Can you pump water without any electricity? | Hacker News Reader

Can you pump water without any electricity?

wired.com

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A Wired article reminding adult humans that siphons exist.

Feels like a bad sign for humanity that we're getting this simple in the citizen-science 'laymen' explanations.

"Can you dig a hole without an excavator?" Wired circa 2029

Wait. Holes can be dug?

> Feels like a bad sign for humanity that we're getting this simple in the citizen-science 'laymen' explanations.

I agree. My gut says that if we stop reinventing the wheel and revisit time-tested tools we have at our disposal, there's plenty of low-hanging fruits to pick (in terms of innovation, future proofing, and practical everyday problem-solving.)

Their next article will discuss putting water on plants -- You know the stuff in our toilets.

And Mentos will cause Diet Coke to explode. Wait, wasn't there a XKCD about that, specifically about not making fun of people for not already knowing everything you do?

I don't think op meant this as "making fun of" people who don't know what a siphon is or how to do it

I think it's more a criticism levelled at society not teaching people such a basic concept, which arguably should be a part of elementary school, or maybe junior high school, science classes

I can't read the article.

I used a siphon to drain some rain collectors today at home so I could move them (the taps are a bit wank - long story). I got a gob full of rank water twice, but I used to keep tropical fish and that was worse 8)

If you can fully submerge the hose and put your finger on one end, you don't need to suck on it.

I remember chatting with a guy growing a decent garden on y his property. He had these tubes he’d force into the water, place his hand on the end, and pull back. He’d repeat the motion rapidly a few times and then lay the pipe down from the source into trenches between his plantings. It was obvious once you saw it, but not a technique I would think intuitive.

I know how pressure works but I think there's a small hole in the hose wall.

My garden has a series of drops in it. I once leapt over a low wall and down 10' on to a path four feet wide (with another drop the other side), whilst holding my thumb over the end of a hose.

I'm 10 years older now and don't do ninja gardening any more. Rain water with a frisson of rotting veg, some dead insects and a hint of sulphur isn't the worse thing I've tasted but I wouldn't recommend gargling the stuff.

Wasn't it how people steal gasoline back in the days of gas caps not being locked? Guess it's a lost art.

siphons are unintuitive.

Heck tons of M.E. is unintuitive. Maybe its because I grew up in a world with plastic trim covering everything. Only after being a practicing mechanical design engineer for a few years did I start to pick up on this stuff. They barely teach it in school, the barely teach it in the real world, exposure is the only real way. If there isnt an economic reason to learn it, what is the point?

"its kewl"

uh... right.. lots of stuff is cool

Your experience may vary, but Ram pumps are hard to adjust to work well and they waste most of the water. I've hand-built and run two ram pumps as well as purchased and run a pre-built one. I even bought a book just on ram pumps to try to get it right. Also a nice PDF here on the concepts [0]

Essentially, you have to keep maintaining and adjusting the pressure chamber to get the right pressure for the correct operation of the two check valves. This means it is not a set it and forget it.

I bought a solar pump to replace it and it's run amazingly well for over a decade and I doubt I would ever go back to a ram pump unless it was truly the only option.

[0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Max-Pawlick/publication...

> you have to keep maintaining and adjusting the pressure chamber to get the right pressure for the correct operation of the two check valves.

That may have been true of the pumps you made, but it's not correct in all cases. There was a ram pump where I grew up (in the 1950s) which worked year round to lift water from the spring line to a house higher up; it never needed adjustment and got almost no maintenance, it just worked and kept on working.

Can a ramp pump be used as a booster pump?

Observed that the Second Law of Thermodynamics holds with water pumps, too

A third way: evaporation due to relative humidity

A fourth way to raise water without electricity: solar concentration to produce steam in a loop

"Using solar energy to generate heat at 1050°C high temperatures" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40419617

> A fourth way to raise water without electricity: solar concentration to produce steam in a loop

Nice. Perhaps some sort of system leveraging this application be used to charge batteries on a local, distributed grid? Or, simultaneously charge your electric car and heat/cool a home on a sunny day.

Is solar concentration more or less efficient than loud electric pumps at raising water for a water tower, which stores gravitational potential energy and pressurizes the tubes?

Could heat a water tank full of gravel or sand.

