Buoyancy generator

[Tom Booth]

So why perpetuate this fairly obvious nonsense?

Well. take a look around the internet on the various forums and social platforms when this topic comes up. Here are some examples:

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Question: Is it theoretically possible for a heat pump to power itself?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineer..._heat_pump_to/

Answer: "Generally, no. Per the Carnot Theorem, the maximum efficiency of a heat engine is directly tied to the temperature differential between the hot/cold sides.

Say it's 72F inside and 100F outside. The maximum theoretical efficiency you could get moving heat between these reservoirs is 5%. Not enough to self-sustain any heat pump that currently exists."

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Question: Is Combining a Heat Engine and Heat Pump a Perpetual Motion Machine?

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/is-combining-a-heat-engine-and-heat-pump-a-perpetual-motion-machine.249557/
Reference:

Answer: "So the bottom line is that a theoretically perfectly efficient heat pump combined with a perfectly efficient heat engine (both running at Carnot efficiency) would produce exactly as much energy as is put into it. But we all know thermodynamic cycles run nowhere close to 100% efficient...

"Perpetual motion machine speculation is a non-starter, always based on a conceptual error. Thread locked."

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Question: How to build self-powered perpetual motion heat pump?

https://www.electronics-lab.com/foru...t-pump.181441/

Answer: "since we are talking heat engines the carnot cycle applies" ... "With "perfect"conversion, this process will have an efficiency of 33.33..% . 1/3 of 3 is 1. The result is that a "perfect" heat pump will produce only enough energy to run itself- with nothing left over. From an useful output point of view it's a complicated and expensive way to do nothing. A "real" heat pump/engine won't even do this because of losses- making it an even more expensive way to do nothing. I suggest that you study the thermodynamics of a heat pump/engine- the reason the proposal doesn't work is quite apparent. This has been covered before on this newsgroup.

"Conservation of energy still wins -"

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Question: Heat pumps to produce electricity?

https://www.reddit.com/r/heatpumps/c...e_electricity/

Answer: "Here's why it doesn't work...

"All heat engines must lose heat in the conversion of heat to work. The maximum theoretical efficiency of any particular cycle is called the Carnot efficiency and is a function of the difference between source (discharge of the heat pump) and sink (ambient temperature) temperatures.

"The discharge temperature of a heat pump is relatively low meaning the maximum Carnot efficiency for a Rankine cycle using it as its source temperature is less than 10% with a relatively moderate ambient temperature.

"If we were to increase the discharge temperature of the heat pump, we would increase the efficiency of the Rankine cycle but also drop below a COP of 1.0 for the vapor compression cycle and therefore ultimately be a loss of energy."

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Question: Can Self-Running Heat Pumps Revolutionize Home Efficiency?

https://www.physicsforums.com/thread...iency.1015350/

Answer: "The amount of electricity you can get from heat depends on the [absolute] temperature ratio between the heated reservoir and the environment.

"If the heat pump is 300 to 400 percent efficient that demands a temperature ratio close to 1:1. (e.g. 4:3 or 5:4). That in turn means that a heat engine using the temperature difference can be no more than 33% or 25% efficient. Real world losses mean that you cannot even do that well.

"If you could tack an ideal heat engine onto an ideal heat pump and thereby increase the net efficiency of your heat pumping efforts, you would have the makings for a PMM. So, this discussion is definitely treading on thin ice.

Rebuttal: "... I want to make it completely clear that I am not talking of the dread PM here! I want to know whether a heat pump can use some of its heat to generate the electricity needed to run itself!

Response: "That statement is a contradiction that indicates you are misunderstanding what a PMM is...because that's exactly what you are describing.

"A PMM is simply a device that violates one or more laws of thermodynamics. Yours would violate, at least, the 2nd one.

..."The engine-pump system you described, if it worked as you envision, would violate the second law of thermodynamics because the system would move heat from a cold reservoir to a hot reservoir without requiring any energy input. In other words, it would look like heat spontaneously moved from a cold object to a hot object."

... "I think we've adequately covered the issue here. Thread locked."

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Question: Is there any chance that a heat pump and a heat engine could be used together to make a perpetual motion machine?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineer...mp_and_a_heat/

Answer: "People are rightfully saying this won't work. But for a bit of understanding for why it doesn't work:

"Heat engine up to 50% efficient" over what temperature differential? Lookup Carnot cycle.

"The maximum theoretical efficiency of a heat engine is n = 1-Tc/Th

"The maximum theoretical COP of a heat pump is COP = Th/(Th-Tc)

"That means that your energy out would be Wout/Win = n*(COP-1) = (1-Tc/Th)*(Th/(Th-Tc)-1) = Tc/Th < 1 for Tc<Th

"And this is for an ideal heat pump and heat engine. Real ones are less efficient. Sometimes a lot less efficient. Theoretical COPs can be >10 but in practice they are never more than 4-5."

