Using a not-quite-a-space-elevator for power generation

[Shelgeyr]

As has been pointed out repeatedly in this forum, the proposed Space Elevator is fraught with potential problems (ha! double entendre!). I won't belabor them, but here are some links for the curious:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... tor#p22950
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... tor#p22997
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... tor#p25010

What I want to know about (or propose?) is: Might there be a way to take advantage of this disadvantage? (And have we covered this before?)

Assuming a carbon microtube cable is capable of being constructed that can hold its own weight over great enough distances to allow such a thing (the minimum requirement for consideration of course), wouldn't lofting one end of the cable to some specific area of the ionosphere via high-altitude balloon create "just enough of a short" to be usable for power generation? I imagine there would have to be some sort of voltage gradient that would govern where the sweet spot (or sweet altitude) would be, and that it is probably variable, but I doubt it would be a situation of "nothing, nothing, nothing, whooops-overload!" I mean, shouldn't such a thing be feasible?

Of course, I'm not talking about some mystical "free energy" here, just really adding a tiny extra load to the solar circuit.

Thoughts?

[mharratsc]

IF... the guys who were in charge of the experiment were fully competent, IEEE-recognized engineers, I might have hopes for a project like that.

However, most likely they would put their 'best theoreticians' in charge of it, and we would end up with a new Grand Canyon or Mount Everest or something in the middle of the Florida peninsula!

The way that I understand it- you wouldn't even need a cable, would you? You can create a plasma conductor through the atmosphere with a laser, microwave beam... or space shuttle on re-entry.

The notion of dragging a wire up against the force of gravity isn't even a necessity. the trick would be some method for containment of the power after an arc had been initiated.

I could be wrong, I dunno. I'm not a physicist or anything. However, I don't see why we couldn't use the principles of lightning to create the conduction path to experiment with it.

[starbiter]

This sounds like Ben Franklin and the kite. During a thunderstorm you don't need to go real high. Avoiding a surge would be important.

[Osmosis]

You will have to build one heck of a big Leyden jar to keep all those electrons in

[Komorikid]

Wasn't this one of Tesla's theories - to be able to draw electrical energy directly from the ionosphere.

I quote from Tesla's own writting.

"an insulated metal plate is put as high into the atmosphere as possible. Another metal plate is put into the ground. A wire is run from the the (airborne) metal plate to one side of a capacitor and a second wire goes from the ground plate to the other side of the capacitor. The sun throws off minute particles of matter positively electrified, which, impinge upon the upper plate, communicating continuously an electric charge to it. The opposite terminal of the condenser being connected to the ground, which may be considered a vast reservoir of negative electricity, a current flows continuously into the condenser and in inasmuch as the particles are charged to a very high potential, this charging of the condenser can continue almost indefinitely, even to the point of rupturing the dielectric."

Nicola Tesla 1901

What does this sound like to you.

[gfellow]

An abandoned moon landing, a reluctance to even consider building a space elevator, instead heaping on all the problems one can find wrong with it rather than offering solutions.

It astounds me that the generation representing the financial power-base that made the moon landings a reality in the late sixties, were born around the time of WWI. How gutless and vacillating my generation seems in comparison. It makes me so ashamed.

[mharratsc]

WOW!! I knew that Tesla came up with some brilliant applications for electrical power and all... but you mean to say that he had identified that the Earth was negative in relation to the Sun, and that the Sun was spitting out positively charged hydrogen ions in Nineteen-friggen-oh-one???

That is nuts!

[junglelord]

Wasn't this one of Tesla's theories - to be able to draw electrical energy directly from the ionosphere.

I quote from Tesla's own writting.

"an insulated metal plate is put as high into the atmosphere as possible. Another metal plate is put into the ground. A wire is run from the the (airborne) metal plate to one side of a capacitor and a second wire goes from the ground plate to the other side of the capacitor. The sun throws off minute particles of matter positively electrified, which, impinge upon the upper plate, communicating continuously an electric charge to it. The opposite terminal of the condenser being connected to the ground, which may be considered a vast reservoir of negative electricity, a current flows continuously into the condenser and in inasmuch as the particles are charged to a very high potential, this charging of the condenser can continue almost indefinitely, even to the point of rupturing the dielectric."

Nicola Tesla 1901

What does this sound like to you.

