The Bubble Current Machine: A way to harvest energy from gravity

Special thanks to Mr. Ike Higgins for emailing me this article exploring a theoretical concept known as the Bubble Current Machine. Please note that this is presented purely as a conceptual thought experiment and design proposal. In practical physics, pushing air through a submerged nozzle against hydrostatic pressure requires external work equal to (or greater than) the buoyant energy generated. We encourage our readers to analyze the fluid mechanics, test the membrane dynamics, and join the discussion in the comments!

Introduction to Harvesting Energy from Nature

In a quest to find new ideas and ways to harvest energy without creating problems and destruction to the biosphere, experience shows the best resource to harvest from is Nature.

Nature provides countless behaviors and characteristics that present opportunities for us to harvest.

Most of the ones we have currently implemented boil down to mass in motion. We know how to build machines that take advantage of mass in motion to operate for our benefit.

Wind mills are one. We build a structure, then place it in front of Nature caused mass in motion. The wind blows. The earth rotates (reference “Earth Torque Generator”). Rivers flow due to gravity. Mass in motion. Look what we can do with that.

The point is that Nature causes mass to move. How else can we harvest from that?

Bubble current results from a natural harvest from gravity that I will now describe as a conceptual chain of physics, that moves mass. Engineers can go from there. This is just another way to harvest energy from gravity.

The Physics of Gravity, Mass, and Volume

Gravity shows up on mass as a one-way force vector, pointing down (using the earth for this discussion).

For a given quantity of mass, the force is equal for wherever the mass is resident. Meaning, if in the same local environment, the same quantity of mass in lead compared to the same quantity of mass in water results in the same gravitational force.

There is a big difference in the cubic volume of those two examples, but mass weighs the same in the same gravitational field. This is very evident with respect to states of mass. Solid, liquid, gas, etc.

One of the characteristics for the state of mass is cubic volume. A molecule of water is smaller than a molecule of ice. Therefore, if comparing by cubic volume, a specific volume of water weighs more than the same cubic volume of ice.

Since the ice “weighs less” than the water, ice floats. Gravity causes the layering of mass, per cubic volume.

Pressure Equalization and Bubble Current

There are other parameters that are involved with making ice float. For instance, the propagation of energy (pressure equalization) is different between liquid and gas environments.

Both water and air are made of mass in different states. When in contact, there is pressure equalization (energy sharing) between the two.

However, by cubic volume, gravity is exerted on water with more pressure than on the same cubic volume of gas. Bubbles float to the top. This is Nature moving mass.

Gravity provides the environment where the layering of mass in a cubic volume happens. The reality is that the mass of the air bubble is lifted by the gravitational environment that is ambient to the mass structure.

Gravity in, mass in motion out. But the direction of motion of this mass is up, not down. Bubble current.

Conceptual Architecture of the Sealed Container

Humans can now design an architecture to create the environment where nature (gravity) does its thing consistently. The sun, wind, or rain is not a consistent input.

The architecture needed for consistent bubble current can be described with the following conceptual functionality. Below is a diagram of a conceptual function, not the detailed design to implement that function.

Actually, there is some pretty deep physics involved in the actual design effort. I won’t go that deep herein.

The diagram shows a sealed container, three quarters full of water, with normal atmosphere above the water. The temperature is constant. It is sealed so there is a constant cubic volume, a constant number of water molecules, and a constant number of air particles (molecules, ions, etc.).

It is all stable (standing still). Being a sealed container is an important point with respect to the physical phenomena described below.

Air Tube and Hydrophobic Nozzle Mechanics

Mounted in the container is a solid tube, in this concept in the shape of a “J”. That “air tube” is solid and the pressure of the water does not affect the open-air space inside the tube.

The top of the tube is open to the free air atmosphere at the top of the container. The other end of the tube, under water, has a “nozzle” where air can escape, but water cannot pass backwards in to the air tube. This is accomplished using currently known technology.

