Capturing free energy

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Has anyone ever heard of a way of capturing energy from those big powerlines that run accros the country. I have heard that you can hold a flourecent tube near(on the ground)one of those lines and it will light up. In the summer when the power is really flowing you can hear the lines buzzing.

Thanks in advance

Steve

-- Steve Cotter (scotthom@hotmail.com), January 20, 2000

Answers

what makes the bulb glow, is just static, hard to control and capture

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), January 20, 2000.

In the October 1999 issue of QST (Amateur radio) page 66 and 67 a Mitchell Lee describes, with schematics, a system that he uses to capture energy from AM broadcasts. Only 200mA of 12Vdc energy is captured.

The publisher of the magizine is ARRL.

I haven't built this yet, it is on my to build and test list. Gardening, Pigs, dogs and other day to day stuff take up my time.

-- Rich (pntbeldyk@wirefire.com), January 21, 2000.


Interesting, Rich, but maybe not worth investigating, unless you think you can recover a lot more power than that. 200 mA at 12 volt equals only 2.4 watts. This is the equivalent of about five cents worth of electricity every 17 days. Or a dollar per year. I can't imagine that it's worth investing a lot of time or money for that amount of return.

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), January 24, 2000.

Don't know if will help, but here is my experience with "free" energy from high-voltage transmission lines. A long time ago, I used to fly controlline model airplanes. These are the ones which fly in circles and are controlled by two wire lines, the handle of which is held by the pilot on the ground. I used to fly in a schoolyard which was bordered by high-tension transmission lines. I quit flying on humid days because I would be continually zapped by large doses of electricity when the plane and lines were on the transmission line side of the circle. I figure this had something to do with my control lines passing through the electromagnetic field generated by the power lines. It was sort of scary. Frankly, I believe that if you're close enough to those lines to feed off of them, you are close enough to be adversely affected by them. Read about EM fields and their affects on cattle which graze under power lines. Hope this has been helpful, John

-- John James (jjames@n-jcenter.com), January 24, 2000.

I do agree with jumpoff joe that 2.4 watts of energy may not be worth the effort to capture. However if you only need a small amount of energy every now and then, one could charge a battery with this.

The circuit would not cost much to build, most of the items can be found in an old junk TV. I know that electronic students at VoTech schools and Community Colleges are always looking for a project to build for class. You could probally have one built for you if one is not famillar with electronics.

Where I would use this? and why? are questions that I have no good answer other than to learn more. Who knows maybe I will come up with something that would be more useful. I'll post my finding in the future.

-- Rich (pntbeldyk@wirefire.com), January 26, 2000.



I'm fairly new to the forum, and just saw this post. Word of advice... Be VERY careful about doing this!! We live in Oregon--some rancher in the eastern part of the state was taken to court and fined a HUGE amount for pulling this stunt. Had a couple of batteries or generators or some thing (I'm not up on the details) buried a short distance away from some high-tension lines, and ran his whole ranch off the power for 20 years. The power company knew something was bleeding the power, but couldn't figure out what...finally caught the guy. Maybe the laws are different in other states, but you know what they say about a free lunch...

-- Ali (cloudyjewel@juno.com), June 11, 2000.

200 milliamps! are you sure it was not microampers? Forget all these dopey ideas of 'free energy'. If you want just a trickle of low voltage to keep a battery or two charged then consider a small solar panel, if that is too expensive (or you really want a bit of 'do it yourself') then make a wind generator.

Almost any permanent magnet motor (used as a generator) will produce much more energy than miles of wire strung in the air.

And I am very sceptical about stories of people stealing power from high voltage transmission grids, a lot of the lines are DC.

-- john hill (john@cnd.co.nz), January 05, 2001.


what DC. the only time Dc was ever used was when edison was alive.. High power lines are AC. have those transformers at the substation caught your eye. a transformer is run by electromagnetic lines of flux generated by the primary with an Ac potential then steped up or down (or used for isolation ie. same ratio for the primary and secondary) from these same lines of flux cutting through the secondary windings. thus inducing a potential (voltage)

in reference to the thing with inducing voltage in a cable under a transmission line it is theoreticaly possible but it has to be a VERRYYYY long cable to make any use.

-- rob (lubbocktexasnjapan@yahoo.com), January 11, 2001.


Hi Rob. Plenty of DC transmission systems in use, just do a quick search if you don't believe me. I am not talking about village level systems in some poor country in Asia either. How about a 1400MW HVDC system? Look on the Mitsubishi site. I know of at least one substantial system utilising a submarine DC transmission system too.

-- John Hill (john@cnd.co.nz), January 11, 2001.

as a kid i would get zaped under the power lines 230kv on the farm tracter humid days were the worst one day i tried to make transforer used a 100ft extention with light bulb and a steel bar the light would not light but the bar would still zap me so i pack everthing up and never tried it again

-- nick (raymondetdesrosier@smpatico.ca), January 25, 2001.


Um, maybe this sounds too basic, but I have to say it.

Is that YOUR energy flowing from the x-mission lines? If not, then you would be stealing it to make use of it, unless you paid for it. The sun is free, avilable to all, like the wind. Power lines are built and energy is generated at great cost to the company and users. Just 'cause it's there, and available, doesn't mean it's yours for the taking

-- Dave (dave@yahoo.com), June 25, 2001.


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