If you look and research the history of wireless transmission, all you need is a copper screen, on a kite, and a copper wire to ground, voila, constant and free charge and discharge....ad infinitum.

[Corpuscles]

WOW!! I knew that Tesla came up with some brilliant applications for electrical power and all... but you mean to say that he had identified that the Earth was negative in relation to the Sun, and that the Sun was spitting out positively charged hydrogen ions in Nineteen-friggen-oh-one???

That is nuts!

Double WOW!

If the above is not a "tongue in cheek" sarcastic /funny comment....THEN you and others owe it to yourself(s) to read much more about the genius EE discover ...Nicola Tesla!

He knew in in 1893! and delivered several lectures to British Science Academy and Institute of EEs and French Academy ...demonstrating it!

Also read upon what the Wardencliffe Tower was intended for!

[Corpuscles]

If you look and research the history of wireless transmission, all you need is a copper screen, on a kite, and a copper wire to ground, voila, constant and free charge and discharge....ad infinitum.

Check out this published ina "respectable mainstream publication "Science & Invention" in 1922 . It is a almost certain a moderately successful attempt to copy Teslas early patent on harnessing cosmic radiation by Hermann Plauson.( He clearly did not have the sophisticated knowledge of amplification coils and understanding of the aether frequencies that Tesla did to multiply effective power.... but he proved the concept worked!

http://www.nuenergy.org/alt/PlausonMarch1922.htm

Why was this supressed?


On topic: I think this fanciful "space elevator" is designed to further hide and ridicule the fact that the voltage gradient can supply energy needs by making it sound so ambitiously rediculous such that it is open to further ridicule!

And yes.. I agree with poster above , the contemporary ignorant mainsteam powers that be... likely would ...cause a discharging Grand Canyon event

[biknewb]

Collecting a usable amount of electricity from the air depends a lot on having enough surface to gather charges. In the ionosphere the charge is higher, but the charge carriers are even more spread out.

A conducting space elevator will probably serve as a leader for a lightning strike. I don't think it will produce another Grand Canyon; for that you also need another live size planet.

[junglelord]

WOW!! I knew that Tesla came up with some brilliant applications for electrical power and all... but you mean to say that he had identified that the Earth was negative in relation to the Sun, and that the Sun was spitting out positively charged hydrogen ions in Nineteen-friggen-oh-one???

That is nuts!

Double WOW!

If the above is not a "tongue in cheek" sarcastic /funny comment....THEN you and others owe it to yourself(s) to read much more about the genius EE discover ...Nicola Tesla!

He knew in in 1893! and delivered several lectures to British Science Academy and Institute of EEs and French Academy ...demonstrating it!

Also read upon what the Wardencliffe Tower was intended for!

Hi, your a new member, so your not aware yet of the information I and others have posted.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 70&start=0
PS I am the Tesla Pusher here....LOL>

[Corpuscles]

Hi, your a new member, so your not aware yet of the information I and others have posted.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 70&start=0
PS I am the Tesla Pusher here....LOL>

LOL!

Dean
I reckon I have read well over 1000 of your informative MOST interesting posts(and links)!

Indeed, I am a minow in a sea of brilliant whale giants!

I sorta knew that Mike H ... knew EXTREME MUCH about Tesla it was for other "casual readers" not youse!
....Though he has not yet corrected me that it was 1892 rather than 1893.

I will take this conversation to another more relevant thread LATER!

Bit by bit hundreds maybe thousands will slowly understand EU via the enormous contribution made by members INCLUDING YOU!... yep! ...I am learning still.. watch out!

Tesla is the KEY!.... because he inadvertantly, applied the true experimental proven demonstratable.... SCIENTIFIC METHOD!

Keep it up , the world is watching you and theother whales ... gradually some will follow!

[junglelord]

Your most kind.
To this day, I will confess, the EU, is the biggest secret out there.
When I heard that Coast to Coast show on the last day of Nov 06, I was just stunned at my own stupidity...so I am not so sure how smart I am. We have people that always knew space was electric, I had to be told.


But hey, once I was told, man did the pieces of my puzzled mind, fall into place in a hurry....
I guess thats why I cannot for the life of me, see how anyone can refute the evidence.
But they still do....being whales, they may be slow, but they will get there.

Me, I am Moby Dick, the big white whale...looking to ram your ship of knowledge till it sinks from black holes.
LOL.