Yes a form of renewable energy with a CoP >>1

 

Yes a form of renewable energy with a CoP >>1

MOD NOTE: Over unity systems are in violation of the ToS/UA. So unless you can describe the energy balance adequately we will have no choice but to lock the thread.

 

Looking at the first page of the Patent Application, it looks like a spark transmitter with some of the energy siphoned off the 'resonant transformer'.

 

It violates the 1st Law no more than a solar panel does or a Ground Source Heat Pump. Over unity means that more energy is got out than THE OPERATOR puts in. As a previous contributor said it is harvesting energy not magicking it out of nowhere. Just as the oceans have massive amounts of thermal and kinetic energy to extract so does the atmosphere as electrical potential energy which, if you looked at the Wikipedia link you would realise.

Have you ever wondered where the electrostatic energy pouring from a point source charge comes from? It’s one of the biggest ‘problems’ in physics but of course the energy comes from the quantum vacuum so anyone who thinks that there is no energy to extract from the space around us wasn’t paying attention in school. However it’s not at all easy for various reasons. Here Endeth the lesson

 

It violates the 1st Law no more than a solar panel does or a Ground Source Heat Pump. Over unity means that more energy is got out than THE OPERATOR puts in. As a previous contributor said it is harvesting energy not magicking it out of nowhere. Just as the oceans have massive amounts of thermal and kinetic energy to extract so does the atmosphere as electrical potential energy which, if you looked at the Wikipedia link you would realise.

Have you ever wondered where the electrostatic energy pouring from a point source charge comes from? It’s one of the biggest ‘problems’ in physics but of course the energy comes from the quantum vacuum so anyone who thinks that there is no energy to extract from the space around us wasn’t paying attention in school. However it’s not at all easy for various reasons. Here Endeth the lesson

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/follow-up-what-is-the-zer/

Observation indicates that in our universe the grand total vacuum energy is extremely small and quite possibly exactly zero. Many theorists suspect that the total vacuum energy is exactly zero.

It definitely is possible to manipulate the vacuum energy. Any objects that change the vacuum energy (electrical conductors, dielectrics and gravitational fields, for instance) distort the quantum mechanical vacuum state. These changes in the vacuum energy are often easier to calculate than the total vacuum energy itself. Sometimes we can even measure these changes in the vacuum energy in laboratory experiments.

John Baez is a member of the mathematics faculty at the University of California at Riverside and one of the moderators of the on-line sci.physics.research newsgroup. He adds some context:

"The concept of vacuum energy shows up in certain computations in quantum field theory, which is the tool we use to conduct modern particle physics. In reality, particles interact with one another through a variety of forces. This is a complicated business, so in quantum-field theory we start by studying an idealized model in which particles do not interact at all. This is called a 'free-field theory.' Then we use this free-field theory as the basis for studying the 'interacting-field theory' we are really interested in.

"In quantum-field theory, the vacuum state is defined to be the state having the least energy density. Something funny happens when we use a free-field theory to study an interacting-field theory: the vacuum state of the free-field theory is different from vacuum state of the interacting-field theory. The vacuum state of the interacting-field theory may have more or less energy than that of the free-field theory; the difference is called the vacuum energy.

"One should not take this vacuum energy too literally, however, because the free-field theory is just a mathematical tool to help us understand what we are really interested in: the interacting theory. Only the interacting theory is supposed to correspond directly to reality. Because the vacuum state of the interacting theory is the state of least energy in reality, there is no way to extract the vacuum energy and use it for anything.

"It is a bit like this: say a bank found it more convenient (for some strange reason) to start counting at 1,000, so that even when you had no money in the bank, your account read $1,000. You might get excited and try to spend this $1,000, but the bank would say, 'Sorry, that $1,000 is just an artifact of how we do our bookkeeping: you're actually flat broke.'

"Similarly, one should not get one's hope up when people talk about vacuum energy. It is just how we do our bookkeeping in quantum field theory. There is much more to say about why we do our bookkeeping this funny way, but I will stop here."

Quantum vacuum is not a energy source as you can't cheat thermodynamics.
In order to enable negative energy flows at a certain location, there must be compensating positive energy flows in the immediate vicinity with the net always being less than one.

As usual the amount of energy you can extract from your type of harvesting energy will be minuscule if you use that same logic as energy comes from the quantum vacuum. Expecting it to charge a battery is magicking it out of nowhere. Here Endeth my lesson.

 

Harvesting electrostatic energy from the Earth’s filed is not a quantum matter bit just common sense option in a future oil free society. I was just indicating that the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to closed systems which are rare in nature. You have to design a closed system that way in most cases.

