From: Charles J Knight (c.knight_at_juno.com)
Date: 05/31/00
Date: Wed, 31 May 2000 22:20:47 -0500 Subject: Re: zero point energy drain... Message-ID: <20000531.222047.-448077.0.c.knight@juno.com> From: Charles J Knight <c.knight_at_juno.com>
> Charles J Knight wrote:
> A whole bunch of neat stuff about lasers first, but then he said:
Gee, thank you! Especially considering how terribly off topic this
discussion really is...
Let's try to bring it back on topic. Does this idea present a potential
power source for the autonomous dome?
> > Think of clouds and earth as 2 plates of a capacitor, and the air
> as a
> > self-healing dielectric. All it should take to tap that power, is
> > "wires"
> > connected to the plates. Seems to me, as though there is some
> > significant potential <g> there, waiting to be tapped.
>
> YEesss!! I was wondering, if there is always a difference
> (sometimes
> considerable) in the electrical potential between the earth and any
> given altitude, why can that not be tapped. Say, with a bouyant
No...My proposal is not related to a difference in potential between
the earth and an altitude. Think about it this way -- the clouds *are*
slightly conductive, and store energy. The earth is slightly conductive,
and stores energy. We have a non-conductive material between
them...air...a self-healing dielectric.
Did you ever build "supercapacitors" as a kid? Aluminum foil and
waxed paper -- that sort of thing? They'd store a SIGNIFICANT
amount of energy, and of course dump it into the hand of the guy
sharing your locker in high school. (oops...shouldn't have let that
slip. :-) So, I played a few practical jokes in high school)
You need 2 plates and an insulator. Earth and clouds are the
plates...air is an insulator. I think that qualifies as a giant
capacitor.
Now...how do we tap that energy?
Up side -- enormous amounts of energy potentially available, at
any location on the planet.
Down side -- it's not a constant source of power. Also, we don't
understand clouds, much less storms -- might disrupt weather
patterns on some level.
Now...
There *is* a difference in potential between earth and any given
altitude, and Tesla even patented a system to extract it...let me
see if I can find a URL for it...nope, I can't find it right off. I'll
keep
looking and post the URL if I find it.
Basically, his device was a simple piece of shiny metal foil,
insulated on one side, placed parallel to the ground. Notice I
didn't say horizontal. Now...there is a periodic "oscillating"
switch that alternately connects to this plate...discharging its
accumulated charge into a storage bank -- battery, capacitor,
etc. The ground connection was a true ground -- copper rod
driven literally into the ground.
If memory serves, the accumulated charge was miniscule...not
particularly useful for our purposes. I think it's directly related to
surface area (conductive aerogels...) which is why clouds can
charge to such extreme potentials, and a simple plate produced
such extremely poor performance. The alternating "switch" would
be analogous to a lightning strike -- discharge, and restart the
process.
-- Chuck Knight
P.S. The Minto Wheel information is available at 2 sites...
http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/freenrg/minto.html
and
http://users.mildura.net.au/users/egel/tempw.htm
The second link shows a more aesthetically pleasing (though
harder to follow) diagram. Minto did build this engine in the
1970s, and it did work...I have pictures, somewhere, from Pop
Science magazine. (I have a ton of magazines -- finding that
issue is more of a challenge than you might think...)
P.P.S. Found an interesting article that partially explains the
"flat plate at altitude" effect, and offers ways to expand on its
capabilities. I don't know much about EM theory, so here's
the URL.
http://www.amasci.com/tesla/tesceive.html
P.P.P.S. This device actually looks interesting, though I'm not
sure if it would work. I wonder if one has ever been built.
http://www.angelfire.com/wi/windowe/generator1.html
Oh well, it's late and I'm not thinking clearly at this hour. Talk
to you all tomorrow.
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