Sounds like you have the ideas...can't you mock up something on a small scale to look at the feasibility?

Hi Del The Cat,

Traces of nuts are very good for general health...

I certainly can. Need an angel investor who wants to change the face of the earth.

Are you one, or can you access one? One nut is all it takes to do such a feat.

We could do well to remember this :

The reasonable man encounters circumstances and adapts himself to them. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt circumstances to himself.

All progress therefore, depends upon the unreasonable man. --George Bernard Shaw

Ciao !

Plasmaspecialist

Sorry.. If only I'd won that £35million on the lottery... mind you I didn't buy a ticket...

Dear plasmaspecialist,

Have you tried submitting your idea to Batelle? Go to their website... <a href ="http://www.batelle.org"> http://www.batelle.org </a>. They have an interesting history in supporting inventions/inventors, going back to the early days of xerographpy.

On their site there's an area that addresses inventors/inventions.

Bon chance.

Fused quartz softens at 1665 °C. What optically transparent material would you use to survive 3000 °C?

A transformer cannot generate both higher voltages and higher currents, at the same time.

Do you have references to work actually demonstrating this phenomenon you say has been shelved for decades?

Hi Rcapper,

Fused glass will not face very high temperatures for two reasons, one : the ionization of the gas quantity need not be cent percent, even 20% ionization of the core would work. Secondly, only the U-tube lids should be quartz, the whole tube can be water-cooled copper which can withstand much higher temperatures as in all thermal plasma devices.

There is need for electrical engineering design to take care of the high voltages that are easy to generate, rather than focus on higher currents. Several units could be connected in parallel and synchronized. to generate higher currents.

No most unfortunately there has been no reference to this work at all, I have been keeping my eyes and ears open for a long time. Perhaps there isn't too massive a developmental work involved here.

The first thing is to make a small but working prototype. I am open to suggestions, ideas and assistance.

Thanks a lot,

Regds

Plasmaspecialist

I would daresay that this concept is possible theoretically (i too would like to see the skinny prototype run ). I would also presume that the writer meant higher voltages OR higher currents as needed. They say there is enough energy hitting the earth each day that is wasted (uncaptured) to run every city for a years. Its our foolishness that we sit idly by letting the gold rush past us and lament that we have not enough wisdom to reach out and capture it but instead rely on burning dirty oil engines to survive?

Can you build a 300 degree one instead and try it on a small less temp scale first? Then use those results to project the future .

Dear Triplebaterylife,

Yours is one of the rare positive and encouraging emails here.

Of course Nature laughs at us :

1. It throws only 2% of the energy being produced by the sun and we don't seem to be able to handle that with nothing more than 20% efficiency...

2. It takes air molecules, moisture and rubs them together to generate a plasma up in the sky and then orgiastically spew forth millions of volts and millions of amperes 3000 times every second, we have no means of capturing that either.

3. There are an 'n' number of other instances where we see treasures of energy in Nature but we are clueless about the engineering wizardry involved in it all.....

Domboevsky the Czech plasma metallurgist who wrote the book on this new subject during 1970s was right when he said : " Plasma technology is ripe for a real breakthrough. Our scientists today are rather like the primitive folks in Papua-New Guinea who keep dancing to the rhythm of the diesel generator, not knowing its real purpose."

As a plasma metallurgist I am humbled by his vision and disgraced by our snail-like progress in this particular field.

Can't we attack the lack of energy as the first obstacle in this race please?

Dirty oil will not last forever. Plasma propulsion in outerspace is a reality too, why not adapt new ideas ?

Regards

Plasmaspeicialist

You must understand, there are many bizarre claims made on this site for "free energy" and virtually all are circumspect, replete with grossly apparent bad science and just pure nonsense. It does not help that your in attempting to champion your cause that you can provide no hard references on the subject. You say that "Domboevsky" wrote the book but searching several sources turns up nothing on this name except some obscure reference to a Harry Potter book on wizardry. You would get a much better response if you had something that was better than merely hearsay to offer. I understand, yes, ionized gas but perhaps due to my lack of knowledge regarding plasma physics I don't understand how you turn random events into something useful. Sounds like just a slight detour on the arrow of entropy. Please, if you want to be taken seriously by those of us who don't see what you say you do, give us some scientific explanation that we can understand.

