You could place a load across the high voltage terminal to extract energy. A good test would be to start with a low resistor value and calculate the power delivered into it. Slowly add resistance to the load as the supply voltage increases and the power output rises. Continue this process until you achieve the maximum power into the load. If reverse leakage comes into play too quickly the efficiency of the generator will be compromised.
I have measured tap water and found it to be fairly resistive so you might be surprised how little energy escapes through the vapor path. Ideally, the kinetic energy contained within the vapor would be mostly consumed by reaction to the reversed electric field. It is the kinetic energy of the vapor and not the individual electrons that supplies the energy in my estimation. The electrons go along for the ride on the back of the energetic vapor. Dave -----Original Message----- From: James Bowery <[email protected]> To: vortex-l <[email protected]> Sent: Tue, Apr 9, 2013 7:17 pm Subject: Re: [Vo]:Re: [AR] Rocket Driven Lord Kelvin's Thunderstorm If you don't know what the distance is, you can't say whether current is going to flow or not -- it doesn't matter whether you're talking about dry air or copper. On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 6:00 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: In reply to James Bowery's message of Tue, 9 Apr 2013 11:57:59 -0500: Hi, [snip] >> But fundamentally, I don't expect it will work to create high voltage >> much at all because the rocket exhaust is going to be much more >> conductive than air. It will easily arc. >> > >You're not taking into account distance. > Nevertheless, he may have a point. A water mist may be more conductive than e.g. a dry powder. Note that in real thunderstorms, lightning usually strikes through the rain. The device may short out through the mist itself, and the speed of the droplets is nothing compared to the speed of free electrons under influence of such a high voltage field. However it's the sort of device that you could probably build a small model of without too much difficulty, to try out the concept. BTW there was an article on rocket powered electric generators like this in Popular Science about 40-50 years ago. Maybe they have searchable archives? Regards, Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
