Energy from the air

[Loe 4520]

Hi, Glad to have found you folks. I admit that I have not spent much time here researching this idea but here goes. Being that I am caught in between seasons up here in in the sticks with nothing to do, I have been reading allot about Tesla and the inventions he created. One of which got my attention and that is obtaining energy from the air using a ground and a metal plate on a pole as an example. I have a 160 ft steel well pipe and an un-grounded steel roof on a garage which happens to be in close proximity to the subdivision power poles, so I have what may be the perfect scenario to give this a try charging batteries. I could build a simple bridge rectifier with some diodes I have laying around with an electrolytic capacitor between the + and - outputs. What I am thinking is, when the capacitor reaches a certain voltage, lets say 24 volts or whatever, to bring in a 12v automotive relay with a comparator of some kind , and dump the capacitor into a 12 volt lawn tractor battery. I would need to devise a simple comparator circuit with a separate power source to do this. Maybe you have some ideas that can save me allot of time trying to make this on a breadboard? Thanks ! Because lightning can go up from ground or down to ground, I am thinking the electricity potential may be higher at ground level than in the air at some points is why the bridge rectifier would be needed to capture a current going in either direction. BUT, I am not sure. I have a simple schematic I found.
Thanks,
Joe (I fat fingered my user name with an L instead of a J, sorry, I can't change it.)

 

[BobK]

Great idea. It could capture a lot of energy during a lightning strike.

Bob

 

[Loe 4520]

Yes I was thinking that would probably ruin my whole day lol

With that in mind, I would keep the components positioned away from any buildings, and pound a grave marker in that location in case the worst case scenario should occur

 

[Hopup]

This kind of devices have very little output if the elevation is low. At high elevation they have good output. Speaker coil or pancake (bifilar) coil works much better than just the plate. Multiple cell design for any realistic use is pretty much necessary.

There are other and I think much better designs where the ions are sucked in by the HV pulses. This can generate high power at near ground level.

 

[Loe 4520]

The steel roof that I would be connected to for the antenna is rather large which may or may not help slightly, no clue. I don't expect to power a house with anything, just keep some batteries charged. I don't have any old speakers laying around at the moment to get coils from but could possibly dig some up at some point.
Thank you for the input..it is appreciated.

 

[kellys_eye]

Quit simply, the levels of energy induced into the 'plate' will be of the order MICRO watts - in theory you can charge a battery this way but in practise you'd die of old age before it happened.

 

[Loe 4520]

Thanks for the input.