Dear Rcapper,

It is surprising to realize that my colleagues here seem to treat the internet as the alpha and the omega when it comes to searching for books. One can list half a million books not referred to by the search engines (whose efficiency I am beginning to feel, is highly crippled due to commercial focusing, internet should have been 'free' to begin with but it is certainly not). So please visit a library if you wish to refer to books, or use search engines that are focused on books. Domboevsky was certainly not a charlatan, I can assure you -I have read his book and can rate him as one of the best scientific brains ever.

Misunderstanding a proposal and then ridiculing it is not our method, so please try to understand the proposal. Several others of your ilk who failed to understand have used similar language, which is far from scientific and scholarly. There is nothing 'hearsay' about this kindly note, since the proposal was tried out commercially and huge quantity of electrical power generated. Again, don't use the internet to search for it... I have been doing that for a decade with nothing showing up. This does not embolden me to say what internet does not show up, does not exist. This is flawed logic, like a frog in the well saying there is no life outside.

A focused sunbeam can reach up to 3000 degrees C, and when such a beam is focused thru a transparent lid into a properly cooled tube, the burst of energy, due to the shutter pulsing it, will 'pump' the ionized particles continually... more pumping signifying more pushing of ionized material into the un-ionized gas. The secondary coil winding on the tube will induce an electrical current into it.

This can be tried out, dear Rcapper. I am doing precisely that.

Regards

Plasmaspecialist

I only ask you to be explicit about one book, not one million. Honest requests for substantive information do not constitute ridicule, though those who seek to scam us often respond with such accusations and "similar language" when pushed for substantive data and references. How hard could it be to simply provide the requested information? Information presented without substantive references and demonstrable facts is hearsay and opinion. If you do not wish to have your contentions taken as such then why argue that you are being maligned when all you have to do is offer up what you claim to already know? I have no reason to malign you but when I say I don't understand you attack me as being a nay-sayer. Begins to sound in-substantive at that point.

Dear RCapper, you are far too nice and much too kind and friendly to this person who we all would like to believe....but cannot. We have all been nice to him, asked him logical questions etc, but it has not helped in any way at all....

I personally believe (sadly in a way) that he brings nothing to get your teeth into and your (and mine!) searches on the internet do not even find the names he mentions.....then he jumps on the Internet as being useless! (Which we all know is not perfect), but NOTHING can be found to bolster his claims in a proper manner!!!

I looked at the Patents he quoted, I was surprised that they even got a Patent for such a lot of inconsequential English.....its at best a theory.

Also, despite being his being asked several times "how you contain 3000°C?", he just ignores the questions!!!! I did mention earlier some possible methods, that I also believe no private person can ever achieve though....but he ignored that completely and did not offer anything else....

If there was ANYTHING true in what he said, that name or "thing" would appear on the internet somewhere! ( I just has a thought, maybe he can't spell? Then please give us the correct spelling?)

I too would like to hear of some method of capturing efficiently the massive amount of Sunlight and turning it into useful and clean energy for mankind....show me one person really against that!!

But I think this Guy just called himself expert.......nobody else did.....and we cannot check out his REAL accomplishments in this world either, other than he gets "Ratty" and unfriendly with anyone who he feels may have found out that there is a lot of (Solar?) wind coming from his direction....

I am sure that he will now turn his full attention to me and start calling me names, instead of proving me (us!) wrong in a logical manner with verifiable facts not fiction, wait up!!!

If he did prove his (or someone's!) theory in a proper logical manner on this blog, I would of course offer an apology to him for my comments & sceptism here.

So please, put up some REAL verifiable facts, not fiction......if you want us to believe in you in some real manner Mr Plasmaexpert!!

If his reaction is as I fear it will be to my less than friendly post, is just to be unfriendly to me, you can be really sure that he has then "Hoisted himself by his own Petard", believe me. (Slightly altered Old English Proverb that CAN be found on the internet quite easily! see below) and that he has in truth nothing realistic to offer us....

Dear Andy,

I am not going to call you names as you fear, neither am I interested in giving you details about my life, just because you want these. I started a thread hoping to receive help but all I got was doubts and assaults. This is sad.

