How to survive a power failure

As I went down to see my little daughter playing in the backyard with the others I was talking with my neighbor about the expensive grey heat we get delivered by the city (hot water through a pipeline) and how we possibly do get the other neighbors along with a partly private energy supply. A lengthy power failure might help a little.

First the place where I live. The house with the red-rimmed 10 ft trampoline is my place. The view on the harbor is a bit different now, since the hilly surrounding which you see on the old Google Map, is now also occupied by may be 40 houses, gardens and children.
You can see that we have all sources available: sun, water and wind (the last one is the hardest to see).

Per household we use - in avarage - about 3500 kWh electricity and 46 GJ heat per year:

3500 kWh : € 960 per year
46 GJ : € 1352 per year

Total : € 2312 per year


Okay, lets lining up two basic alternatives (faeces for gas production is excluded):

1. Heat pump plus wind generator, solar cells or hydro generator. A heat pump uses electricity to gain heat from air, water or soil. About 25% electricity is needed for 100% heat. Eventually by solar collector pre heating we can save heat pump electricity.
   
2. A micro heat and power station uses diesel or geo thermal heat to drive a stirling motor which again drives a generator for electricity. The waste heat is used for hot water and heating. Although this alternative is coming up, the geo thermal variant is still expensive. And of course we want to be eco friendly, so no diesel.

So we are left with the heat pump combined with some sort of electricity source. Since a heat pump produces heat it is best that production and consumption are close together to avoid big heat losses. This means that it might be not very lucrative to make use of one big central heat pump in stead of a couple of smaller heat pumps. This should be calculated in more detail.

Electricity however is very suitable to produce on a centralised place. Which makes the use of hydro energy somewhere in the port, wind energy with one big TransKite or solar energy cells somewhere in space suitable.
Okay okay relax, we of course will use solar cells on roofs.

But in essence that IS the problem with renewable energy sources. The energy concentration of sun light, wind or water is very low, which means that we need a lot of collectors to gain enough energy. Which again means that we need (too) much material (steel, aluminium, plastic (=oil) etcetera), which is for the whole world not available!! Andre Diederen (TNO) wrote a book about this theme, called the global resource depletion, nice theme.

So what source are we going to use to feed our heat pump and of course our fridge too?

Wind: small household wind turbines like the Turby are very expensive, € 50 till € 100 per kWh per year, and not efficient. A wind turbine twice as big needs twice the material but gains four times the energy. So from an ecological and financial perspective not very attractive.

But, but there are other turbines than wind mills like the TransKite said the fool, and Magenn zeppelins.

The Magenn zeppelin

They can gain wind energy on higher levels where the energy concentration is much higher and more constant. On an altitude of 5 kilometer there is always wind and 30 times more per square meter than on 10 meter.
The Magenn Zeppelin operates on 300 meter and costs only € 0,43 per kWh per year, but you need to buy a big one, which delivers about 850.000 kWh per year here at my place, so with 3500+3200 kWh per household we need 127 households to join.

Regarding sun and water: solar cells can be used but are expensive, about € 5 per kWh per year and hydro turbines will cost approximately € 3 per kWh per year. Hydro turbines may also cost a little bit of cooperation of the port authorities which might be not very obvious.

So the best option would be a Magenn zeppelin for 127 households combined with a number of heat pumps. The investment (lifecycle about 15 years) per household would be:

Magenn zeppelin : € 2.880
Heat pump : € 7.500
Total : € 10.380

Lets add 20% maintenance costs, then it would be € 830 per year for both and € 500 for the heat pump alone.

Eeh, of course we could also buy the electricity from the local provider in stead of using the Magenn zeppelin. That would cost about € 1660 per year for 6700 kWh, over a period of 15 years about € 24.880 (prices of 2010) which is eight times more than the zeppelin. Together with the heat pump it would be € 2160 per year.

Lets finally put the yearly costs in a graph :

Well, nothing more to say...

Lately, in 2012, I went to the supermarket...

Going to the supermarket in 2012, on thursday as usual, I take my stabilised citytransportbike (may be I start a bike factory at that time) to get the weekly groceries from our grocery called Jumbo.

I snap my smartphone to the handlebars, start the Jumbo app (may be I start an app factory at that time) and see that the local branch celebrate their 10th anniversary with the announcement of a new order and delivery service. "Finally", I sigh, "finally they see the light". It has cost me more than one year to convince them about a profitable delivery service.