"Engineers develop 90-95% efficient electricity storage with piles of gravel" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39927280

How efficiently does a solar concentrator fill a tank of water at a higher altitude?

(How) Does relative humidity at the top and bottom of the tube significantly affect fill/lift rate?

Is PV to batteries to pumps more or less efficient than solar concentrated steam?

A fifth way to raise water: n-body gravity; wait for the moon and the tides

A sixth way to raise water through a pipe possibly at an angle possibly into a water tank: MHD: Magnetohydrodynamic drive.

- "Designing a Futuristic Magnetic Turbine (MHD drive)" @PlasmaChannel https://youtube.com/watch?v=WgAIPOSc4TA&"

- "A Compact Electrodynamic Pump using Copper and TPU" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40635173

- Is MHD more or less efficient than the other methods?

(Edit) I wouldn't matter whether the pipe to lift water though is at an angle; Is my intuition bad on it this?

Shallower orbital trajectories are preferred to perpendicular to the gravitational field of the greatest local mass because: is it just Max Q or also total energy?

But the downward force of a column of water in a tube at an angle is no greater than the two pointing straight up, is it?

Another example of water moving without electricity is old heating system. Furnace heats water, hot water moves through pipe, transfers heat via radiator to air, gets colder and now cold water density is a little higher, so cold water pressure makes it to return to the heater. This is tricky system which requires ancient skill to design and implement properly, its performance is not very good, so in modern systems it usually is replaced by electric pump with UPS. But some people prefer reliable systems which could work without electricity, so those systems sometimes still could be found.

An article I remember being interesting on this topic. It discusses wood fired water heating systems.

https://www.homewoodstoves.co.nz/resources/heating-water-wit...

If the electricity goes out in the middle of winter, you don't want to die from the cold, and a system that doesn't need a UPS is better than one that needs a UPS of limited backup time.

I love that the illustration of the siphon filter violates half of the two rules of a functioning siphon filter that they just explained. You know less by looking at it.

I use a ram pump at home to lift water 70 meters from the river to a reservoir. I have to adjust it a couple of times a year, but otherwise it’s a super effective way of keeping our water storage topped up.

I’m actually considering running a hydro generator off it in the winter, when the pond is largely maintained by a spring, and getting the energy back out. It’s only 100m3 or so of water, but allowing for efficiency losses, it’s the equivalent of a ~17kWh battery.

Oh dear, we must have been moving water using our bare hands before electricity age.

no, we used a pole on top of our shoulders, with clay jars hanging on either end.

Or, more common in later times, a pump that was operated by a human or livestock animals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_pump

Yes! I defrosted the small fridge, and a hand pump kept the spill tray from flooding the floor. Low tech can be fun.

I haven’t used the power weed-whacker in a long time. It raises too much dust. The little scythe works OK and is good exercise. Too bad I don’t golf.

Oh, and the lopper for smaller branches. Great for the biceps.

> Low tech can be fun.

Indeed! My European-style scythe is one of my favorite tools. I recently picked up a "grampa's weeder" and am having almost too much fun pulling thistles.

Do you think we should tell wired that steam engine pumps existed before electricity?

Archimedes screws existed way before steam engines.

Fun fact, there was so much technological momentum behind water power, that for a time the primary use of steam power was to pump water uphill to power a water wheel.

Tangentially related: My wife's grandparents lived on a farm that has been a working family farm for over 200 years. The ram pump was quite impressive in its day (pre-electricity); It meant not having to haul water from the spring or creek manually.

It was working and still the source of water for the farm house until they passed away (about a decade ago). There was always the rhythm of the ram in the background.

I work at a farm part time, there's three big air tanks filled by an air pump that is driven with a belt to a small gasoline engine. Those three tanks of air are used for the air operated diaphragm pump to supply water throughout the farm from the well. If for whatever reason gasoline isn't available, there is an untested contraption for mules to run the air pump.

https://archive.is/rvNpG

i know it's not quite what we're talking about, but people with wells can get an add-on mechanical pump that can retrieve water during power grid outages. 60 to 90 seconds of vigorous pumping can get 5 gallons from a 400 foot well, more than enough to flush a few toilets.

Maybe Wired should write a story on how to flush toilets without a municipal water supply. If you can't think of at least 4 ways to move water without electricity, a toilet is probably pure magic.