 

Had a look at the patent. It contains this line:

In the resonant mode, the impedance of the power receiver 10 is reduced to near zero thus inducing ground currents to flow into the power receiver 10 where the ground currents are converted to useful form.

This is for a parallel LC tank circuit, as shown in the drawings.

Anyone see a problem with that?

Bob

 

Harvesting electrostatic energy from the Earth’s filed is not a quantum matter bit just common sense option in a future oil free society. I was just indicating that the Laws of Thermodynamics apply to closed systems which are rare in nature. You have to design a closed system that way in most cases.

I have to ask, why is it that smart people like yourself become totally blind to engineering reality. It's not about what's possible, it's about what's probable. There is a possibility of making something work but the probability of it happening at a usable scale even with profitability be damned is very, very low.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2012/05/could-we-harness-lightning-as-an-energy-source.html

The average American household (with its 2.59 inhabitants) consumes 41 billion (4.14*10^10) joules each year. If your house ran on lightning alone, it would have to be struck more than 40 times per year! There are 114 million (1.14*10^8) households in America. Multiply these two numbers, and you have 4.72*10^18 joules of energy per year. Every lightning bolt on Earth in one year, captured perfectly with no loss of energy, would contain about 4*10^17 joules of energy. Thus, all the lightning in the entire world could only power 8% of US households. At best.

 

Had a look at the patent. It contains this line:

"In the resonant mode, the impedance of the power receiver 10 is reduced to near zero thus inducing ground currents to flow into the power receiver 10 where the ground currents are converted to useful form"

This is for a parallel LC tank circuit, as shown in the drawings.

Anyone see a problem with that?

Bob

I think that refers to when the spark occurs.

We need to stop discussion of over-unity as the owners of allaboutcirucits.com intend. If this is kept to energy harvesting, and participants remain respectful of each others the thread might stay open.

 

Well said. My circuit may not work but that’s fine as I’m exploring a different approach. Others have extracted useful energy from the Earth’a field with other methods, enough to supply a household. For many that’s all that is required.

 

Well said. My circuit may not work but that’s fine as I’m exploring a different approach. Others have extracted useful energy from the Earth’a field with other methods, enough to supply a household. For many that’s all that is required.

Others have extracted useful energy from the Earth’a field with other methods.

Cite?

 

Some decades ago I walked across a parking lot one night with an ELF electric field meter. For the fun of it I turned it on (yes, I was bored) and noted that it was registering a time-varying field. So I pointed it up into the night sky and as I walked (I suspect the motion was part of what did it) the meter registered hundreds of volts per meter RMS.

The meter works by measuring displacement current produced by capacitively coupled AC electric fields, my reasoning is that there must have been a pretty large static field somewhere up there to produce such a huge voltage swing from the small motion caused by my walking. Voltage of what?

 

Some decades ago I walked across a parking lot one night with an ELF electric field meter. For the fun of it I turned it on (yes, I was bored) and noted that it was registering a time-varying field. So I pointed it up into the night sky and as I walked (I suspect the motion was part of what did it) the meter registered hundreds of volts per meter RMS.

The meter works by measuring displacement current produced by capacitively coupled AC electric fields, my reasoning is that there must have been a pretty large static field somewhere up there to produce such a huge voltage swing from the small motion caused by my walking. Voltage of what?

Sure, you can see that but what matters is area potential energy and the practical/possible energy density of any extraction mechinism. We can generate huge voltage swings walking across a carpet but the net energy is tiny.

 

This experience supports the idea that not everything on earth is at the same voltage. From it I can understand why people are interested in exploiting that. Whether there a practical applications or not is another matter. As my boss a long time ago, a very resourceful engineer named David Wilton who built his own company and invented may solutions once said "The person who thinks it cannot be done shall not stop the man doing it." So I stopped telling him that his ideas were impossible. Who knows, there might be some delightful surprises.

 

This experience supports the idea that not everything on earth is at the same voltage. From it I can understand why people are interested in exploiting that. Whether there a practical applications or not is another matter. As my boss a long time ago, a very resourceful engineer named David Wilton who built his own company and invented may solutions once said "The person who thinks it cannot be done shall not stop the man doing it." So I stopped telling him that his ideas were impossible. Who knows, there might be some delightful surprises.

You know that voltage potentials just by themselves are meaningless in the context of energy. In Physics, something is true if it works, impossible has no scientific meaning, it's only a current position by current rules backed by huge numbers of experiments that work as predicted using those rules.

Yes, there are ideas that are impossible like the OP's original circuit but in the OP's general case I repeat. It's not about what's possible, it's about what's probable.

 

Thank you for that.