German student creates electromagnetic harvester that gathers free electricity from thin air

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Shirak
I'm not going to argue with you about your intentions I read what I read in your previous posts (in this thread) that is what I am basing this assumption on. Remember solar tech used to be capable of small voltage production before it was developed and researched adequately. Got to get past the dogma that "Free" energy is a myth. The universe is energy you just gotta learn to tap that sweet sweet maple syrup.

The article refers to "ambient, environmental radiation", so it's probably more clear to speak in those terms.

The article shows a photo of a man standing under a power transmission line and yes it's not costing the man anything but the power company may be burning coal to produce the power. "Free energy" is a term often associated with avoiding the use of non-renewable resources like coal, so it can create confusion to call it that. I wouldn't say it's completely "wrong", but just unnecessarily confusing considering the popular use of "free energy".

I did a calculation of what it would take to power my house with this ambient radiation, and since I live nowhere near a power line, I have slim pickings. I figured the payback on my initial investment would be over a million years. Not quite economical for running an air conditioner....but you can certainly power small devices with it, that have a power drain requirement on the order of a digital watch that will run on the same battery for 7 years due to very low power requirements.

But if you live under a power line, yes you might be able to power your house with ambient radiation...as mentioned earlier in the thread people have already done this.

edit on 19-2-2013 by Arbitrageur because: clarification

Thank you, it is most definitely misleading considering what we normally call free energy around here.

Shirak- We seem to be splitting hairs here. I am not arguing what you are discussing, I don't doubt someone is capable of more than what I have seen. However what you are talking about and what was quoted in the OP are not the same thing so I guess maybe we are both correct to the same degree.

But again to correct your comment about my attacking the OP's character, I never commented to or about the OP. I was arguing with Nom nom who is not the OP and I didn't attack their character I told them they are wrong. Can you at least grant me that acknowledgment?

reply to post by sputniksteve

Adjustment was already made on my original post with reason given in reference that by Op I had meant NN. As I said not not going to argue about your intentions. I can only make assumptions based on what I read. If you are saying that my interpretation of the intention of your wording was not so then that's that.

In regards to the idea of free energy yes hairs are being split.
Does a spider consider a fly free? It has to cast a net to get it but of course it came from somewhere but it also required no effort after this initial net was cast to get the resource. The resource itself was grown elsewhere.
The circuit and mast setup requires little to no maintenance. The larger the antenna the greater voltage and current.
The input is constant and can be stored regardless of whether there is man made source of EMF.
Every effort to resource something requires energy so under that definition nothing is free.
After the initial setup this device will continue to generate a voltage and current. Hooked up to larger antennas/Bridges and structures I can imagine a more substantial rate of generation.

Passive energy farming is something hopefully that will be built into future building structures. In my opinion the argument over whether an energy source is free or not is highly distracting to the actual research and does nothing to further the technologies development.

It is free because yes I can set this up in a desert (ideal actually because of the sun) and get a constant electrical feed but I would rather go somewhere where saturation is improved IE a city and recycle otherwise wasted radiating energy which would get earthed anyways and rectify it into a free energy current which I can store.

Hey, if the power companies just carelessly throw power out along the transmission lines with no regard to loss, they basically through any power radiated outwards away. Seeing as how this is intercepting stray radiation, I see it as protecting people. BTW, how is it that our tax dollars build these power generating systems and some corporation just takes it over and charges us for what we paid? Think about that one!

Reminds me of a joke I made up while I was napping this afternoon.

"How do Buddhist monks avoid being struck by lightning?"
answer:
"Oooooohhhhhmmmm."

Whoever mentioned earth batteries, yeah. Those things put so much toxin into the soil for so little electricity generated that it would actually be thousands of times better for the environment, to just stick with generating electricity with coal.

And how does one get AC from their body? Pulsating DC maybe, but I don't believe AC. What frequency of AC? How many volts? Amps?

When discussing whether this is free energy or stealing, one has to differentiate between near and far field radiation.

In the near field the em-field is driven by charge current in the transmitter. When you place a receiver there you will create an additional load on the transmitter. You will get electromagnetic induction. This is indeed not free. And the guys from the station will notice it quite quickly.