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Question: Work done by heat engine that uses exhaust from heat pump

https://www.physicsforums.com/thread...-pump.1064072/

Answer: "In principle, if you had a Carnot engine and a Carnot refrigerator working between the same two temperature reservoirs, the output from the engine would be exactly the amount needed to run the refrigerator. There'd be no extra work left over to do anything with.

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This goes on and on, and has been going on and on for decades.

The completely bogus, made up out of whole cloth "Carnot Limit Formula" is the first line of defense. An APPARENTLY plausible, supposedly rock solid "LAW OF THE UNIVERSE" supposedly "well established, proven and verified many times" can be used 99.9% of the time to dissuade would-be "free energy" inventors from using or following up on their own common sense.

Of course, if calling a person with a little common sense reasoning ability a "perpetual motion crank" and hammering them over the head with the spurious "Carnot Efficiency Limit Formula" doesn't work...

This is a rather interesting account of what may follow: https://projectavalon.net/wade_frazi...march_2009.mp3

[Tom Booth]

I think it is valuable in a way, to study the Carnot Efficiency Theory in depth, if for no other reason than to help immunize oneself against being taken in by arguments based on it.

I never had any "ax to grind" with the laws of thermodynamics, only a very sincere interest in Stirling heat engines and an insatiable desire and curiosity to understand how they operate. For me, that was at the time, a matter of survival living in a remote area off-grid, I needed a power source at my camp beyond the power lines. A Stirling engine seemed to be the way to go.

On the Stirling Engine forum, I joined to find out, the workings of the Stirling Engine were explained in terms of Thermodynamics and the Carnot theory.

So, in time, it boiled down to this "Carnot" equation: e(efficiency) = 1-Tc/Th.

I read Carnot's one and only book to get some historical context. The equation did not appear anywhere in Carnot's book.

All the literature on thermodynamics and heat engines referenced this book of Carnot's as the origin of this formula, but without any specific page reference:

"Carnot efficiency describes the maximum thermal efficiency that a heat engine can achieve as permitted by the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The law was derived by Sadi Carnot in 1824"

But such references were always indirect, without a specific page reference.

1824 is the date Carnot's book was published.

"The maximum efficiency, known as the Carnot efficiency η-max is dependent only on the temperatures of the hot source and the cold sink TH and T, as shown in Figure 1, and is given by the equation below ..."

https://www.energyeducation.ca/encyc...not_efficiency

This was not, however, what Carnot actually said in his book!

Deciphering all of this became a project for me, similar to Biblical exegesis where it becomes necessary to return to the original text in the original language. Carnot wrote in French. Later thermodynamicists knew his work ONLY IN TRANSLATION, leaving quite a bit of room for misinterpretation.

What Carnot actually wrote (translated into English) was:

"The motive power of a waterfall depends on its height and on the
quantity of the liquid; the motive power of heat depends also on the
quantity of caloric used and on what may be termed the height of its fall,
that is to say, the difference of temperature of bodies between which the
exchange of caloric is made."

Notice that Carnot mentions "quantity" of caloric "and on what may be termed the height of its fall".

He was also talking about "motive power" not "efficiency". These are different concepts entirely. An engine might be very powerful, but at the same time very inefficient.

This is like Watts of electrical power depends on BOTH voltage AND amperes.

But this still has little relation to the "efficiency" of an electrical appliance.

And then, of course, on further analysis, I found out that the "Carnot" equation required that the temperature values be in Kelvin. A temperature scale that did not exist when Carnot wrote his book.

In practical terms, the QUANTITY of heat that enters into a Stirling engine can be greatly influenced by surface area.

A small pinpoint of heat at 600 degrees Fahrenheit might transfer less heat to the engine than a much larger surface area at a much lower temperature.

Temperature alone doesn't really tell us anything.

Consider for example the surface area of these Stirling engines and how is it possible that they can operate with so little actual heat input:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=ARD3ctp80ac

Due to the very large diameter, these engines are able to run on a very small, nearly indetectable temperature difference.

Temperature difference ALONE is not a measure of the quantity of heat.

Just as a large diameter wire can transfer more Amps of electricity, a larger diameter Stirling engine can take in a larger quantity of heat because there is much more surface area for heat transfer.

So, that is a major flaw or oversight in this fictitious "Carnot" efficiency formula. It is like instead of Watts = Volts X Amps someone said Watts depends ONLY on voltage.

