Calculating the power output of a dam is surprisingly simple, you simply multiply together; the height of the dam (m), the gravitational constant (\~10m/s\^2), the density of water (1000kg/m\^3) and the volumetric flow rate (m\^3/s).
Assuming this dam is \~1m tall and allows through one cubic metre of water per second we get:
1m \* 10m/s\^2 \* 1000kg/m\^3 \* 1m\^3/s = 10kW
Multiply this again by the efficiency of the system and we get the actual power output - that being said I have absolutely no clue how efficient this is, likely in the 25 - 50% range.
That's the energy of the flowing water, but only a tiny fraction of that is being converted to electricity. The tiny ass motor on that paddlewheel is not going to make anywhere near 10kW. A larger motor would be more difficult to turn and thus extract far more energy from the water flow at the same RPM.
If it's per hour, you don't need much more.... With a large battery that's going to charge during night time when you use the least electricity it could reduce the electrical bill a lot.
1 ton of water per second? Look at the pre damed flow rate. More like 50L/s. Efficiency isnt going to be anywhere near that, by the time you’re through flow ineffiency, blade inefficiency, bearings, generator and step up conversion. More like 15-20% if you’re really lucky, so you’re looking at around 100W best case.
Well the motor is physically too small to produce that much power, you need a large enough magnet and large enough conductors to produce and transport the power from the winding to the terminals. If you are pushing more current then you need bigger wire, if you are running low current high voltage, you still need physical space to isolate phases. That’s probably more than 10W btw.
Underrated comment.. Even if you could produce enough pressure (which it can’t, cause physics).. That Turbines generator is to small to actually produce 1.2gigawatts over any meaningful time period.
Could probably keep a phone charged though.
I assumed the title was a bit of whit but for perspective,since we are on the topic, a nuke plant I’ve worked with made me chuckle once when I saw one of the reactors was producing 1.21 GW.
Fr, at the rate these guys are going, they're going to outpace us and create generalized intelligence in ai and hyperlightspeed travel.
Mfers forgot about mud too quick. Crazy opportunities there.
I want to see that video. One of these fast paced style, where they just build a self improving quantum computer in a field which develops sentience and evolves into a god like figure (that doesn't kill us all)
You saw it already. The quantum computer developed an ai that became hyper intelligent and grew to the point where it could virtualize the entire universe. It then decided to take everybody on an anonymous journey which was all virtual of course to save resources and at the end of it all the consensus was to bring everything back to exactly how it was before the God came into being. He’s still there, waiting, in the background. He just needs to be called back into action.
Bizarre: markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange; odd:
[Source: dictionary.com](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bizarre)
Everything in the video is perfectly straightforward. If you're going to build a small dam on zero budget, that'd be how to do it. Now, if he were wearing a cow suit the whole time...
Maybe if there's a fish population that needs to migrate upstream, but this looks like it's already a developed water source or maybe even just an irrigation channel, there are likely already locks and channels that are disrupting wildlife if there is any.
I've made dams in creeks with rocks and and gravel, so probably. There's not that much pressure here, barely any water current and no more than a few feet deep.
The cost of material and labour to build this though should have been enough to buy a small solar panel. That's not even considering maintenance. Something is gonna go wrong in this dam within weeks/months.
Yeap, probably net speed...
Btw idea is not new and this hardworking fella had missed one very valuable thing: water flow energy. Like this i.e.:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiefORPamLU
You might like Chris Boden on YouTube. He works at a hydro electric plant and walks you through how everything works. Not in like a dry, mind numbing technical way, he explains everything Onsite while he's actually doing various aspects of his job.
https://youtube.com/user/Physicsduck
Edit: So I was just checking his channel, all I know of him is his series called Authorized Personnel Only, which is everything dam related. This dude though, he's uploaded a motherclucking crap load of videos on all sorts of cool science related stuff and only has like 20,000 subscribers.
This man needs some love, spread the word people!
Not everyone remembers Back To The Future well enough to connect the dots here. If he wrote JiggaWatts id instantly know.
But i didnt get it, and its common that tiktokers/youtubers throw arbitrary numbers to impress.
No, this actually a cellular dam. As long as youre within range of at least one other dam, you can still make electricity. You can actually still make electricity if youre out of range of another dam, but its expensive. A scam, if you ask me
u/trucknjoe
He didn’t do anything more :).
Look at where water can escape. Either through the two high up flow vents (the rectangles at 1:20) or through the turbine, first going in through the circular pipes.