In the far field you have "free" em-radiation. Any interaction, like absorption, has no effect on the transmitter. This would make it freely usable radiation. The problem with the far field will be the 1/distance^2 radiation energy falloff. You won't get much energy to harvest.

Btw one example of em far field radiation harvesting is the solar cell. So I think we can safely assume that it is not illegal.

Originally posted by Mr. D
Wow. Someone invents something that could benefit the people and right away the shills come out trying to drag the invention through the mud. I wonder if that is because a German invented it or paid corporate shills are already trying to figure out a way to control it and bill the people for it.

Some one CLAIMS to have invented something....

Originally posted by CaticusMaximus
reply to post by AldrinAlden

 

BTW, this technology already exists in the mainstream from what I understand.

Sure. You can buy chips already designed to do it, off the shelf now. Nothing all that new. Not much power to it, either, but meh, a few microwatts here, a few microwatts there.

reply to post by Grimpachi


I remember when that happen.I never knew they took his setup from him though.Ignorance knows no bounds.

When you 'harvest' power from the EM field around a power line, you are actually increasing the load on the power plant that is supplying the transmission line. The EM field is there all the time, but mostly not being wasted.
By harvesting it, you are in a sense just putting a load on the secondary windings of a A/C transformer. That power is not really lost to a great degree when the EM field is not being harvested, but it is when you use the EM field to perform work.

So he's invented a rather unimpressive tunable induction coil device. These things have existed for a very long time, unless his design is very unique he wont get the patent he wants. I believe Tesla had built more efficient induction devices than this one. I believe the trick to harvesting the most power would be not to tap into one specific frequency in the spectrum but a whole range of frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum at the same time.

here's a linky

theinstitute.ieee.org...

i also saw an article, can't find it right now...that uses a large copper grid elevated 20 to 30 feet above the ground and when combined with a circuit and grounded, produces electricity, the actual amount produced is the sticking point. our planet is surrounded by positive and negative fields interacting...hence, hundred of lighting stikes every day around the globe

Just to add weight to those respondants who know about physics. If you position a coil near a power line you are taking power from the generating source ie power station. Just because it is not physically connected does not mean you cannot extract power. Have you seen the mobile phones that re-charge without plugging them in ? Have you heard of a transformer?

Whether you can harvest natural EM that is floating around is another matter. However, seeing one in action would need to be the proof. OH, and like all preceding "free energy" devices and allowing for the need for a battery as a store of intermittent energy and/or starter any device MUST produce much more power than is possible from any fully charged attached battery......let's say 10 times more power .......and no additional leads.

I have yet to see one. I have seen plenty mechanisms with an attached battery (needed as a starter so say the inventors) and yet the device cannot run longer than the life of the battery.....hmmmmmm

reply to post by AldrinAlden


Yes, your right. But, if people don't do experiments such as this one and add upgrades we will never progress.

I'd still want to put one on the roof of my house, incognito of course and "cultivate" the "free extra" power for my personal use.

Originally posted by yorkshirelad
I have yet to see one. I have seen plenty mechanisms with an attached battery (needed as a starter so say the inventors) and yet the device cannot run longer than the life of the battery.....hmmmmmm

As previously mentioned the crystal radio is not dissimilar to this concept.

The reason you don't see other commercial applications yet is because there are few devices that can operate on a few microwatts. But these work:

Power from the Air: Device Captures Ambient Electromagnetic Energy to Drive Small Electronic Devices

I figure for 25 million dollars I could make 25 million of those and have enough to power a 25 watt light bulb. But there are easier and cheaper ways to power a 25 watt light bulb.

reply to post by Arbitrageur

You can get a fluorescent light tube to light by just holding it in the air underneath high tension power transmission lines.
link

Originally posted by Shirak
With all due respect I have registered usable voltage and current away from electrical sources. Radiant energy exists without human generation the earth has its own EM field.

In fact in some areas it is a form of pollution. These would potentially become shielding tech for those living near cell towers and HV power lines and suffering the adverse affects.

Just wanted to add you are not pulling energy you are absorbing it the same way any antenna or earth or land mass would. Please do some research on how electrons move before making statements about stealing other peoples power it doesn't work that way it is passive.