I did not tell you how to contain 3000 degrees C, in real life applications, because (no do some internet search) Robert Gauge of Union Carbide solved that problem for us in 1950 or a little earlier. Water-cooled copper was the material he used to with stand such a temperature in the first Plasma Torch -till then, no functional plasma devices were available commercialy i.e. the problem of containing the high temperatures.

Plasma spray torches are manufactured by 100s of commercial suppliers round the world and most of these develop 10,000 (ten thousand) degrees C. This temperature exists at the core, and that is surrounded by cooler gas, in the plasma jet coming out at very high speeds, sometimes several times the speed of sound. Again water-cooled copper nozzles are used. Such torches usually work on argon or helium, but can also be made to use diatomic gases like hydrogen or nitrogen where the core temperatures up to 70,000 degrees C have been reported in literature.

I am surprised there are so many of us here, wishing to know how to contain a mere 3000 degree C in view of what has been used for more than 50 years. This is something I have done daily for 36 years, so it seems all the more surprising to me.

Andy, your frontal assault on me was very intemperate, which has unnecessarily diluted the general tone of this discussion. I don't believe anyone has to keep explaining such fundamental things as above to engineers today who have to be well informed themselves, without resorting to internet searches.

Once again I request all those who have something concrete to add to the discussion to chip in please. This diversion not only pointless, it was in extremely poor taste.

Regards,

Plasmaspecialist

Good sir, you offer inadequate information upon which we might respond with any useful information. Plasma torches are a far far cry from any form of energy producing device. Your comments are empty of method or technique or references to such. If you wish help you must be more forthright but it would seem you are more argumentative than informative and wholly unable to ask for the help you say you want.

Therefore, allow me to invite you to stop playing the victim and if you have no further substantive information to offer please feel free to go away and quit wasting you time on us because we are clearly unable to offer the kind of assistance you seem to require.

Well said!!

You wrote at one point:- neither am I interested in giving you details about my life.

I would like to point out that I did not request such infos directly, but if your background and knowledge has equipped you to call yourself a plasma expert with regards to Solar energy, and this was verifiable in some way, one could then maybe overlook the fact that you have to be asked four times to start getting any sort of an answer from you!! For what is a really simple question!!!

Not that I personally believe that you can use the same method (I could be eventually wrong of course!) to contain this high temperature as the Union carbide inventor did.....I was of course aware of the fact of roughly how a plasma torch works, but I still cannot understand how you mean to harness this method for your application, this is what I was primarily interested in!! I feel I am not alone in this interest looking at other postings.

Basically, (here is a further question!!) how will you get that temperature INTO a water cooled copper "thing"? Something has to be there (a window?) to "let" it in, that window must handle 3000°C! Even if you make a "cooler" version to start with, say 1000°C, those metals for that temperature are not easy to work! Most things are partially if not fully molten, or at least they are very soft!

You also appear not to understand the basics of voltage & current with regard to transformers, which someone else tried to get an answer for and as far as I am aware, he still has not received an answer from you. Of course you may be referring to some other form of transformer that has not yet been invented either......please correct me if that is not true and it was already invented in 195x?.....

If your answer to all these questions is "its a secret", then why the hell did you go onto CR4 in the first place??? Get it working, get it patented and THEN release it on an unsuspecting World!

What really got me upset about you and got me on my high horse good and proper, was that you were also unnecessarily rude to RCapper, who is probably also getting bored waiting for the meat and gravy course!!!

By the way, there is I believe, a film about "Transformers" on general release that may be of interest to you for any other future developments that you have in mind!!!

...and in spite of all this aggravation, I do wish you (or someone else) to have full success (for the whole of mankind really) with Solar energy and I give you 20 years to get it working, but I will not hold my breath!!!

Remember, the future will tell us all - eventually!

Dear Andy,

Despite my gentle replies to you and Rcapper, you continue to use pointlessly abrasive language, which speaks volumes for lack of etiquette which you take for granted.

This thread was started by me and I think it is terribly impolite on part of Rcapper to ask me to go away, and it is doubly impolite on your part to advise me to do things.