To be bluntly brief, the technology for the nozzle structure includes the use of Hydrophobic Membranes of PTFE polymers, or breathable membrane vents, or other known tech options.

But a Hydrophobic Microporous Membrane with the proper LEP (liquid entry pressure) higher than the water pressure at the membrane will result in the nozzle functionality of air passing through but water being kept out. (The design implementation is a bit complex and detailed but currently doable.)

Air Circulation and Gravity Input

Since the Air Tube is solid, the atmosphere within the tube extends from above the surface of the water to the nozzle end under the water. The natural environment for bubble current is established.

The air in the tube, nozzle end, will pass thru the membrane and…bubbles up. The bubbles will transit the water and reenter the free air.

When those bubbles leave the nozzle, more air from the atmosphere will move through the air tube to replace them. There will be an air circulation from the atmosphere, down the tube, up through the nozzle.

The atmosphere will then be replenished by bubbles escaping from the top of the water. Due to the sealed container, the atmosphere remains, relatively speaking for this discussion, stable.

With a stable air circulation creating a stable bubble current. Gravity in, mass in constant motion out. Due to the architecture and technology that we built and placed in front of Nature.

Addressing Perpetual Motion Concerns

This would be the point where some would be declaring “perpetual motion machine” and the impossibility of that becoming real.

Although this would continuously work until something breaks or just wears out, it is not perpetual motion. The reason is that it is being continually fed, the input to the manmade machine, by the ambient ubiquitous gravity.

It is my understanding that perpetual motion machines do not require an input of energy to operate. I may not be exactly technically correct in detail here, but I don’t think this is perpetual motion.

Mechanical Harnessing of Buoyancy

Now we have mass in constant motion. Bubble Current. What can we do with it? And how? Following is a conceptual use of this natural mass in motion.

This particular mass in motion concept is already being used by us. In under water salvage they use balloons to lift specimens to the surface. Fill the balloon attached to something, and if enough air is in the balloon the “lift” capability does the job.

That lift capability is called buoyancy. The buoyancy determines the limit of the load to be lifted. That buoyancy comes from the differential in gravitational force environments, liquid and gas, due to the cubic volume characteristics described above. That is the concept for the Bubble Current Machine.

Mechanical Setup and Practical Applications

The diagram below demonstrated how the individual bubbles from the nozzle can be captured to create a single bubble with buoyancy. The bubbles are gathered in the Lift Bowls.

Depending on the detailed design, each Lift Bowl has a specific lift capability. If mechanically connected, several Lift Bowls provide lift at the same time. The total lift force is then used to turn a gear. We all know what we can do with a turning gear.

This is the architecture that is presented in the diagram below.

A mechanical structure is designed such that a Ferris Wheel type of set up is achieved.

Lift Bowls are attached to the wheel (gear) with specific orientation so they catch the bubble current on one side. When they reach the top in the open atmosphere, the tilting of the Lift Bowls allows the air to escape and then the bowls to fill with water for their trip down the other side.

The rotation of the wheel applies a torque force to the spinning gear commiserate with the total buoyancy of the Lift Bowls. That torque force can be used, through mechanical engineering technics, to operate an external machine.

One of my first thoughts, with the home aquarium size Bubble Current Machine described here, is to have the external mechanics pick up and lift a marble from the surface and elevate it to the top of a Rube Goldberg machine. Drop the marble and the RG machine does its elaborate operations until the marble reaches the bottom.

The Bubble Current Machine then lifts the marble again and it starts all over. A continuously operating Rube Goldburg machine. That would make parents very happy. Don’t you think.

The point here is that gravity can be harvest in many ways. Reference “The Higgins Engine” as another way. The architecture and natural physics of the Bubble Current Machine provides for the harvest of energy from gravity.

No other inputs required. This provides one more line item on the list of harvestable energy from Nature that may be used by humans. We need the ideas. Anybody got any other ideas?