But for now I have to go and get my bread, milk and vegetables (no, I won't start a supermarket at that time). My citybike has an electric support wheel so in a few minutes I cycle the 3 kilometer distance through the city. I park my cycle near the entrance, the wheels locking automatically to the frame when I put my bike on the stand.

I take the transport part from my bike, which is now my grocery cart, and get in. Looking at my iPhone I see the optimal route I should take to come along my usual groceries and along the discounts I might be interested in. Walking through the supermarket I sweep my items along the iPhone camera.

Suddenly after sweeping a bar of chocolate the phone bleebs and shows that the same chocolate is much cheeper at the next door supermarket. That's nice, I get the chocolate for free now and the lower chocolate price is automatically sended to the shop manager so he can approve a price adjustment.

Occasionally my dear asked me to take also a package of darjeeling leaves. At home I'd already looked on my iPhone to be sure that it's there, and indeed the tea was not in the assortment. I had pushed the order button, and now in the shop my phone is showing me by photo where to find it among the dozens of other teas. Sweeping the package along the camera I push the detail button and see that the tea comes from Birma. Mmmm. I use the comment button to ask the shop manager whether the tea is ok or not.

At the coffee corner (with home made chocolate cookies) I greet my elderly neighbor and ask her if she would like to use the new delivery service. She admit because doing the grocery shopping is getting too hard for her. Although she likes cycling now since she has also bought a stabilised bicycle from the bike factory mentioned above.
Then a message comes in from my oldest daughter asking me to bring a package of nuts for them. I say goodbye to my neighbor and go for the nuts touching the ok button to let my daughter know I have them.

After putting the last fridge things like cheese, milk and butter in the isolated fridge part of my cart I get a message back from the manager saying that the tea is ok since they buy it right from the Birmese farmers, without interference from the regime.
More or less relieved I head to the exit. At the exit my phone bleebs again asking me if I want to check out. I touch 'yes' to send a payment order, and then 'no' because I don't need a bill.

I walk to my bike, attach the cart on it, push the unlock button and go back home, where I wake up in 2010.

The TransKite of my early years

Tidying up my room a bit I found my submission of the DSM Dyneema contest of 1999. I have very good memories of this happening, because it was my first contest and I won!

This was the idea, called the TransKite

These were my old days, I just joined the NOVU (Dutch Association of Inventors) and I was still learning everything. May be this is still the case now but I have at least 11 years more of experience at a normal company. Which I left by the way since a few weeks to start making and selling innovative business concepts.

Okay, I would like to share with you my presentation before the jury and other guests in a nice place called Chateau St. Gerlach.

Chateau St. Gerlach

I was number 5 or 6 of in total 7 nominees so had enough time to reach my full nervous potency. I started as follows:

A brief outline of the TransKite

My name is Friedhelm Veldhuijzen and together with mr. Niessen we think our proposal demonstrates the advantages of the Dyneema fibre in a comprehensive way namely the cable and the textile aspect.

We're talking about a kite. In your childhood everybody of you will have played with kites. Small kites of about a halve square meter but you have felt the kite pulling.

Nowadays some adults are still playing with kites. They sit in buggies on the beach and a kite is pulling them from The Hague to Katwijk. A small town 15 km ahead. And if they are lucky the wind turns and pull them back too. They use kites of about 6 square meter. A very popular sport of the last summer is kite surfing. Instead a sail they use the kite to jump on the waves.

Ok, let's imagine a bit bigger kite. A kite as big as a soccer field. This is about 4000 square meter. This huge kite will pull quite strong, about 40 tons. You can pull up a herd of 16 hippos (Nijlpaarden)! [Now they laughed, this must have been the crucial sentence.] But we don't want to pull up hippos but we want energy. How do we get energy with this kite?

To keep it in form we use the wind and some tubes filled with helium, so it can never drop down. The kite which textile should be armed with Dyneema fibres is connected to a ground station with a lightweighted very strong cable, a Dyneema cable. [The story had to be a sort of promo of course.]

This ground station is equipped with two generators which will generate electricity as the kite is moving with the wind for let's say a kilometre. A low estimation of the power is about 250 Watt per square meter. (A big wind turbine has about 600 Watt per square meter). So, with this 250 we get with our soccer field kite a power of 1 MW! This is comparable with the bigger wind turbines. [Yes, it was in the old days.]

The kite is equipped with an apparatus that changes the lift of the kite. In doing so the power to get the kite back after this kilometre is very low, almost zero. In this stage the generators have the function of two electro engines and get their electricity from the net or from a similar machine in the same area.