The energy is already expended. Wasted. You are not pulling more it is simply an earth point. Instead of the electrons being absorbed into the earth they are rectified into current and stored in a battery.

edit on 19-2-2013 by Shirak because: add more

Shirak, this is probably a stupid question but my education on this subject is limited. Ambient (over and above 'normal', that is) and cell-tower EM is most certainly a pollutant, but would this technology help 'clean' it? By that I mean, if everyone was pulling more of this out of the air, would it be less dangerous to us, the honeybees, etc ?

Or is the amount of EM radiation we're swimming in far more than we could ever pull out, put into batteries and use to good purpose? Are we flooded in this stuff, or just up to our ankles in it?

Originally posted by yorkshirelad
Just to add weight to those respondants who know about physics. If you position a coil near a power line you are taking power from the generating source ie power station. Just because it is not physically connected does not mean you cannot extract power. Have you seen the mobile phones that re-charge without plugging them in ? Have you heard of a transformer?

In the case you describe, what you have to keep in mind is that you have a really awful transformer. A spectacularly bad one. You aren't, for instance, really coupled to your primary, which is the overhead line.

Now, if you were to throw some loops AROUND the power line, yes, you could make a current transformer. But it's not practical to do. Just parking some random coil in the vicinity doesn't do much for a coupling coefficient. You can't extract more than a watt or two that way. The tales you hear about that are, just that, tales. Go try it, though, see what you get.

And the recharging thing - it's an air-core transformer alrighty, but wound and positioned in such a way that you actually get somewhat of a coupling. Still, with an aircore you get that sixth power of the distance energy loss, so it's not practical other than in near contact.

Whether you can harvest natural EM that is floating around is another matter. However, seeing one in action would need to be the proof.

Oh, they exist. You could go buy yourself one. The issue is, though, like any of these things, there's just not that much ambient EM there. If you got it all, you'd still only have microwatts of it. So most practical things that do this pile up the energy in a supercap and then do something bursty - transmit a few hundred bytes of data, and power back down for four hours.

Originally posted by signalfire

Originally posted by Shirak
With all due respect I have registered usable voltage and current away from electrical sources. Radiant energy exists without human generation the earth has its own EM field.

In fact in some areas it is a form of pollution. These would potentially become shielding tech for those living near cell towers and HV power lines and suffering the adverse affects.

Just wanted to add you are not pulling energy you are absorbing it the same way any antenna or earth or land mass would. Please do some research on how electrons move before making statements about stealing other peoples power it doesn't work that way it is passive.

The energy is already expended. Wasted. You are not pulling more it is simply an earth point. Instead of the electrons being absorbed into the earth they are rectified into current and stored in a battery.

edit on 19-2-2013 by Shirak because: add more

Shirak, this is probably a stupid question but my education on this subject is limited. Ambient (over and above 'normal', that is) and cell-tower EM is most certainly a pollutant, but would this technology help 'clean' it? By that I mean, if everyone was pulling more of this out of the air, would it be less dangerous to us, the honeybees, etc ?

Or is the amount of EM radiation we're swimming in far more than we could ever pull out, put into batteries and use to good purpose? Are we flooded in this stuff, or just up to our ankles in it?

I know you weren't addressing me, I hope you don't mind me answering.

Shielding stray EM emissions is as easy as putting up a Faraday cage. This simple solution has been around for god knows how many decades. In a nutshell, you could basically just enclose power lines in a conductive mesh (think like chain link fencing), the stray EM will not penetrate a Faraday cage. But it would cost the power companies a bit more cash to shield their transmission lines, so they don't.

As for if this technology will help clean up stray EM, the answer is no. It would be like trying to clean up extra wifi signals in your neighborhood by leeching off your neighbor's wifi connection. In the end there is no net reduction in wifi radiation, the only real result is that your neighbor has a lot less bandwidth to work with each month.

Originally posted by signalfire
Or is the amount of EM radiation we're swimming in far more than we could ever pull out, put into batteries and use to good purpose? Are we flooded in this stuff, or just up to our ankles in it?

It's not even that. It's more like humidity. If you stand under a cell tower, you might notice the occasional drop of mist, but 100 yards away, not even a damp breeze.