A simple hydrogen generator powered by the Earth

[enki09]

Some time ago I wanted to come up with the simplest, most easy to understand way to produce H2 from water via electrolysis and do it in a renewable way. Of course solar or wind energy are good examples of this but solar depends on the sun shining and wind depends on...well...wind. Both of these are not 24/7 in nature and I wanted something that could be and something that required very few if any moving parts. The following is what I came up with. Please note that I am not saying this would ever have any commercial application, just than it seems as though it illustrates what I wanted to show.

Ok, so first off we have to understand that the Earth is electrically charged and that "There is a flow of charge going on vertically everwhere on earth. Thunderstorms pump negative charge downwards, and the charge filters upwards everywhere else on earth. Depending on the height of your circuitry above the earth's surface, depending on the area covered by your wires, and depending on whether there was a thunderstorm above you at the time, there might be a fairly huge DC charge on your electrical distribution system. This charge might be several hundred volts; enough to zap computers and delicate electronics. Or... it might be many tens of thousands of volts, enough to create enormous sparks which jump across switches and leap out of wall outlets, wall switches, across transformer windings, etc. Your electric power system is acting like a sort of capacitive "antenna" which intercepts the feeble current coming from the sky and builds up a huge potential difference with respect to the earth. " That is a quote from Bill Beatty's website.

If we accept that then we could suspend a wire of 100' or so long about 30' in the air. The wire would have to be insulated from the poles that carry it. Before long the wire would build up an electrical charge of several hundred volts in relation to the ground below. As long as the wire was not connected to ground the charge would remain.

So how to use this electrical charge to accomplish electrolysis? Well if we drive a ground stake in and connect our suspended wire to the ground stake then we have a direct conduit for the charge to drain off. We would then put our electrolysis cell into this wire so that the energy draining from our suspended wire would have to drain through the cell. Any charge that passed through the cell would produce electrolysis.

All of the charge in the wire would not drain off because the cell requires a minimum of around 2v potential difference in order for electrolysis to happen. Fortunately the cell acts like a capacitor below 2v so the charge in the wire could build back up.

SO there u have it, a simple Earth powered electrolysis cell with no moving parts.

[wildthing]

^^ waste of bandwidth... "your ideas" are worthless piece of s**t... you're obviously a hoax.

[enki09]

hmmm not exactly debate. If you think my ideas are worthless you should be able to list your reasons for that opinion. Name calling and groundless accusations are kinda lame.

[Paul-R]

hmmm not exactly debate. If you think my ideas are worthless you should be able to list your reasons for that opinion. Name calling and groundless accusations are kinda lame.

Wildthing has just condemned Tesla. You ideas are very similar to his radiant energy proposals.
Have a look at this:
http://www.nuenergy.org/alt/tesla_energy.htm
Paul.

[Mr.Entropy]

Enki,

Your setup can indeed produce a tremendous voltage, but only a very small current.  Unfortunately, production in electrolysis is proportional to current, so you won't be making any significant amount of hydrogen this way.

Cheers,

Mr. Entropy