Technocrat

Magnetic Field Fluctuations

zogger
Thu Jul 03 17:08:00 -0700 2008
Science
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Danish and German researchers have found that the Earth's magnetic field can change rapidly, sometimes within a few months. They are basing this conclusion on nine years of data collected by the Orsted satellite.

"What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field. This suggests that similar sudden changes take place in the movement of the liquid metal deep inside the Earth which is the reason for the Earth's magnetic field," Nils Olsen explains.ed.z.: sometimes I think the Tesla freaks are really the ones who are looking in the right direction for some really huge sources of cheap energy. It just seems like we should be able to get some sort of electricity from the Earth's magnetic field. How exactly, you got me, and Tesla isn't talking any more.

Here is the abstract for what it's worth, doesn't contain much more detail: Rapidly changing flows in the Earth's core

Code glitch report, the code won't reproduce the letter 0 with the slash though it, that is the first letter of the Danish satellite name. Here it is after the software fixes it &Oring;rsted

Magnetic Field Fluctuations
Scott Johnson
Thu Jul 03 19:53:44 -0700 2008
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A faraday disc, also known as a homopolar generator, essentially taps the Earths EM field in this fashion.  Bruce DePalma made some refinements in his "N-machine."  IMHO, a little R&D work applied to this can make the device more efficient.

Essentially, you spin it in the Earth's EM field, and it produces current, without the generally recognized magnetic resistence from your standard  stator/rotor setup.  It takes some kind of motor to spin it, of course.  This could be electrical, run by PV or other means, a stirling engine run my some concentrated solar thermal on some water filled pipes, or even a paddlewheel style arrangement.

Magnetic Field Fluctuations
wowbagger
Fri Jul 04 06:39:44 -0700 2008
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"it produces current, without the generally recognized magnetic resistence from your standard stator/rotor setup."

Sorry, wrong. The disk will produce a current flow, but it will suffer from drag from the magnetic field. No free lunch there: spin it with an electric motor and you will need more power to drive the motor than the generator produces. From the perspective of the disk you are still moving a conductor across a magnetic field - you get ZERO induced current from an unchanging magnetic field (Maxwell's laws of electromagnetics).

Magnetic Field Fluctuations
Scott Johnson
Fri Jul 04 06:45:24 -0700 2008
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Right, I understand that.  I used the words generally recognized to try to convey that the drag will be much less than that associated with an alternator, for example.

Magnetic Field Fluctuations
Michael Smith
Fri Jul 04 04:30:12 -0700 2008
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It just seems like we should be able to get some sort of electricity from the Earth's magnetic field. How exactly, you got me, and Tesla isn't talking any more.

The how is easy. The changing magnetic field will induce a current in a length of wire perpendicular to the field. But a small change in the already weak geomagnetic field over several months isn't going to amount to very much.

But I do wonder if the field is being changed by magma closer to the surface. Could changes in the field help predict earthquakes or volcanic eruptions?

Magnetic Field Fluctuations
Alexander McLeay
Fri Jul 04 23:39:27 -0700 2008
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The letter O with a slash through it is actually Ø Ø, not &Oring;. Another Danish letter, Å, is Å, but it's a different letter entirely.

 

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