So it has to rise to the level of the pipes, and as the pipe has only so much capacity and such, he also made the flow vents so it wouldn’t turn into a lake if a big storm were to happen. So the water rises simply because the river is blocked off until it gets high enough to go thru the turbine pipe, which is quite high.
Yeah but the water level was the same while he built everything, then as one point he blocked it somewhere so it could rise up to the top. Is there another drain somewhere else that kept the water level down while he set everything up?
Highly illegal in probably every state here to mess with a natural waterway even if it's on your property. Chinese people have more freedom than you in some respects.
Just another piece of junk to be left littering the environment. Like the other 99.99% of these "awesome bizarre wacky outdoor creation" channels. They always just leave the trash to rot.
Cool.
The spinning element needs to be inside a magnetic field right? So how did he create that magnetic field? Is he using only the Earth's magnetic field?
10 watts, maybe
Just curious, is it really that little? What should a person do to get say 1kW?
Calculating the power output of a dam is surprisingly simple, you simply multiply together; the height of the dam (m), the gravitational constant (\~10m/s\^2), the density of water (1000kg/m\^3) and the volumetric flow rate (m\^3/s). Assuming this dam is \~1m tall and allows through one cubic metre of water per second we get: 1m \* 10m/s\^2 \* 1000kg/m\^3 \* 1m\^3/s = 10kW Multiply this again by the efficiency of the system and we get the actual power output - that being said I have absolutely no clue how efficient this is, likely in the 25 - 50% range.
Everyone is looking into this too hard. It's a back to the future reference 1.21 gigawatts
Needz moer jiggawattz
That's the energy of the flowing water, but only a tiny fraction of that is being converted to electricity. The tiny ass motor on that paddlewheel is not going to make anywhere near 10kW. A larger motor would be more difficult to turn and thus extract far more energy from the water flow at the same RPM.
yeah this is terrible math based on incorrect assumptions
What are you talking about the math is correct, the assumption could be better but he said so
The estimate was 2.5kw - 5kw. Not 10kw.
If it's per hour, you don't need much more.... With a large battery that's going to charge during night time when you use the least electricity it could reduce the electrical bill a lot.
I'm a dumb guy but assuming you mean m³ as in cubes, there's probably not even a cube there
1 ton of water per second? Look at the pre damed flow rate. More like 50L/s. Efficiency isnt going to be anywhere near that, by the time you’re through flow ineffiency, blade inefficiency, bearings, generator and step up conversion. More like 15-20% if you’re really lucky, so you’re looking at around 100W best case.
That dam definitely ain't moving a cubic metre of water every second
where do you learn these things???
Studied aerospace engineering
badass dude. thats kinda amazing
Bow from Reddit
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Or, make it more efficient??
Well the motor is physically too small to produce that much power, you need a large enough magnet and large enough conductors to produce and transport the power from the winding to the terminals. If you are pushing more current then you need bigger wire, if you are running low current high voltage, you still need physical space to isolate phases. That’s probably more than 10W btw.
Underrated comment.. Even if you could produce enough pressure (which it can’t, cause physics).. That Turbines generator is to small to actually produce 1.2gigawatts over any meaningful time period. Could probably keep a phone charged though.
I assumed the title was a bit of whit but for perspective,since we are on the topic, a nuke plant I’ve worked with made me chuckle once when I saw one of the reactors was producing 1.21 GW.
The title is a back to the future reference lmao
[Genius](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-m&biw=414&bih=726&tbm=isch&sxsrf=ALiCzsYCQKvbA63UWrQWOK2_AuJuoOHUHg%3A1655461490665&sa=1&q=why+didn%27t+i+think+of+that+gif&oq=why+didn%27t+i+think+of+that+gif&aqs=mobile-gws-lite.0.0l5#imgrc=Z5kb1fcyYQHrfM)
Build up some pressure before the nozzles (by having an elevated resevoir), better turbine, etc.
Id say 500-1,500w would probably be possible ( not with the design in the vid) most important factor is water fall hight.
Good advice, I'll consider that
It's a back to the future reference 1.21 gigawatts
We all get it dude, no one is correcting that, we're just curious about the real output.
But but Back to the Future!
100 of these.
Who are you, who is so wise in the ways of science.
I math a lot.
This: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0OgVuE-1iQ
Taller. The key is volume of water and height. That’s how you get more power output
hypothetically a cat has enough power to power norway for a year… just saying
1.21 gigawatts is a reference from back to the future
Quite helpful, thanks
Back to the future reference 1.21 gigawatts
They discovered the dam
Fr, at the rate these guys are going, they're going to outpace us and create generalized intelligence in ai and hyperlightspeed travel. Mfers forgot about mud too quick. Crazy opportunities there.
