Snohomish County PUD commissioners are in for a treat today when they meet three students who won a 2002 Energy Invention Contest.
"We asked students to brainstorm new ideas that use, save or create energy," said PUD Public Education Coordinator Sonia Siegel. "Let imaginations go wild."
And so they did.
Dominick Jones, a fourth grade homeschooled youngster who lives in Edmonds, designed the Super Pump, an energy machine built inside a road that Dominick said could save millions of dollars. Cars run over a rubber strip in roadways, activating an anti-freeze type liquid.
"The liquid goes to the pump, the pump pushes air to the turbine, the turbine goes to the generator, the generator goes to the battery and then to the light," he wrote. "It can supply energy for anything that is needed."
As an added benefit, Super Pump doesn’t use ugly tall wires or burn coal. Pretty ingenious for a fourth grader, huh? Dominick said he helps his parents turn off lights and keep the thermostat low. His work earned him and the other two winners $300 each.
Winner Katie Miller, a seventh grader at Gateway Middle School in Everett, designed a Home Energy Recycling System (HERS).
"HERS is a complex system of wires and energy absorbers that recycle power from both inside and outside a house," Katie wrote. "The program is built to supply a generator with enough electricity to run a standard household."
Microscopic, clear light absorbers laced on interior walls collect energy from appliances and whatever comes through windows that goes to a mat of foam rubber in sheet rock that transfers energy to electrical circuits, she wrote. Energy is carried along wires to a generator. At the same time, larger absorbency pads, installed in the roof, transfer solar energy along more padding to the generator. A second generator stores excess energy in a battery pack.
HERS is superior to regular home electrical systems because it only uses the energy to start up the secondary generator (the part that turns on the main generator) and in time collects enough energy to keep itself running independently, Katie wrote.
Her recycling theme was shared in the winning high school entry by Matt Jacobson, a senior at Lakewood High School.
Someone might want to try his Hot Water Reversal Pump. I wish I had one at my house.
"For my invention, I decided to design a digital shower control," Jacobson wrote. "This shower control would address energy conservation issues."
His pump system integrates into the top of a hot water tank. After a shower, the hot water left in the pipe between the tub and the tank is reversed to go back into the tank. His mathematical calculations about how the plan worked were way over my head. He lost me at "Volume = Area X Length."
Basically, energy saved after a shower could power a 60-watt bulb for several hours. He wrote that his invention would work any time hot water is left in pipes.
PUD spokesman Neil Neroutsos said students, like Jacobson, showed creativity in their entries.
"What’s especially impressive, when you look at their designs, is that they’re incorporating a variety of concepts learned in science, math and even art classes to come up with their ideas," Neroutsos said. "This was learning at its best."
We may never see their ideas in action, but commissioners will meet bright stars today who may spark tomorrow’s conservation concepts.
Kristi O’Harran’s column appears Tuesdays and Fridays. If you have an idea for her, call 425-339-3451 or e-mail oharran@heraldnet.com.
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