The ground station is dimensioned to handle this high forces and to discharge them to the soil. In the construction itself there will be no torsions, only forces parallel to the construction part. This enables a lighter and cheaper construction. All forces are discharged to the generators to spin them around and from there to the soil. So the cable will put on the reel with no tensions.

In the cable and textile of this TransKite the application of the Dyneema fibre is of course very suitable because of its strength and weight.

Finally the advantages of the TransKite compared to the usual wind turbines:

1) no mast

2) no sky line pollution (transparent kite)

3) using less turbulent wind currents (higher efficiency)

4) no resulting torsion forces

5) less ground neccessary

6) more power per installation possible

7) safer

8) flexible to wind forces

The TransKite (the transversal movement of the kite) is an idea which should be implemented as soon as possible. Thank you for your attention.

At that time our astronaut Wubbo Ockels was busy with this LadderMill. I was happy to answer one question afterwards with the advantages of our TransKite over Wubbos LadderMill (one single line is much better than two lines because two lines can contort and damage the whole thing). And Wubbo agreed since his current LadderMill is not a laddermill anymore but a normal kite.

Now I am thinking that controlling the kite lift is too critical a thing. A textile wind turbine pulled up by a kite up to 5 km which is just rotating might be a better option. Magenn is already busy with a sort of floating Savonius. And as you know Savonius turbines are not the most efficient turbines. But thats for another blog.

How to get potatoes from flooded land

Because of the heavy rain of the last weeks dutch farmers had big problems to get their potatoes from the land. Potato diggers are usually big and heavy and their wheels would sink in the weak saturated soil.


A farmer talks about his wed potatoes.

Why using large machines at all?
In former times upscaling made the farmer more productive. He could harvest bigger areas in the same time. But in combination with automation technology of today (GPS, smartphones) downscaling is increasing in several branches. So why not in farming?

So, here we have a simple innovation setting:

1. Rain makes the ground weak and therefore the harvest of potatoes difficult if not impossible.
2. If potatoes stay under water for more than two days they are worthless because of rotting.
3. Wed potatoes must be dried before storing to prevent rotting.
4. Potatoes usually grow in clay grounds which permeability is very low (water cannot flow trough it).

The solution can be on several strategy levels:

1. Avoid dependency
1. on the result: eat rice in stead of potatoes, or eat spagetti, or make potatoes resistant against water boarding.
2. on the proces: use something that doesn't need dry ground, e.g. light weight vehicles, flying or hovering vehicles, cableway etcetera.
2. Attack the attacker: make that rainwater doesn't harm anymore e.g. increase permeability, draining capacity or let the rain fall somewhere else etcetera.
3. Remake a disadvantage into an advantage: let the attacker work for you (this one requires creativity): i.e. use the weakness of the soil, or let the rain form a shallow lake and use a boat
4. Of course there are more strategies. As an exercise you can add some if you like.

The first two strategies are more or less straight engineering approaches. And a bit dull. Of course finding the best solution requires still some creativity but you'll get a reasonable solution with only your engineering skills.

I prefer the third strategy. Turning the whole problem upside down is most satisfactory. The solutions coming from this approach are often unexpected and interesting. But if you need the agreement of the users it is best normally not to go to far aside of the meanstream. SIT (systematic inventive thinking) is a good approach for this level of innovation. You will see that the final concept ogf this blog goes also a bit back to normal.

How do we make an advantage from the rain or the saturated ground? Saturated ground means a weak ground. So the potato plants can be pulled out with much less effort as in dry grounds. So why not pulling them out with a machine standing on a solid base on the side of a potato field.

Yes, pulling out would be new but it should be tested before it get accepted. For now I go on with a more traditional digger.

Okay, how do we perform this practically?

Imagine a potato field with the size of 100 m. x 100 m with potato rows. Lets place on both sides, so at the ends of the rows, a tractor with a winch and between those two winches a cable of 100 meter parallel to the potato rows so that the tractors can pull the cable to and fro.

A potato sled (catcher and collector) is connected to the cable. Since the sliding resistance of wed clay is low and since wheels tend to sink in wed clay, a sort of sled is used for suspension.

The picture below shows an example of a concept solution of the potato catcher. A next step would be making some calculations, a drawing and a prototype and have some tests on a potato field.

The potato sled.

The sled in a configuration with two tractors.

