From: Patrick Jankowiak (recycler@swbell.net)
Date: Fri Mar 24 2006 - 19:43:05 PST
I beleive I calculated once that if we covered half of the entire states of
New Mexico and Nevada with PV cells in a checkerboard fashion, and of
course kept batteries charged with them for night time (AGM cells in
underground rooms along with the synchronous inverters to keep cool), we
could supply all the electricity needed by the USA for non-transportation
purposes. no consideration of cost, maintenance, etc.. just an exercise.
PJ
Marty Galyean wrote:
> Fred Martin wrote:
>
>> Marty.....question....What if you owned a woods? I'm sure after this
>> is worked on a while someone will hook up a bank of trees and power
>> something like a house. Fred Martin
>>
> What I suspect is that the power he is tapping is simply the static
> charge difference between the ground and that charge is collected in the
> tree from the wind and such.
>
> It isn't that the power isn't there, it is that it is so puny.
>
> I can't believe the statement about being able to put as many nails as
> you want into the tree and getting 'unlimited power'.
>
> These 'free energy' schemes always fall flat on their face when they
> start making statements that ignore the basic laws of thermodynamics.
> There has been work attempting to trap the static charge of the
> atmosphere for over one hundred years. The main issue is that there
> simply isn't a lot of it there. Attempts to harness lightning are the
> best example, think about it, lightning is just the discharge of this
> static. I'm not saying that there isn't a small and highly distributed
> power source there. But even with lightning, if you average the power
> over time, the times when there isn't enough charge for lightning to
> occur totally swamp the amount of power in the times when lightning does
> strike in those brief discharges. So over time, the amount of power is
> still pretty small. Respectable, but so decentralized as to be
> impossible to harvest efficiently. Kind of like the solar advocates
> (and solar does have its place) who like to point out the amount of
> solar energy reaching the earth and such. So are we going to pave the
> planet with photovoltaic panels? I think not. So the point is moot.
>
> I'm saying:
>
> (a) Many researchers have already 'been there, done that' and this is
> far from a fresh idea.
>
> (b) There isn't a whole heck of a lot of power there. Powering an LED
> really doesn't impress me much seeing as how the typical household at
> any given moment is using about a billion times more power than an LED.
>
> But mostly, it was the conspiriatorial tone of the PDF when this is not
> a new thing, nor is it being 'suppressed', and claims that fly in the
> face of physics just annoy etc.
>
> There might be some additional effect based on the chemical/battery
> properties of the nails in the tree but the bottom line is that he is
> still just powering LEDs. What would happen if you hooked up an LED to
> an AC wall outlet? It would explode like a cartridge primer, that is
> what would happen. Now if that LED exploded like that when he hooked it
> up to a tree, I'd be duly impressed. And lumberjacks would wear rubber
> boots and gloves. The order of magnitudes in power difference between
> an LED and 'electric cars' or an entire house is astronomical.
>
> All that said, I am a huge proponent of renewable power.
> But I'd put my money on thermal depolymerization.
>
> Check this out:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_depolymerization
>
> Marty
>
>
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