Hi Gang! I'd previously demonstrated generating power
using atmospheric electricity. A hexacopter was used to lift one end of a
wire high up into the air.
Meanwhile the other end of the wire was connected to a corona motor near the ground.
Electricity then flowed through that wire and corona motor,
making it turn. In this video I'm going to explain how it works.
Much of the following explanation is adapted from Nobel prize winning phsycist
Richard Feynman's Lecture on Physics,
his section called "Electricity in the Atmosphere".
For every meter you go up in the air, the voltage increases by around 100 volts,
or we could say around 100 volts per yard. We can draw these voltage increases
using what are called equipotential lines. Notice that the ground is negative
and the sky is positive with respect to each other.
According to Feynman this extends upward to 50 kilometers,
or 31 miles, where the air is very conductive.
This is the case in fair weather. In stormy weather like a thunder storm
things are quite different and I won't talk about that here.
But if this voltage exists between your head to the ground,
why don't you get a shock? The reason is that your body is a good enough
electrical conductor that standing on the ground
you're basically a part of the ground. The equipotential lines would look like this.
There's still effectively 0 volts between the top of your head and ground.
Similar effects happen with trees, buildings and so on.
What about the electric current? A downward electrical current exists
and consists of positive ions, molecules or clumps of matter that have a
positive charge. These ions are moving slowly toward the ground.
The current density from these ions is very small,
around 10 micromicroamps or 10 picoamps
crossing each square meter, or yard,
every second. So in any small area,
there's not a lot of power.
And that's the explanation about atmospheric electricity
adapted from Feynman's Lectures.
To take advantage of this atmospheric electricity, we electrically connect one end of a wire
to the ground, and lift the other end up into the air.
In our case we got good results at around 120 meters,
or 390 feet up. At 100 volts per meter,
or 100 volts per yard, that's 12,000 volts between that height
and the ground. But, just as with you standing on the ground,
the wire is an electrical conductor and so is also at ground potential.
Looking at the the equipotential lines around the wire,
that voltage of 12,000 volts exists between some distance away from the wire,
and the wire.
You can see that the equipotential lines are closest together
at the top of the wire. This means the attraction is strongest there,
and electrons make their way upward in the wire.
Let's look more closely at the top of the wire.
We'd put six sharp points using sewing pins at the top of that wire.
But for ease of illustration I'll draw just one.
Notice that because of the sharp shape of the point,
the charges are crowded together at the point. Remember also that there are positively charged
ions in the air. An electric field exists between
the negative charges on the wire and the positive charges in the air
and we can represent that electric field by drawing lines
between pairs of opposite charges.
Notice that the electric field lines are closer together near the point,
meaning the electric field is stronger there. It's strong enough to remove the negative
electrons from the sharp point
where they neutralize positive ions. But, due to the voltage
there are fresh positive ions moving downward
and fresh negative charges coming up from the wire.
We now have electricity flowing through the wire.
The electric current in that electricity is very weak though.
We didn't measure it but from my experience with electrostatics
I'd estimate it in the low microamps or more likely even lower.
That's not enough to turn an electromagnetic motor,
one like you use in everyday life. But it is enough to turn an electrostatic motor,
like this corona motor.
The corona motor consists of a plastic cylinder surrounded by sharp edged metal blades.
Every second one of those blades is connected to the wire going up into the sky.
That means what when the wire starts conducting,
those blades are now at whatever voltage the top of the wire is at up in the sky,
though opposite in polarity, positive. That's why you get a shock when you touch
one of those wires.
Negative charge is then pulled from the plastic cylinder
through a gap between the edge of the blade and the cyinder.
That leaves the cylinder with the same charge, and since like charges repel,
a repulsion occurs that rotates the cylinder. The next blade is connected to Earth ground
and becomes negatively charged. And since opposite charges attract,
it attracts the charged area of the cylinder. It then neutralizes that charged area
by taking electrons from the ground.
And that's how atmospheric electricity can power an electrostatic motor like a corona motor.
Well, thanks for watching!
See my youtube channel for more interesting videos like this.
That includes one with a more detailed demonstration of this
atmospheric electricity in action powering the corona motor.
Another showing how this corona motor was made.
And one showing how to generate electricity using a Peltier module.
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See you in a bit!