Post by MagnetMan on Feb 25, 2008 12:48:18 GMT -5
I would like to explore an idea I have for tapping into lightening energy.
The idea germinated during a vision quest in Death Valley.
Let us say we construct a large tapering steel tower on the salt bed of Death Valley. Alternate layers of charcoal and salt form the foundations of a large dry-cell battery. The tower is built on this foundation.
It is two miles in diameter, two miles high, capped at the top by a steel sphere with a volume of a cubic mile.
Arches at the base of the tower brings hot air from the heated desert surface and is drafted awards into the chimney. The rising air carries with it some 4% of moisture. Up in the sphere at ten thousand feet, the hot air condenses in the icy atmosphere and storm clouds begin to form.
In storm clouds, tiny particles in the cloud move around picking up positive or negative energy charges. The positive charged particles stay light, and rise to the top of the cloud. The negative charged particles get heavier, and collect at the bottom of the cloud.
As more particles become charged, they divide into opposing groups in the cloud. When the power of attraction between them gets too great, the particles discharge their energy at each other, completing a path for electricity to travel through the air.
It's the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud that cause lightning to strike the ground. When the negatively charged particles group together, they begin to seek out positive charges from the ground below. The excess electrons create a channel of charged air called a leader that reaches down to the ground below. The leaders attract other charged ground-based channels called streamers.
When the stepped leader from the cloud meets a returning streamer from the ground, the path is ready. An electrical current called the return stroke, travels back up the path. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light and thunder.
The direct current from the lightening-charged battery drives generators that convert it to alternate current and pipe the juice to large coastal cities.
The idea germinated during a vision quest in Death Valley.
Let us say we construct a large tapering steel tower on the salt bed of Death Valley. Alternate layers of charcoal and salt form the foundations of a large dry-cell battery. The tower is built on this foundation.
It is two miles in diameter, two miles high, capped at the top by a steel sphere with a volume of a cubic mile.
Arches at the base of the tower brings hot air from the heated desert surface and is drafted awards into the chimney. The rising air carries with it some 4% of moisture. Up in the sphere at ten thousand feet, the hot air condenses in the icy atmosphere and storm clouds begin to form.
In storm clouds, tiny particles in the cloud move around picking up positive or negative energy charges. The positive charged particles stay light, and rise to the top of the cloud. The negative charged particles get heavier, and collect at the bottom of the cloud.
As more particles become charged, they divide into opposing groups in the cloud. When the power of attraction between them gets too great, the particles discharge their energy at each other, completing a path for electricity to travel through the air.
It's the negative charges in the bottom of the cloud that cause lightning to strike the ground. When the negatively charged particles group together, they begin to seek out positive charges from the ground below. The excess electrons create a channel of charged air called a leader that reaches down to the ground below. The leaders attract other charged ground-based channels called streamers.
When the stepped leader from the cloud meets a returning streamer from the ground, the path is ready. An electrical current called the return stroke, travels back up the path. This return stroke releases tremendous energy, bright light and thunder.
The direct current from the lightening-charged battery drives generators that convert it to alternate current and pipe the juice to large coastal cities.
Wow, that’s a weird idea 
, I like it! (Where do they come from?)
so I don’t understand it, therefore I’m unfit to comment… (why am I hear?) never the less, it was an interesting read 
.