Two tractors with a winch each (not visible) on both sides of a potato field, in between potato plants and the potato sled connected to a cable. The conveyor-belt is driven by a wheel rolling over the ground.

What has the farmer to do?

When the potatoes must be harvested during heavy rains each tractor is placed on one side of the field. The cable is connected to the winches of both tractors and the potato sled is connected at one side of the cable. The sled is pulled by the winch of the other tractor over the field harvesting the potatoes of one row. Arrived at the other tractor the potato box of the sled is loaded on a trailer and another box is placed on the sled. The tractors move a bit to the next row and the sled is going the other way.

Voila.

What shall we do with the poor old farmer?

We make him happy.

We should give him and his successors an inspirational view of the future and a win-win-win-win-situation!

Happy farmers

Here in Holland a lot of old and sometimes poor farmers have difficulties in finding motivated successors. Farmer children look for city jobs with more income, more status and more future security.

Although farming could be one of the most satisfying jobs in the world! It's a matter of organising and some innovation too.

What does a farmer really want? If I would be a farmer I would like to have all advantages of an office job plus independency, animals en sunshine. I would like to

1. be my own boss
2. work with and take care of my animals, my cows, pigs, goats, kangaroos, ...
3. use my brain as well as my hands
4. devise strategies and tactics for my farm and perform them as good as I can
5. enjoy sun, rain and earth

But what is the farmer actually doing? He is buzy with

1. paper work
2. multifold repetition of the same operation every day again
3. making appointments (veterinarian, milk transporter etc)

So let the machines do what they do best i.e. routine work and let the farmer do what he does best i.e. taking care, being creative, enjoying life.

The routine work is milking, feeding, health checking, contacting the veterinarian (can also easily be automated), milk pasteurizing (yes, why not a micro diary at every farm?), milk transport to the local supermarket (some market innovation), insemination (is already automated), etcetera. All this can be done by relative simple machines we already use in other branches as security, flower handling etc.

The farmer then has time to take care of every cattle, to make them happy (also good for productivity), to see rare behavior of his cattle, to check on rare deseases, and of course to think about strategies and innovation in order to make the farm an even better place for farmer and cattle.

The first thing to do is asking the farmer about the work he wants to get rid of and supply him with the corresponding machines. The result will be a much more productive farm, a much more innovative farm and much happier famer and happier cattle. Which is good for the consumers, the economy, the farmer and the cattle.

We've reached a win-win-win-win situation.

The cycleway contest

Today a former collegue emailed me about a bicycle highway contest. I like contests. Probably I might never have outgrown my need for competition.
And I like winning more than loosing, so my self esteem might also be a bit lacking.

But for the contest. The provincial authorities - here in Holland we call this particular one a 'Stadsregio' something like a city region - like to have ideas for the new cycleway of about 15 km between the two cities Arnhem and Nijmegen. And as always in such contests the hardest part is to determine their yellow spot. Of the authorities of course.

 

Here you see the first and only elevated cycleway, opened in 1900 and had to connect the centers of Pasadena and Los Angeles (about 15 km! history is repeating) in a later stage, but never did because of the increasing popularity of the automobile. The 19th century was a gold mine of inventings and innovations.

The ideas shouldn't be that innovative that one may think it cannot be realized within the next years. Or - if the idea is too innovative - one should cover or even hide the innovativeness. At the same time it must be innovative enough to have a great appeal for the jury. Luckily they have foreseen in a questioning round which should be used to determine this yellow spot.

I usually follow a six step approach, although I didn't know that before:

1.

My starting point would be to see some global pictures of the area, a global impression of the list of requirements and a global impression of the jury. Above all not too much, because it might pull you in some implicit predefined formats which could steer your upcoming ideas. De Bono has written a lot about this phenomenon for example in The Mechanism of Mind.

2.

The second part is making a VIL (a vague-ideas-list, see the blog of traffic contest ideas for an example). The VIL describes globally for a number of ideas how they should work and what advantages they would have.

3.

At third we need to examine thoroughly all contest requirements, jury members, time scedule and so on. We need to know exactly how the ideas will be judged by the jury in order to make a proper funneling of the VIL.

4.

Fourth, out of the VIL three ideas are chosen: one improvement, one innovation and one inventing, trying to catch the yellow spot. We'll shoot with hail, not with a bullet, to increase the hit chance.

5.

The fifth step is the working out of the ideas with respect to technology, marketing and finance. And keeping in mind the right level of innovation and eventually covering or hiding tactics.

