Gunpowder Power

[All Seeing Eye]

Gunpowder is a an explosive mixture of sulphur, charcoal and potassium nitrate.

How easy would it be to obtain these resources and how abundant are they?

Oil and gas is becoming scarce and it looks to me like gunpowder doesn't use either of these, soooo....... Surely we could develop a way to generate electricity by using gunpowder?

Maybe build hundreds of huge pistons, gunpowder explodes in a tube under the piston and forces the piston to turn and that in turn turns a generator, a conveyor belt continually pours the gunpowder into the tubes and they are ignited causing the pistons to move again. so on and so forth producing electricity.

Well?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

Maybe you could build two metal plates on springs, the metals plates are coated in gunpowder and ignited, the explosion forces the plates apart and they spring back together generating power.

or how about a device like those they use at NASA to spin around in circles (can't believe I can't remember the name, centrifuge i think). The device is connected at the top by a gunpowder pipe which continually drops the powder in, the powder is contiually ignited causing the spinning device to spin and turn the central generator.

 

[TerriO]

There was an episode of Mythbusters that took on the idea of a gunpowder powered engine. It's an interesting concept, that's for sure.

 

[zenophite]

or how about a device like those they use at NASA to spin around in circles (can't believe I can't remember the name, centrifuge i think).

i think you're thinking of a flywheel.

Gunpowder to generate electricity? I don't think it would be particularly efficient but who knows.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

There was an episode of Mythbusters that took on the idea of a gunpowder powered engine. It's an interesting concept, that's for sure.

Hmmmmm.

Thanks for the link.

The mythbusters said they had trouble feeding in the gunpowder. Perhaps with my ideas that could be overcome if the powder is fed in packed into cardboard containers in small batches at a time.

 

[zenophite]

most modern powders are nitrocellulose i believe - they burn more cleanly.

 

[anti-matter]

I've seen plenty of youtube videos of gunpowder splitting huge trunks of wood and stumps...stuff is powerful. To meter it out in small controlled increments? I dunno...it's just made purposely to go boom all at once.

 

[Lindley]

I'm a big dubious about a car that runs in the same way as a model rocket.

 

[trekkiedane]

I've seen plenty of youtube videos of gunpowder splitting huge trunks of wood and stumps...stuff is powerful. To meter it out in small controlled increments? I dunno...it's just made purposely to go boom all at once.

So are nukes -didn't stop the dreamers: Orion.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Would this "gun powder" of which you speak be able to propel objects at incredible velocity?