So, in a heat pump or heat engine, the surface area available for heat transfer is an essential determinant of "efficiency" and/or power. To imagine or make the assertion that the efficiency of a heat engine or heat pump can be determined by TEMPERATURE ALONE is utter foolishness.

Now we can apply this principle of efficiency being largely dependent upon SURFACE AREA for heat transfer to something like Dennis Lee's "most efficient heat pump in the world" which he says he discovered BY ACCIDENT or trial and error, simply because he didn't really know what he was doing.




That's a whole lot of surface area!


https://youtu.be/l-gu_KCfnGY


There is also a whole lot of surface area in one of these Buoyancy tank heat engines:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=IdcQsF0xgnU

There is a whole lot of SKIN on that water tank for heat transfer into the tank from the surrounding environment.

[Tom Booth]

One thing I think we can be absolutely certain about is when compressed air is released from compression it gets VERY cold:

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2hYQtB4QkEY

I was never there, and there is probably no way to be 100% certain about it, but to me, in the previous buoyancy engine video, the bottom of the buoyancy water tank appears to be covered with condensation, possibly even frost, indicating that the bottom section of the tank is quite cold, very similar in appearance to a glass of ice water on a hot summer day:





I'm not there to rub my finger on the surface to see if that is actually frost or condensation or something else, unfortunately, but just logically, with compressed air being released into the bottom of the water tank continuously, as previously discussed earlier in the thread:

I said in my earlier post that there is something about the compressed air that might be interesting. When the compressed air is released into the cylinder, it cools down spontaneously. Heat from the environment then warms it back up to room temperature. One could arguably try and work off this principle to make a machine that converts ambient heat into mechanical energy (but I won’t go any deeper down that rabbit hole) ...

https://projectavalon.net/forum4/sho...l=1#post971604

[Tom Booth]

The interesting thing about Tesla's proposal for a self-running environmental heat powered heat engine is that in principle, it was not necessarily a NEW invention.

What tesla proposed was based on a principle, and that principle, as he stated was that:

Heat, like water, flows from high to low level, ... Heat, like water, can perform work in flowing down, ... But can we produce cold in a given portion of the space and cause the heat to flow in continually? To create such a “sink,” or “cold hole,” as we might say, in the medium, would be equivalent to producing in the lake a space either empty or filled with something much lighter than water. This we could do by placing in the lake a tank, and pumping all the water out of the latter. We know, then, that the water, if allowed to flow back into the tank, would, theoretically, be able to perform exactly the same amount of work which was used in pumping it out, but not a bit more. Consequently nothing could be gained in this double operation of first raising the water and then letting it fall down. This would mean that it is impossible to create such a sink in the medium.

But let us reflect a moment. Heat, though following certain general laws of mechanics, like a fluid, is not such; it is energy which may be converted into other forms of energy as it passes from a high to a low level. To make our mechanical analogy complete and true, we must, therefore, assume that the water, in its passage into the tank, is converted into something else, which may be taken out of it without using any, or by using very little, power. For example, if heat be represented in this analogue by the water of the lake, the oxygen and hydrogen composing the water may illustrate other forms of energy into which the heat is transformed in passing from hot to cold. If the process of heat transformation were absolutely perfect, no heat at all would arrive at the low level, since all of it would be converted into other forms of energy.

The Carnot Efficiency formula is entirely predicated on this idea that heat is a "fluid" (caloric) flowing THROUGH the heat engine. Tesla said this was false.

We would thus produce, by expending initially a certain amount of work to create a sink for the heat ... to flow in, a condition enabling us to get any amount of energy without further effort. This would be an ideal way of obtaining motive power. We do not know of any such absolutely perfect process of heat-conversion, and consequently some heat will generally reach the low level, which means to say, in our mechanical analogue, that some water will arrive at the bottom of the tank, and a gradual and slow filling of the latter will take place, necessitating continuous pumping out. But evidently there will be less to pump out than flows in, or, in other words, less energy will be needed to maintain the initial condition than is developed by the fall, and this is to say that some energy will be gained from the medium. What is not converted in flowing down can just be raised up with its own energy, and what is converted is clear gain.

The PRINCIPLE Tesla described is not limited or even necessarily applicable to some NEW invention. It is, rather, based on a simple recognition of the nature of HEAT ITSELF as a FORM OF ENERGY that is CONVERTED by a heat engine rather than something that PASSES THROUGH the engine like water through a water wheel as Carnot imagined.


If the heat powering the engine does not PASS THROUGH, then theoretically,

"by expending initially a certain amount of work to create a sink for the heat ... to flow in"

then it should be possible

"to get any amount of energy without further effort"

.