6.

And at last we need to make everything presentable, keeping in mind audience, message and target. When I heard from this classification the first time from Michiel Boswinkel I understood immediately what was wrong about my texts. Unfortunately is understanding and doing not the same and it is still hard work for me.

So, winning an innovation contest has nothing to do with a romantic thing like 'the best idea will win' or so. No, it is about the best strategy, the best tactics and the best performance, like in every battle. The ideas are just the means like the chess figures are the means for the chess player.

Okay, next time my VIL. If you like you can make your VIL and eventually we can put them together for a more complete list, and devide the work. Let me know.

10 ideas for dull hotel owners

I don't like hotels. And since this morning I know why. On the radio this morning there was an interview with Vincent van Dijk, who blogged all hotels of Amsterdam. And he told that a big problem of hotels is that they are not surprising. Which is not surprising. Hotels should offer a bed and that's it.

But hotels are dull.

I remembered the times a few years ago that I was traveling trough Europe for my work, sleeping in big dull hotels. Always the same continental breakfast buffet, always the same unsurprising rooms, always the unbearable lack of inspiration everywhere.

So why not giving those dull hotel owners 10 ideas to inspire them to inspire their guests?

1. This one is from one of the hotel descriptions of Vincent: provide the rooms with an iPod full of all possible music styles and some speakers, a newspaper, internet, water and wine and friendliness. It's that simple.

2. Place a bookcase in the lobby together with a couch and some relaxing seats. Go to the flea market and buy five meter of (inspiring) books and comics and let the guest take the book with him when he leaves and has not finished his book yet.

3. Place a food and beverage vending machine somewhere inside or outside which delivers fresh food of the five continents.

4. Place a bulletin board in the lobby for events in the neighborhood, for looking for company for going out, play chess or philosophical talk, tips and warnings, etcetera.

5. Organise every evening a different board game tournament for the hotel guests and the neighborhood and organise workshops Delft Blue Painting.

6. Provide GPS units for city GPS tracks and city geocaching.

7. Show an art movie every evening in the breakfast room on a big screen. Except on Saturday: organise every Saturday a chamber concert. Also for the neihborhood.

8. Offer a farmer breakfast on one long table with fresh products right from the (biological) farmer. And offer excursions to the farm.

9. Organise every Wednesday a PechaKucha Night.

10. Get art from the art library or from the local artists and create a gallery of the hotel.

I might go to such a hotel in future! But you are not me and might wish other things to get inspired. Be my guest and add your ideas to this blog!

And apart from that a hotel might be a nice thing to make a crowd sourcing project out of it. Who is interested?

Saving traffic emissions by mind shifting

Today the nominates of the Zuid-Holland prijsvraag are to be selected. I couldn't find the names already so I thought this would be the right time to redeem my promise (see number 7 of the vague-ideas-list in traffic contest ideas) to tell how to save 75% of CO2 and other traffic emissions.

The most important thing we need is a mind shift. So what happens if we don't consider trucks as a sort of car but as a sort of barge moving along roads in stead of rivers and canals? What do we think then about speed, an extra crew member or acceptible payload?
Suddenly we have a barge that doesn't need to plough itself trough the water but goes nicely on wheels.

Or what happens if we consider trucks as a sort of train moving on the motorway in stead of a railway? What do we think then about the number of trailers, the number of trucks on a road section, so called slots in air transportation?

Okay, assuming a mind shift has taken place, here is the trick...

We halve the truck speed!

What?

We halve the truck speed!

Why should we?

The required energy per kilometer due to air resistance is proportional to speed squared. Doubling the speed means quadrupling the energy. Halving the speed means quartering the energy.
The effect of speed is huge. For example in nature speeds seldom exceeds 50-60 kmph. A higher maximum speed means a much higher maximum power of the creature. The extra bones and muscles needed to submit this extra power must be maintained which costs energy every minute of life.

Why shouldn't we?

Safety: Isn't it dangerous if cars are passing those trucks by a speed difference of 40 to 80 kmph? This would only be dangerous if a slower vehicle suddenly moves to another carriageway. But since trucks are no longer cars anymore they don't have the right to overtake other cars. This would only be permitted on special road sections.

Costs: if we would halve the speed we would permit to double the pay load at the same time in order to keep the transportation costs the same.

Practicle implementation: how is this to be implemented on ordinary dual carriageways and should private cars also drive only 40 kmph? No, that won't be necessary fortunately. We have two strategies, the middle lane and slots.