Alternatively, I recently came across how to pump water exclusively with electricity:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4_w8RxUY234

You have to use an ionized fluid though, so only distilled water.

So, an entire article dedicated to examining the physical veracity of a tic tok video?

Maybe next wired should perform an analysis to see if there were any positive outcomes to the viral "set your balls on fire challenge"?

Wirtz pump.

https://youtu.be/wCxRHueX6jQ?si=KEm1Mxx6U8A-46BO&t=306

I remember when seeing it for the first time and like... whoa you could do that? It still amazes me how much things I don't know exist

I can't find it now on youtube but years ago there was a pump someone made using old HDD platters. The action relied upon having two platters a certain distance apart such that surface tension would drag water between the plates and then fling it higher than it's source.

It won't work. Plates will get wet, but you can't tear off that water without spending lot of work. That would be perpetual motion machine if you could make it work.

The pump in question spun the platters with an electric motor. It's an interesting mechanism for a pump, not a power-free one.

it's also unrelated to surface tension; the tesla turbine, as this mechanism is called, was originally designed for gases

- Herodotus > Life > Early Travels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus#Early_travels ; https://www.secretofthepyramids.com/herodotus:

> For this, they said, the ten years were spent, and for the underground chambers on the hill upon which the pyramids stand, which he caused to be made as sepulchral chambers for himself in an island, having conducted thither a channel from the Nile

- From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39246398:

> According to the video series on "How the pyramids were built" at https://thepump.org/ by The Pharaoh's Pump Society, the later pyramids had a pool of water at the topmost layer of construction such that they could place and set water-tight blocks of carved stone using a crane barge that everybody walked to the side of to lift.

- "Egypt's pyramids may have been built on a long-lost branch of the Nile" (2024) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40410572 :

- Edward Kunkel - "The Pharaoh's Pump" (1967,1977) https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/Vq04nQEACAAJ?hl=en https://search.worldcat.org/formats-editions/4049868

- Stephen Myers: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Steven-Myers/author/B003GNIQ4K : "How the Great Pyramid Operated as a Water Pump" https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPD2zVdMCA-gPa6RqoEHX...

- Chris Massey: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Chris-Massey/author/B00DWXY3FU : "How were the pyramids of egypt really built - Part 1" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJcp13hAO3U&t=401s

- Lingams, though, produce electricity; and there may be electrode marks on some ancient prehistoric possibly geopolymer masonry stones. AI suggested that low level electricity in geopolymer would more quickly remove water from forming "blocks".

- Praveen Mohan: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCe3OmUXohXrXnNZSRl5Z9kA

- /? praveen mohan lingam: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=praveen+mohan+l...

- Was the Osireon a hydraulic lift facility without electricity? FWIU the Osireon is a floating megalithic stone block island over a different water source which flows when pressure is applied to it? [citation: one of the following yt videos IIRC]

/?youtube osireon https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=osireion :

- "Secrets of the Osirion | Who Built Egypt's Biggest Megalithic Temple? | Megalithomania" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx-zRw8HEAo&t=271s

> [...] it could be much older with its huge megalithic, perfectly cut blocks resembling those in the 4th Dynasty Valley Temple at Giza. Strabo, who visited the Osirion in the first century BC, said that it was constructed by Ismandes, or Mandes (Amenemhet III), the same builder as the Labyrinth at Hawara. John Anthony West says there were huge floods that occurred in the distant past and the river silt is evident at the site, so could easily be dated. The Osirion at Abydos in Egypt could have had therapeutic effects, according to Dorothy Eady (Omm Sety) who says she got healed by its waters, as did many others. It also has beautiful geometric 'flower of life' carvings on one of the uprights which have yet to be explained, and nubs, polygonal masonry and intricate, subtle striations and smoothing of the stones, which would not look out of place in ancient Peru. Whether it was 'discovered' by Seti, or whether he built it during his reign is discussed in this video.

- "Pre-Egyptian Technology Left By an Advanced Civilization That Disappeared" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3uiMsqptOs

- "The Megalithic Osirion of Egypt: Live Walkthrough and New Observations!" (2024) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TtsKKYLxPM

- Osireion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osireion#Purpose

- Interglacial > Specific interglacials: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interglacial#Specific_intergla...

- Lake Agassiz > Formation of beaches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Agassiz#Formation_of_beac...

slopes! gravity power weeeeee!

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