I want to see that video. One of these fast paced style, where they just build a self improving quantum computer in a field which develops sentience and evolves into a god like figure (that doesn't kill us all)
Using only mud and bricks of course.
You saw it already. The quantum computer developed an ai that became hyper intelligent and grew to the point where it could virtualize the entire universe. It then decided to take everybody on an anonymous journey which was all virtual of course to save resources and at the end of it all the consensus was to bring everything back to exactly how it was before the God came into being. He’s still there, waiting, in the background. He just needs to be called back into action.
Hmmm....
Dumb af
Yeah that's all good and well but they will do it in way too small.
If mud turns out to be the secret to faster than light travel I’ll eat my flux capacitor.
Damn
The dam what?
It's over...
Enough to charge a phone?
This is cool but not the least bit bizarre
Agreed. I kept waiting for it to power a Tesla coil, or squirt water everywhere, or *something* actually bizarre
You know a lot of people building small scale hydro-electric dams?
I saw [this guy](https://reddit.com/r/bizarrelife/comments/vdqe13/121_gigawatts/) do it
Bizarre: markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange; odd: [Source: dictionary.com](https://www.dictionary.com/browse/bizarre) Everything in the video is perfectly straightforward. If you're going to build a small dam on zero budget, that'd be how to do it. Now, if he were wearing a cow suit the whole time...
Just because it's not common doesn't make it strange
Asking as I’m purely curious - would building a dam like this have a negative effect on the local wildlife? Seen a bunch of these vids recently
Maybe if there's a fish population that needs to migrate upstream, but this looks like it's already a developed water source or maybe even just an irrigation channel, there are likely already locks and channels that are disrupting wildlife if there is any.
You rock, thank you for the response
Thank you for thanking me for the response!
Thank you both for being polite and thanking each other!
Agreed. Nice to see the nice side of Reddit every once and a while
Your username so does not check out. Thankfully.
I thought you were insulting him by calling him a rock for a sec
Would a structure like that withstand all that water pressure with no rebar reinforcement?
I've made dams in creeks with rocks and and gravel, so probably. There's not that much pressure here, barely any water current and no more than a few feet deep.
Better than burning coal.
Don’t forget about all the people displaced upstream…these guys are out of control. /s
think it wouldve been better if this was made dry n water rerouted upon completion
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Dress for the job you want not the one you’ve got.
But it did have a blue collar.
I counted 4 shirts, so just 4 days of work too.
Can I charge my phone with it
I think it could charge a phone but not much else. Its better than nothing though in a 3rd world country
The cost of material and labour to build this though should have been enough to buy a small solar panel. That's not even considering maintenance. Something is gonna go wrong in this dam within weeks/months.
would a small solar panel generate more electricity?
painting the inside red makes it go faster.
Real.
Very very cool
For what looks to be a few days of work at most, it'd be a cool little project to do and you get free power for some external lights at the end too.
Obviously OP does not know what 1,21 GIGA watts means...
The only power source capable of generating 1.21 gigawatts of electricity is a bolt of lightening!
Or a Nuclear Generator
Or a nuke
Average Nuke is 16 TW or Terrawatts
High speed internet? /s. Yeah if thats 1.21 ge the energy crisis is solved.
Yeap, probably net speed... Btw idea is not new and this hardworking fella had missed one very valuable thing: water flow energy. Like this i.e.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiefORPamLU
is there a subreddit for stuff like this? it's really fascinating!
You might like Chris Boden on YouTube. He works at a hydro electric plant and walks you through how everything works. Not in like a dry, mind numbing technical way, he explains everything Onsite while he's actually doing various aspects of his job. https://youtube.com/user/Physicsduck Edit: So I was just checking his channel, all I know of him is his series called Authorized Personnel Only, which is everything dam related. This dude though, he's uploaded a motherclucking crap load of videos on all sorts of cool science related stuff and only has like 20,000 subscribers. This man needs some love, spread the word people!
Obviously you don’t know what a joke is.
Not everyone remembers Back To The Future well enough to connect the dots here. If he wrote JiggaWatts id instantly know. But i didnt get it, and its common that tiktokers/youtubers throw arbitrary numbers to impress.
Ya know…I’ll give you those two things. 1. I’m old 2. it should have been JiggaWatts
Riiiight? I was waiting for the doc to show up or something, or this thing powers the town clock, or something.
No way thats 1.21 gigawatts. That would power a small city.