I would have ignored your last post but for the thick-headed insistence on your part that you still don't understand how temperatures like 3000 degrees C are contained. As your knowledge seems to be limited only to internet searches which produce tonnes of junk before giving you a nugget of wisdom, kindly be advised that plasma torches (I hope you are reading kind Sir Rcapper) are NOT only used in plasma spray technique. Metallurgical applications like iron ore smelting has also been done routinely since 1970s, by leading companies like Arcos, Bofors and Mitsubishi. Those plasma torches consume megawatts of power and often are 10 to 50 times larger in size compared to plasma spray torches. All these torches have water-cooled design.

Kindly also be advised, that the entire U-tube need not get the focused beam, only the front ends or lids have to be transparent quartz wherein the interrupted beam from the reflector will come. Thus your sarcasm on this aspect of the generator amounts to nothing but barking up a wrong tree, as it happens often here.

It is doubly sad that this forum does not permit use of sketches and drawings, or else those who jump to ill-formed opinions and misunderstandings may stand a chance of digesting a new idea without throwing it up recklessly.

Lets hear some more about your lack of understanding of simple ideas. The points that I avoid replying to are mostly based on misunderstanding by readers who have no concrete information to contribute here.

I am still open to suggestion -but kindly refrain from oveuse of this intemperate language, if you are a gentleman. None of us gain anything by personal assaults, this is very easy to understand....

Regards,

Plasmaspecialist.

To the contrary sir, you may quite easily post drawings and sketches, it is done quite regularly.

Beware some of these "persons" will CENSOR YOU if they don't like your opinion. They are rumored to be planning a book burning party soon!

There is a big difference between "censorship" and managing forum.

If you delete anyones comments that is censorship. And if you read some of their former comments, some of them very abusive (like the B******D comment and many others) you'd have to agree its not productive at all and has nothing to do with nurturing a positive discussion. And then THEY delete someone else's comments ??? strange management (or should we say mismanagement).

There are hundreds of comments on CR4 everyday. The ones that violate this web site's policy are brought to our attention. As a citizen of this community, I invite you to notify moderators such as myself about abusive language and personal attacks. They won't be tolerated here, regardless of how long someone has or has not been a member. The best way to do this is to choose the Report button at the bottom of a thread.

Now, for the matter of censorship and deletions. CR4 is not a free-for-all. When users join this site, they agree to abide by its policies. If there is still any doubt about the moderators' right to delete posts or comments, refer to the CR4 FAQ.

Having said all this, I'm about to edit a number of comments in this thread - including the abusive one that was directed at you. If I miss any, please bring them to my attention by choosing the Report button.

Thank you.

Thanks but the abuse it was directed at PlasmaSpecialist. He's been very patient with "AndyGermany" and "RCapper". Much of the disinformation revolves around not reading what he wrote but reading what they "thought" he wrote. What they expected him to write.

Thats why I was thinking that if the websites were divided by age it might work better? Thanks for you help !

"Those plasma torches consume megawatts of power..." The key word here is consume, not produce!

Have you, or anyone you communicate with, done any calculations on the number of ions, their speeds, forces, accelerations, etc. required to produce a kW of energy?

Mr Plasma,

If I was you (thank God I am not!), either would either start over again with a new name and a new Blog, or just forget the whole thing.....whichever you like......

I will continue to support perfectly reasonable people like RCapper, who appears to understand the problems far better, as I have always done in the past.

By the way, you really don't think that quartz will handle that temperature for very long do you? I researched the web for you a little....

Firstly, the coefficient of expansion of Quartz is 1/34 that of copper, which means that you are going to have a terrible time keeping the two sealed up to each other.

Secondly, the softening point of fused quartz is reported to be between 1500 °C to 1670 °C, which is well under the temperature that you "imagine" it can handle!!!

This info was taken from a guide on the web called:-

Fused Quartz Properties & Usage Guide

Last time, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO CONTAIN 3000°C PLASMA?????

I actually know an answer (good or bad who knows!), I even told you how before. You will probably ONLY contain Plasma with a magnetic field of horrendous proportions, which will probably use up more energy than you like as well as making coupling to a transformer probably even more difficult......

Scientists around the world have been trying to get fusion going with even higher temperatures in this way.....its not easy....I believe they have achieved it for about a second or so.....