In other words, we can use initially, a certain amount of energy to run a refrigerator or heat pump to "create a sink for the heat ... to flow in" from the environment.

The Buoyancy tank of water is such a "sink". Dennis Lee's evaporator panels are such a "sink". A block of ice used to run a Stirling engine is such a "sink".

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vM0YmlRIYBI

What Tesla states above:

What is not converted in flowing down can just be raised up with its own energy

is interesting.

What did he mean by that?: "What is not converted in flowing down can just be raised up with its own energy"

Well, think about it.

If you had a refrigeration unit to keep the ice cold, every once in a while, it may be necessary to run the refrigerator in order to maintain the ice at a cold temperature to keep the ambient heat flowing into the engine.

But a heat pump or refrigeration unit keeps things cold or keeps ice frozen BY REMOVING HEAT FROM THE ICE.

What to do with the heat that is periodically taken from the ice?

Well, it can be transferred over to the hot side of the Stirling engine, temporarily elevating the temperature ABOVE AMBIENT or ABOVE THE ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURE. which will allow the engine to run with additional power, more heat/energy input whenever the heat pump is operating.

Since the heat is converted rather than flowing directly through the engine into the ice, very little heat is going to require removal in the first place, but whenever heat removal it is required (if ever), the heat that is taken out of the ice can be "recycled" and utilized.

So in this way, the ice can be maintained at a low temperature using the heat that is removed from the ice as a power source to accomplish the removal. so that literally; "What (heat) is not converted in flowing down can just be raised up with its own energy".

[Tom Booth]

There is an article about the Carnot efficiency limit so-called formula that I think is rather amusing, from the University of Virginia which states:

This simplest heat engine is called the Carnot engine, for which one complete heating/cooling, expanding/contracting cycle back to the original gas volume and temperature is a Carnot cycle, named after Sadi Carnot who in 1820 derived the correct formula for the maximum possible efficiency of such a heat engine in terms of the maximum and minimum gas temperatures during the cycle.

Carnot's result was that if the maximum hot temperature reached by the gas is TH, and the coldest temperature during the cycle is TC, (degrees kelvin, or rather just kelvin, of course) the fraction of heat energy input that comes out as mechanical work , called the efficiency, is

Efficiency = TH−TC/TH.


This was an amazing result, because it was exactly correct, despite being based on a complete misunderstanding of the nature of heat!

http://galileo.phys.virginia.edu/cla...rnotEngine.htm

First of all, obvious to anyone who has actually looked into the history, Carnot never derived any such "exact formula". Further, this so-called "formula" is hardly any formula at all. Rather, it is nothing more than a ratio of the "distance" between the high temperature and the low temperature on the Kelvin scale.

If the high temperature is 1000 K for example, and the low temperature is 750 K then the "distance" or "fall" in temperature is 1/4 of the way "down" the temperature scale or a difference of 250 K making the "Carnot Efficiency" 25%

This is nothing more than the obsolete caloric theory. Carnot's idea of heat "falling down" the temperature scale like a waterfall, or "falling down" through a heat engine from a high to a lower temperature like water being let down by a water wheel.

That such transparent foolishness has been accepted as "exactly correct" and continues to be taught in universities is excruciating.

By the way, I think a legitimate question to ask is when, where, by whom, and by using what scientific means was this "formula" proven to be, or demonstrated to be "exactly correct"????

Examining the history, there appears no record at all, no experiment, no test, no observations or empirical evidence of any kind whatsoever that ever established this formula as being an "exactly correct" means of determining heat engine efficiency.

As far as I've been able to determine this "formula" was inserted into thermodynamics textbooks approved by the US government for use in the educational system, sometimes in the 1970's. It has no real scientific origin or scientific validity, loosely based on the inoperable and entirely fictional "Carnot Engine" which cannot ever be examined or tested in reality because it never existed and never could exist, as it was based on the fictitious caloric theory.

This "formula" today, has been elevated to the level of some kind of sacred totem. or "LAW".

The only thing the "formula" seems to actually be any good for is to allow armchair academics with no aptitude for engineering to imagine themselves to be real engineers with some actual knowledge of mechanics.

Sure, a heat engine, ALL heat engines are just like a water wheel.

This is simply ludicrous nonsense at best, but generally very destructive. A fairy tale used to dumb people down and thwart real progress and innovation. A means of preserving the status quo and fostering ignorance.

[Tom Booth]

Just posted yesterday:

https://www.zilverstroom.com/the-ros...-discontinued/

The Rosch Kinetic Power Plant is no longer available for purchase.
This decision was made following the death of the company's owner and CEO.

This technology, which has been in existence for over 15 years, has been superseded by more efficient methods of generating CO2 free electrical energy.

August 28th 2025