property. I know people who've gotten in trouble catching rainwater to water their horses and trees.

Water law in the west is complex, and mostly ridiculous.

No wonder the next wars will not be over oil, but over water

[DonR]

Originally Posted by Christ

I know all about mineral rights. There are 1,000 companies trying to buy them from people out here because of shale oil and natural gas pockets in PA.

NY doesn't have to worry about it, because in NY, your land isn't really yours, from what I'm told. In other words, the deed only covers the ground you can see, and no depth of earth.

So what happens when you dig a hole?

[Christ]

Originally Posted by DonR

So what happens when you dig a hole?

I've been told that in certain parts of NY, all land modifications require a permit.

I can't verify this, because I don't live in NY, and wouldn't own land there if you gave it to me. (Because I'd sell it at a ridiculously low price as soon as possible, just to get rid of it.)

Of course, I'm only repeating what I've been told by landowners in NYS, as I have no real experience in dealing with Deed laws up there.

I live in PA. You can make walls from tires here.

[Bicycle Bob]

"So what happens when you dig a hole?"

Giant radioactive worms pop out demand to see your permit.

[ryanrain]

Were you ever able to discover anything with the 50 gallon drum? I"m really looking into this myself for third world countries.

[WildBoar]

This is something I am also very interested in.
We have constant trickle of spring water on the hillside where we live. (low volume) but we have 50m of head to get the pressure up.

My idea ...
to collect various sources of water - roof /spring/ land drains into a holding tank ... 1000 litre IBC (cube) tanks are freely available
look up Intermediate bulk container - Wikipedia
.. and it would be possible to "daisy chain" them if capacity was required.

The original poster talked of opening a valve to start it all off... however I think this is may not be necessary. A simple Bell Siphon could automate this

Rainwater starts to fill the holding tank(drum).
Siphon hits tipping point near full tank and starts to flood generator pipe.
Drives Generator until holding tank is depleted - up to the point where the siphon is broken.
If rain continues to fall the tank will fill again and the cycle will begin again automatically.

So the generator will cycle ... it doesn't sound ideal but in a situation where there isn't a huge volume of water it could be used to charge batteries.
Also in the situation where a direct connect system falls below the required flow to drive the generator - not enough torque - this would build up enough of a buffer to mean the water is not wasted by just trickling past the generator...


Hopefully what I have written is understandable!
I would be interested to know if anyone has tried something similar...
or if it is just a dumb idea

[Xist]

What are the odds of having two consecutive first-time posters?