I do believe that your research needs to be completely redone, with regard to certain very pertinent and very simple problems to do with temperature, copper & Quartz.

Please reference:- http://www.quartz.com/gedata.html#thermal

It may help you in your missing research!!

I also gave you 20 years to get a working version.....I am very magnanimous!!!

How about you apologising to RCapper and myself, if you cannot put together a reasonable dissertation within say 2 weeks? With some simple facts and figures that could possibly hang together and be maybe at some point in the future, acheavable.......metals, other substances & methods.....

Remember, really you should have had all this simple work done BEFORE going "Public".....otherwise you just make yourself look stupid and juvenile and I am sure that was not your original intention! Been there, done that and still not got the T-Shirt!!

Ok,

The shutter operating in 3000deg beam to interrupt the light does it reflect or how is it cooled? So the plasma oscillates in its water cooled copper U tube, what apart from eddy currents in the U tube are you going to induce?

It could be time to think firstly about material science for containers that conform with the required parameters and secondly get at least some basic electrical knowledge.

You put the shutter way up where the sunlight isn't focused and a lot cooler. But I agree with you, he's looking at the same basic environment that an argon ion laser works within, and there's all kinds of nasty things they have to do to that tube to keep it from going Poof!

Luckily everyone seems to agree there will be no coherent flow of ions or electrons as the eddy currents in the copper tube...oh dear.

Maybe just cut some slots in the tube to break up the eddy currents like we do at switchboard entries around single core cables.

Enough.

I diligently avoid anything that smacks of free energy and miss some things because of the selectivity. I read this thread to the end because of the quality of the questions asked by other members not the original post. It actually reminds me of one about 18 months ago when a bloke (I assume) claimed to be a "spiritual engineer" and he was gonna "disobey Lenz's law".

If you want to see someone being beat up on CR 4, check this thread out!

Free Energy Device, please help me

"Fused glass will not face very high temperatures for two reasons, one : the ionization of the gas quantity need not be cent percent, even 20% ionization of the core would work. Secondly, only the U-tube lids should be quartz, the whole tube can be water-cooled copper which can withstand much higher temperatures as in all thermal plasma devices."

But brother andy, he DID answer it way up in the posts like the 5th post i think. Are you not reading? (don't hate me too please)

"Fused glass will not face very high temperatures for two reasons, one : the ionization of the gas quantity need not be cent percent, even 20% ionization of the core would work. Secondly, only the U-tube lids should be quartz, the whole tube can be water-cooled copper which can withstand much higher temperatures as in all thermal plasma devices."

But brother andy, he DID answer it way up in the posts early on post #6. Are you not reading? (don't hate me too please)

Hey andy Germany,

Nice begets nice.. not the other way around. If you restrict your name calling and just keep asking the questions it keeps the focus on what is needed. You sound very emotional about this , why? (being reduced to calling names is an emotional response). (ok.. so now you hate me too? ) sorry.

I am not in the slightest bit upset, if you can't take a joke, you should never have joined I always say!! But you should read more carefully what he said to RCapper, thats what got me going, but I am cool, always was....

This is more about bad manners than stupid theories.....all I have done since is pulled his "research" to bits, it was alarmingly easy to do....because he has done none.....

See my latest answer with regard to melting of Quartz and the relative expansion properties of Quartz to Copper......and a link to a web site to let him read about it all!!!

I have a feeling or theory that he thought he could look big, but really knew nothing...... but as I said, its a theory.....if I said more about what I am thinking, he would go truly ballistic.....thats not necessary.

Yes but its the WAY you respond that garbles the issues. Why not say.. hey just a thought to HELP YOU: blah blah blah about quartz and the coeffic of expansion .. etc etc.. you might try ... or this.... etc etc.

Instead you keep using negatives.. why not use positives? You MIGHT help someone if you do.

The teachers guide to principles of learning say: THERE IS NO STUPID QUESTION. but you make it out like it is? why? Has somone told you you are stupid so much that you treat others this way?

Maybe these blogs should be AGE divided to keep the younger more trigger happy people away from those who truly want to see progress and brotherhood in the realm of whatever science or art they focus on.