A middle lane like at norwegian roads enables traffic in both directions to overtake alternately. Lots of new builded dual carriageways are already equipped with a central berm which can be transformed into a middle lane.
Okay it costs a little bit, but the revenues are emission savings of 75%! - due to freight transportation.

The use of slots (like for airplanes) for road transportation would be the real innovation. Freight traffic will receive every hour a slot of lets say one kilometer per 10 kilometer road section. This slot is moving with 40 kmph along the road. Trucks are only allowed to drive in such a slot. The remaining 90% of the road time/space is available to non freight transport vehicles. This approach requires no infrastructural adaptations, but merely a sort of electronic road timetables.

Saving 75% of traffic emissions only by means of a mind shift. I don't know a more cost effective way.

God, entrepeneurs and managers

Today a friend was visiting me and we came to the conclusion that managers are gardeners, entrepeneurs are growers and inventors are creators (we called them god).

But so as God had to deal with human beings so has the inventor to deal with entrepeneurs and managers in the development cycle of a product. The apple cycle should look something like the pictures below (see also Why am I doing this) :

In the beginning there were no apples and no apple trees at all, just the appetite - which is nothing more than a problem perception. Then creativity comes around and give the platonic spiritual idea of an apple. The concept solver then picks up the spiritual apple idea, the essence, and transforms it into a concept solution, the apple DNA.

This was the thinking part, now the handicraft.

The DNA is still only a concept, it is not a practical solution for every day life. So the marketeer and the technician sit together and make an apple seed as a practical invention that can be patented eventually.
Then the technostarter in his role of the breeder takes the seed and breeds it to a small tree.

After the breed the entrepeneur (the grower) takes over and builds an apple orchard from the small trees. When the orchard is ready and the first apples are harvested and sold, the entrepeneur go away and the manager enters the show. He should keep the status quo and take care that the apple supply is guaranteed over the years. The last task then is the acquisition and the sale of the apples done by the sales man or the market vendor. And of course the apples must be enjoyed too.

Where do you want to be in the process?

Traffic contest ideas

After the summer holidays, which ended three weeks ago, I wanted to submit some ideas for a traffic contest, organised by a dutch government (see http://www.zuid-holland.nl/content_provincie/c_e_provincie-zuidhollandprijs.htm). The contest aimed to collect ideas that improve the liveability, safety and accessibility.

But the children had to prepare for school, the house had to be cleaned up, some social visits had to be undertaken and I had several other gammon and spinach, so there was no time left to sit back, to think a little about it and to enter some nice solutions. Although I had made a so called vague-ideas-list before summer.

The real reason was probably that I estimated my chances not very big. Usually the authorities want ideas that are in their yellow spot, which means no affect risk, introducable until the next election, understandable by everybody, acceptable by everybody and still improving their innovative image. Which may be understandable to some extend. But my ideas were a bit off the road I'm afraid.

You are invited to take a look at them and make up your mind for yourself. I like to hear your opinion!

1. Public transport's status above that of a private car. If we would make public transport more luxury, with more privacy, with more technical facilities, with shorter travel time from A to B and - most important - with more status than a private car the attraction of public transport should go up a bit above absolute zero. How? Well, I still had to think about it, but in the end mass production must always be more economic.

2. The google camera. Driving could be safer and roads could be used more efficiently by mounting a simple 360 degrees camera on the roof of private cars. A screen in the car connected to the camera would show a top view of the car and its surroundings (and will beep when a collision is coming).

3. Green city wave. On main roads in dutch cities usually there is someting like a green wave, which means that the traffic lights are always green if you drive exactly the permitted speed. But only on the main roads. I wanted to make green waves on every traffic light road. It may seem impossible on first sight but with for example the one-car-passing-a-crossing-at-a-time-concept there are interesting possibilities.

4. A heat pump for barges. This is more or less a conventional innovation, except that innovations are naturally not common in the shipping world. I might have added a cylinder sail, which is already done for sea shipping but not for barges on a regular base. Although this is not really innovative, it might have been exactly the yellow spot of the contest jury.

5. On the highway A15 to the port of Rotterdam there are always traffic jams. So why not get rid of a part of the traffic by transporting containers not by trucks but for example as submarines (see the "Every container a submarine"-blog).

