Kyle Mcallister wrote:
> > Perreault's (don't beat me with a stick for saying his name) > weird-ass coax cable thing. This thing: > http://www.nuenergy.org/alt/radiant_energy_diatribe.htm I wonder what > it does? Probably nothing, but I just happen to have everything > needed to make one. Setting this thing up should at least scare the > neighbors. And their poodle. > Interesting page. Here are some comments (yes, they're just theory, I don't have a 30K DC supply to start with and I'm not getting one to test this): -- It should work, but don't plan to disconnect from Edison just yet, because it's probably not going to produce much power. -- A careful reading of the page indicates to me that the page author hasn't got a clue what the thing actually does, nor why it produces volts. Take my word for it or don't, I'm not going to pick apart the details here. -- Similarly, the author has never made a power measurement, and has no idea how much power the thing actually produces. It seems impressive and weird and can make a lot of volts, so it *must* produce a lot of power, too -- that's about the extent of the reasoning. -- Coax, when carrying a static charge (*not* acting as a wave guide), is just a rolled up parallel plate capacitor. Keep that in mind, it helps with understanding the thing. -- The setup procedure with the oven and the 30K supply puts a permanent *polarization* on the dielectric, NOT a permanent *charge*. Picture charged parallel plates: Outside the "capacitor" the charges on the plates cancel, and there is (almost) NO DETECTABLE STATIC FIELD. No field extending two feet from the cable in all directions (as they claim), no field extending even two inches in all directions. No external field at all. So, there is also NO CAPTURE OF ATMOSPHERIC IONS; just forget that, it's confusion on the part of the author. But then, what is going on? Here's a really big clue, from 'way down the page: "For it to function properly there should be a swag to it." Here's another clue: "If you see that the cable is physically vibrating you will know that it is set up properly." So, the cable must FLEX (as it sways in the wind, which it can do because of the "swag") and it must VIBRATE to work. Aha! Things become clear. Take a parallel plate capacitor, put a dielectric in it, and put a permanent polarization on the dielectric. What do you get? You get a weird capacitor, which carries a substantial charge when it's at zero volts. Nothing else strange seems to happen, unless you *move* one of the plates. If you change the interplate distance, then, because of that charge it's got, its voltage won't remain at zero -- it'll go down, if the plates come together, or it'll go up, if they move apart. If it vibrates, you'll get an AC voltage coming out. If you short it while it's vibrating, you'll get an AC current coming out instead. And there's your electret microphone, of course. Now let's look at that cable again. It's been abused -- it's been cooked and chilled, and its plastic sheath has been stripped off. It's probably not all that tightly bound together any more. So, as it flexes in the wind, and particularly as it vibrates, you'll get some variation in the radius; the distance from the shield to the central conductor will vary somewhat chaotically at various places along the cable as it wiggles. And when that happens, because of the polarization of the dielectric, you'll get current flowing to the places where the dielectric is compressed, and away from places where it's stretched a bit or the shield is separating from the dielectric, and overall you'll see a random AC voltage coming out the end. With a 30,000 volt polarization in the dielectric the voltage coming out the end could be substantial. And that, I'm pretty sure, is what is going on, and all that's going on. It's a big microphone, and the energy being harvested is coming from the "sound" of the wind. Forget the atmospheric charge, forget the floating ions, forget the charge carriers on drops of water mentioned on the page; they're all red herrings. Put the whole thing in a nice Faraday cage, which lets the wind blow through and flex the cable, and I'm quite sure it'll still work. (Wrap it in plastic, on the other hand, and you may stiffen it enough to make it stop "generating".) *************************************** Oh -- but what about that "continuous arc eight feet long"? Read the page carefully -- it's a digest of messages. The comment near the top about the arc seems likely to have been a MISquote from something mentioned later on: "Paul Clint reported to me that he once witnessed an eight feet long arc during a thunderstorm. A continuous arc or one that is eight feet long indicates to me that a substantial amount of power was being received." Note the "OR" in this more complete quote -- a continuous arc, OR one that is eight feet. No hint here that the 8' arc was continuous, and in fact it sounds like the 8' arc occurred when something nearby was hit with lightning (could also have been a brush discharge, of course, which could be called "continuous"). Well, yeah, you can see stuff like that when there's a lightning strike, but I wouldn't depend on it to power my house. And, of course, you've also got the usual confusion between voltage, energy, and power -- an 8' arc indicates there were a wicked lot of volts. How much *power* was it, averaged over some reasonable period of time? Can't say. If it was a single flash, then maybe not much. If it was a brush discharge, then once again, probably not much.