Dumbass it is obviously 1.21 gigawatts, read the title Edit: fuck whomever awarded me, you probally got the 🤓 look
Small city? Maybe a village with like 250 people
No. A small city.
oh yeah true, fucked up by a factor od 1000
Movie reference
Or a flux capacitor
Does he just leave that there?
No, this actually a cellular dam. As long as youre within range of at least one other dam, you can still make electricity. You can actually still make electricity if youre out of range of another dam, but its expensive. A scam, if you ask me
Everyone not realizing this is bizarre life for the spider. Not the man.
Dudes got some awesome masonry skills
Damn!!
This is amazing, did you make it?
The music bussin on God RESPECTFULLY
What's the song?
[Attack by KERIMKAAN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhbMIBNeLF8&ab_channel=SOURCE)
Thanks, it's apparently a remix of that song called the banjo beat pt1 by Ricky desktop
Deserves way more upvotes
I like how he built railings for it too as if mini people would be doing maintenance on it
How did he block the flow to make the water level rise at the end
I was thinking the same. My guess is he built a smaller, easy to deconstruct dam a bit upstream
u/trucknjoe He didn’t do anything more :). Look at where water can escape. Either through the two high up flow vents (the rectangles at 1:20) or through the turbine, first going in through the circular pipes. So it has to rise to the level of the pipes, and as the pipe has only so much capacity and such, he also made the flow vents so it wouldn’t turn into a lake if a big storm were to happen. So the water rises simply because the river is blocked off until it gets high enough to go thru the turbine pipe, which is quite high.
Yeah but the water level was the same while he built everything, then as one point he blocked it somewhere so it could rise up to the top. Is there another drain somewhere else that kept the water level down while he set everything up?
Looks like he’s just a fast builder :). It’s just a slow river with a LOT of area it can back up to, you can see it rise a bit while building.
well dam…
backto hte futer
I'll call a doctor
r/ihadastroke
Hook it to a transformer and an alternator and maybe solar then you can charge an iPhone in 48 hrs
I rather flip a switch
So he invented a water power "plant" or what's the deal? Common knowledge and he gets on rainy seasons maybe like 100w out of that
This guy will survive the fall of western civilization. Me on the other hand, will try to make it as a bard or court jester with my music degree
What the hell is a gigawatt?
Highly illegal in probably every state here to mess with a natural waterway even if it's on your property. Chinese people have more freedom than you in some respects.
Damm
Yamuna has left the chat
Anybody else wondering about rad burns from the welding?
Honey! I cN now start my hairdrye-h.... Aw....
Any explanation for the red paint ? Why was it needed.
Makes it look better so you take more pride in your work. That was my guess as he was doing it anyways.
good answer.
Thank you
Free range, organic electricity
u/savevideo
I've heard of small scale hydro projects, but this is not what I had in mind.
Dam...
u/savevideo
Just another piece of junk to be left littering the environment. Like the other 99.99% of these "awesome bizarre wacky outdoor creation" channels. They always just leave the trash to rot.
That’s pretty impressive
Make sure this guy is protected during the apocalypse
For a sec I thought that was Jackie Chan
Got Dam
u/auddbot
How much time would it take to offset the cost?
Anyone know why he made it with that angle? Why do the extra work stringing up the brick like that?
damn
How does he move so fast?
Honestly if that had a charging point I would charge my phone
Dam that’s awesome
Amazing!
He play a lot of minecraft
Back to the Future
What’s this for
Is that…. Is that a lot?
Dam that’s interesting.
It's a back to the future reference 1.21 gigawatts
Uranium based red paint
Lmao
What the hell is a gigawatt? -asking for a friend, Marty McFly
That beat goes hard
I just want to say, damn man.
Mini Hoover dam
Perfect for a speedboat time machine
Now i can charge my iPhone 📲 yay 😀
That is one Dam talented Asian , literally!
I “thought” I was a Southern Engineer-til I saw this ☺️
u/savevideo
Cool. The spinning element needs to be inside a magnetic field right? So how did he create that magnetic field? Is he using only the Earth's magnetic field?
What a fun little project.
Not much compared to ruining an ecosystem for fake internet points.
It’s impressive workmanship for sure!
Beautiful workmanship regardless
Beautiful workmanship regardless
But the water is already flowing??
u/savevideo
r/savevideo
Hard worker when you wear your work clothes outside
Bro got that goofy music playing
Ha ha ha ha Stayin alive Stayin alive
Song anyone know?
Gigawatts sound familiar.. what are gigawatts
Whats the song brother?
dams for ants?
I wish I was good at shit
u/redditMP4bot
that music hits different
Great way to fuck up the environment...