6. A few months ago I designed an outdoor autowalk. One can often see the indoors at airports. The problem with them is that one small leave can make them stop. So I drew an outdoor one without moving parts; actually I was quite proud of it. Anyway, I thought to propose an implementation of it between the subway station and the Rotterdam airport. Yes, the subway passes the airport at about 2 kilometer!

7. The last one I wanted to submit eventually was an idea to reduce the CO2 emissions by 75%. I had already thought a bit about this idea so I may write another blog about it next time.


Of course I let you know when the winning idea is selected.

Every container a submarine

Why using ships for container transport when we can make a ship of each container. Moreover, we make a submarine of every container!

Why should we do that?

Well, it's the economy:

1. Ships are big and inflexible and cost money if not in use. Making a temporary ship of every container only when needed avoids extra costs as a result of higher supply than needed or of higher demand than can be met.

2. A ship needs a captain, which costs a lot of money. Ships and containers are going slowly, a captain is needed because big ships can damage a lot of things if out of control. So small entities of one container going along a cable directed by a computer just as an elevator lying horizontally would be a much saver and cheaper way of transport.

3. Using diesel will not be acceptable in the next decades, and electricity will likely be the alternative. Since batteries for a ship are not very suitable because of the weight and because of charging times the electricity is likely to be provided by an isolated cable on the bottom of the river (Who said road transport is still an alternative?). For a ship with one big engine needing big powers a cable is not very practical in opposition to a row of containers each powered with a small engine.

4. A ship transports a lot of containers to be delivered at several ports. The delivering of the last containers must wait until the rest is delivered. Containers that are moving independently can go as desired without going to ports just because some other container has to go there.

Ok, but how should we do that?

Well, with ordinary technology from the shelve.

1. A container is delivered by a sea ship at the port.

2. In the port the container is provided with an engine device and sealed in a (very) big bag, and provided with enough ballast or buoyancy so that the container is just a bit floating up for easy maneuvering.

3. The engine device is coupled to and gets its energy via induction from an isolated electric cable at the bottom of the river.

4. The destination port was already programmed into the container chip and transmitted to the engine chip. The engine chip now knows which way to go at diverge points of the cable.

5. The container starts its journey to the desired port, slowly and surely...

And what will be of the former captains?

Since all the rivers and canals are now available for tourism the former captains are organising the Rotterdam - Budapest hydrofoil regatta, taking tourists into their hydrofoil race sailboats.

Kayaking and vortices

Last summer, when I was kayaking hungrily over the Wadden Sea and a seal was following me, I looked at my paddle and saw that it did more than I want.

Every time I put the paddle blade in the water next to me it was making one vortex on each side of the blade! Well, actually not the paddle did it, but me! The fact was that I myself was losing energy to make those two vortices each time I put a paddle blade into the water.

On the picture (it's not me by the way) you see the two vortices: one at the shaft and one in the middle of the blade. So after one left stroke and one right stroke four vortices are made.

Estimating that the energy in one vortex is about 10 Joule (yes, I made some doubtful calculations), the total energy lost by doing one left and one right stroke is about 40 Joule. I do both strokes, left and right, in about one second so I lose 40 Joules per second, which is the same as 40 Watt.

Considering that I am not very trained and can produce about 250 Watt on the Wadden Sea, those vortices have cost me 16% of my power!

That's quite much.

So, how to get rid of those vortices? Vortices arise along sharp edges moving through water, like the sides of a paddle blade. Rounding the edges may help a little. But better is to get rid of the water flow around the blade, then no vortex has reason to occur.

If we had a blade through which the water could flow as there were no blade at all, so with no resistance, we would have no vortices. But without a blade there is no resistance to move forward with our kayak.
We need a special blade. A blade that is non permeable (100% closed) in the middle and 100% open at the edge where water can flow without any resistance. In between the openness should vary from non permeable in the middle to fully permeable at the edge of the blade.

A blade like this will not show flowing water around the edges and no vortices will arise. Making a blade like this in a simple way means drilling a lot of holes through a blade - that is to say in the middle none and going to the edge more and more.
Better would be to use a suitable material, some membrane ranging in permeability. And to compensate for the openness the blade must be some bigger of course.

But when all the work is done I should sign in for the kayak championships!

Robots, how will they look like?

As I looked into my desintegrating copy of "I, Robot" from Isaac Asimov the other day similarities with the smartphone came up.

Years ago, as mobile phones still looked like mobile phones, there was some debate whether it would be usefull to add a camera, an agenda etcetera. I myself was not sure either, I liked my pocket knife but if I would loose it I would loose also my scissors, corkscrew and can opener.
And indeed, a few weeks ago I lost my iPhone and with it my address book, my notes, my books, my camera, my watch and also my phone.