Hey plasmaspecialist! ,

Yeah we got a theory, positives beget more positives! And that is critical for breakthroughs in all fields (arts, science, math, everything..) If you meet negative people, keep moving, don't let them involve you in their negative thinking or you will become doomed to be like them (mediocre engineers). Check out my website at www.triplebatterylife.com

Everyone has told me for years it wouldn't work but it does ! Now those same people are tring to tell me why it does work? Go figure!

I would say try a plasma converter on small maybe 1000 degree scale and see what happens. Look at the lightening bolt that ionizes the air (yes just plain air) in the lightening rod glass sphere (some rods have the glass ball halfway down which the rod passes thru). It lights up just fine and just imagine the magnetic energy patterns going on that we don't see. Is that 3000 degrees? Nothing seems to melt? hmmm...if a transformer could be attached somehow .. i bet you could charge a super battery (as big as a house) and run your house for the year?

On the oil addiction, the sterling engine, alternative energy, electric cars, all I can say is YES there "COULD" be some very rich people who buy up patents and technology and sit on it all the while putting out disinformation to make people think it can't work and we must stay addicted to oil. Even detroit would lose TRILLIONS if the electric (or other technology) were to come to light! They wouldn't make the money on electric car parts hardly compared to the mufflers, carburators, injection sytems, radiators, air filters, oil filters, fan belts, on and on and on. and all that is a MOTIVE to suppress other technologies. IE In england some whole towns have almost all switched over to the G-Wiz electric car . Why isn't this happening in america? Conspiracy? You tell me. Check out the DVD "Who killed the Electric Car" at your public library! Also call cobasys systems and ask them who controls the patent (expriing in 2010) on the Ni_Mh battery that seems to last forever and is electrically unbreakable? I did and GM Sold control to Texaco now Chevron! That reeks!

Let us know how the prototype is coming along?

Is there anyway to use the stirling enginge to simply take advantage of the change in temp between 4pm and 5am? There is incredible energy there for the reaping.

jeff

Hi Jeff,

Enthralled to read your three posts. It's like a gust of cool breeze after a hot day out in the sun. Thanks buddy.

I will keep your advice in mind, and so far I have tried to be as humanly decent as could be feasible under the circumstances. This whole act of ignoring replies and then saying I have not replied is something new to me and I am trying grapple with it instead of calling Andy names or reacting violently to snide remarks by others.

No amount of negative thinking can influence me. What the most participants fail to grasp here is a fundamental fact that someone with a fresh idea will not lay it bare for the whole world to scrutinize. A wild majority of nasties on the Net can misuse it, whilst we keep arguing about the fundas. Plus I have the option of not revealing certain details at this delicate stage.

Naysayers usually strengthen the resolve of any one who has the integrity go ahead alone. My resolve is fortified indeed.

Thanks a lot, Jeff, and regards

Plasmaspecialist

" There can be a limit to knowledge, but there can be no limit to ignorance..."

You are welcome. As well you too are a cool breeze of fresh air (positive can do attitude) instead of myriad of reasons why it can't be done. You just have to as I said "fellowship" with those of kindred "upbeat" spirit. Most of these at your throat are reacting emotionally (probably someone like them did the same to them --> now they are clones of negativity .. lol). I know whole towns who base their livihoods on misinformation like insects sucking the life force from the few who are positive do'ers! Most of these are too lazy to go the library and want only to sit back self proclaim their superiority thru the device of putting other down. Stay away from them who would steal your ideas and say they invented it. I would not even bother to answer them.. and then like insects they eventually buzz away on a new errand of negativeness.

Thanks for being positive.

There was a thread on CR4 about these engines! Got me thinking about radially spacing 6 or 10 of them around a central shaft! Like an old plane engine! Put a little generator on it and off you go! easy (lol)

Later on in this thread, The Group discussed how to attract the ions to the electrode! If the system had an external bias on the electrode, would this not attract the ion! Controlling a big flow with a little flow, ie a triode like system! I don't know much about this topic, but sometimes all it takes is a dumb idea to get things rolling!

