Please Lee, I expected better from you. First I didn't say that you couldn't power things with static electricity, I said you couldn't power a car that way. Do you really think they have developed something that fits into a little box and can gather 15-20 killowatts worth of static electricity on a continuous basis?
Secondly your friends antenna setup is most likely collecting EMF energy from radio broadcasts (and lightning), not static electricity. Without direct beamed energy this can't power an EV either, an array big enough to collect any useable energy would cause more aero drag than the energy it collected. I won't even get into direct beamed energy. I'll buy the bit about these guys not knowing enough about electronics to know the difference between "amplifying" and "transforming" though. Lee Hart wrote: >VanDerWal, Peter MSgt wrote: > >>You guys aren't still buying into this are you? You did read the part >>where he claims that his box basically collects and amplifies static >>electricity...right? You do realize that it isn't possible to power >>a car this way...right? ... The man is a fraud, let it rest. >> > >Let's not cross the line from skeptic into cynic until we see how his >test turns out. > >Sure, I have my doubts (MAJOR doubts!). But I also know that many great >inventions were accidental discoveries, and their inventor's initial >explanations were often far off the mark. Lee DeForest patented the >vacuum tube, yet his patent and statements about the device make it >clear that he didn't have the faintest idea how it worked. > >"Collecting" static electricity is fairly easy. There are lots of >electrostatic generators. Of course, they all require some form of >energy input (no free lunch). But some of the sources of this energy can >be pretty obscure (friction, sky current, etc.). > >"Amplifies" could just be a layman's term for transforming high-voltage >low-current into low-voltage high-current. > >As for not powering things with static electricity, let me tell you >about a friend of mine. He had an old TV antenna on his roof. He >observed that if you undgrounded it, it picked up a significant "static" >voltage even in clear weather (and vastly more during a thunderstorm, of >course). He connected it to a huge bank of capacitors, and it did indeed >charge them up and could power loads with them (mainly, to light gas >discharge tubes, briefly run electrostatic motors, or produce hellish >arcs to entertain friends :-). > >It's not so much that you can't do things with static electricity; it's >just that the leakage currents get so bad that it's hard to get any kind >of efficiency out of them. >