But the decision has been made: the smartphone is a money maker nowadays. (If you are not sure about that take a look at Apple's profits.)

Since many years robots are making cars, milking cows and since short they are communicating with Alzheimer patients (see http://www.parorobots.com/). But they are good at one thing only, they are specialised. And so they will extinct. For two reasons. They are too expensive and there is no demand.

1. The tasks robots perform will extend and will be more sensitive: cows have to be milked, but in future cows will also be checked on deseases during milking. So milk robots have to be more intelligent and have to be able to use more tools. And so they will be more expensive. Too expensive for a farmer. May be a modulair system will last for a while, but the lack off mass production will bankrupt everything in the end.

2. The farmer has not only 100 cows but also a bedridden mother who has to take care of. So, he wants a robot that can milk his cows and help his mother going to the toilet and can make coffee for him. An ordinary milk robot can't do that. So he wants a robot that can perform all tasks humans can perform: a humanoid robot.

Here we see the same development as we have seen with smartphones. And more similarities come up. Unlimited number of apps are available for the smartphone on the internet. The same will happen with robot skills. You just download the skill from the internet into your robot and he can perform the new task. Better, robots will learn tasks by themselfes and by uploading the skill to the internet teach other robots.

One last question: how will mankind survive?

Nature's wheel

Last spring I was driving to East Germany and talking with my brother. We saw the wheels of a truck next to us. The first thing that came up whas the inefficiency of a wheel. Only about 5% of the wheel is touching the road and bearing the truck, the other 95% is busy traveling around until it can touch the road again.

So, if we need only 5% of the wheel, why not get rid of the other 95%?

May be we need another 5% to be used immediately after the first 5% is used. When the first 5% is used up for rolling and bearing the truck it cannot be ready again immediately, so we need a second 5% to be used alternately with the first 5%.

If we would let the first 5% go around after it was used it needs to travel a long way (90%), so we may better just move it back, the distance is then only 10%.
But how should we move it back without causing resistance by touching the road? Two possibilities: 1. lowering the resistance by adding small wheels or liquid or something and 2. lifting it up a bit so it won't touch the road.

Let's consider the second possibility. If we lift it up by means of a hinge somewhere we have made a knee. Hey, that's interesting, where have we seen this before?

Oh, and if we don't need to move the 5% around the axis we have place to move up the axis which doubles the radius and therefore halves the rolling resistance! Oh, and with such a knee we can adjust for bumpy roads like rocky paths.

The round wheel has been evolved away a long, long time ago.

Why am I doing this?

Finally I start a blog. I like to write about innovation, inventing, thoughts that come up. I'm not a writer, I know more or less how to write but knowing and doing is not the same. So at first this blog will probably be a sort of journal for myself, where I can write down ideas that come up during the day.

May be later I'll learn to write and hopefully I can inspire you to use your brain for generating new ideas, or eventually you see an idea coming around that fits your needs or your interest. I'm always interested to elaborate further on ideas, so contact me. Sometimes an idea ends up in a real invention and sometimes a real invention ends up in a real product and sometimes a real product ends up in ..., etcetera.

Here we see already two difficulties:
1. Ideas come up in high numbers and there is simply no time to look at all of them in detail. Thats one of the reasons to write them down here, anybody who likes one of them can do with it what she likes.
2. It's a long run from an idea to a real product. Some people say an idea is nothing, an invention is a start, a product is something and with a desired product we are talking. But in the end without ideas no inventions and no products.

The idea is like the gene combination of an apple tree, the invention is the apple pit, the product is the apple tree and the desired product are the apples. So without apple genes no apples, but in between the tree first has to grow up.

Another problem with ideas, inventings, products is that it makes people lazy. The cave-dweller had to find the way back home by remembering landmarks or stars. Later the map, the compass and the clock was invented and now there is the tomtom. Tomtom users cannot read maps anymore, map readers cannot read compass and stars anymore and compass users cannot read stars anymore.

But the good thing on ideas are that ideas are just fun, inventing is fun, using your brains is fun. It is a sort of discovery of what can be invented just by using your brains. Imagine for example the time over lets say 1.000 or 10.000 years, nobody will argue that we do everything the same as now, so a lot of inventions have to be made by then.

So why not doing it right now? Everything needed is already available!