I wouldn't necessarily say we are sitting idly by. Development of the concept of a space elevator is continuing, as I have read in NASA TECH BRIEFS, and seems to be a way to "transport" the energy (from cosmic radiation) that we could capture by putting up a collector, although I have not read anything that states that is the purpose. The 22% effectiveness of solar panels may not seem or be enough at the moment to be useful in this application, but let them keep working at it for the 15 or 20 years it will take to further develop the elevator and just MAYBE we'll have something workable by the time the coal runs out, said to be about 50 years. Keep looking at the BIG picture.

Congress needs to be aware of this, if they aren't already, and earmark funding for continued research. A few of these set up around the world would make a dramatic difference. But I digress.

I can understand the proposition up to the point of creating the plasma. But how can you get the plasma to oscillate inside the tube by simply having a shutter to interrupt the sun beam going at 100 Hz ? And what about the whoping EMI it would create if it can be done ? I mean, an antenna radiating megawatts is astounding.

Yanthram,

The plasma is generated first, lets assume, in the left side of the tube for only 1/100th of a second or 10 milliseconds, then the focused solar beam is interrupted. The plasma needs the solar / thermal power to sustain it otherwise the ionized gas falls back to the neutral state.

Precisely at the same time, the right side of the tube gets the burst of solar energy and ionizes. This alternating genertion of plasma on both sides, repeated so many times, 'pumps' the ionized gas to push into the un-ionized mass. Also hot gases will surely move towards the cooler zones.

Frankly I have not given much thoght to the megawatts capability. I am more into making kW range of such solar to plasma converters and help the underprivileged climb the merry wagon of progress. Something the tiny hydroe-electric generators of a few KWs capacity, in hundreds of streams and brooks in North Eastern sections of India which are silently powering the villages, hamlets and settlements.

Thanks for the comments. Keep watching this space.

Regds

Plasmaspecialist

Thank you for the explanation; though of course I am still not convinced about the details. Will the ionized gas revert to the neutral state in 10 ms ? For even a kilowatt you need to have a considerable current given that there is only one conductor in effect. Then again to get it to induce a current in a copper coil secondary the coil would have to envelope the plasma tube and that would eclipse the sun light. But of course we need to work on these details. I realise that it is just a thought for now.

Yanthram,

Thanks for the continued interest. I believe there are possibilities of misunderstanding the whole set-up in absence of drawings or sketches. Let me clarify here that the solar beam focused by a 1000 Fresnel lenses in the parabolic reflector would be converging via the transparent U-tube lid, onto a very small core-area of argon gas. Thus we are not at all concerned with the U-tube body whether it is covered or open. The sunlight comes in as an intense beam of light that might as well be hotter than 3000 degrees C or even more.

The whole proposal is just a thought till I make a small generator to show how it works.

Thanks and regards,

Plasmaspecialist

I thought that the only way to contain such temperatures was using special magnetic fields as in "Fusion-process", but up to now, a second is about the best they have managed I believe.....I am not up to date on this subject though....

What containment materials do you envisage?

So you get solar energy to create a plasma - that is easily understandable. A plasma is simply a gas heated to such energy that the electrons are no longer associated with specific nuclei. Both the nuclei and the electrons are still moving in random directions.

An electric current must consist of electrons moving in a particular direction, with any mobile positive charges (the nuclei) moving in the opposite direction. I don't see anything in your proposed system that forces opposite charges to move in opposite directions.

An alternating current (required if you intend to use transformers) means current alternating between traveling in one direction and the opposite direction. Your chopper probably could make the gas alternate between plasma (ionized) and gas (not ionized), but again, What force accelerates the charges to create currents alternately flowing in opposite directions?

Dear plasmaspecialist,

I'm not sufficiently up with your technology but would like to understand it better. I am an engineer with a good machine shop at home and can make most things, would be prepared to build a protopype, but would need to know what I would be letting myself in for before cull commitment. To this end could you contact me and send sketches/drawings etc:-

Kind regards,

Phil

Why not build a larger size Stirling Engine and focus the Suns rays as you describe on the "Hot" Cylinder and use it to turn a Generator or Alternator?

Hi Andy,

I don't foresee any earth-shaking problems there... it is all a question of detailed engineering.

BTW, Prof. Phillipe Trombeau of France, focused the sunbeam onto a pellet of zirconium silicate, one of the cheapest ores, and produced pure zirconium in this manner. He has a plant in a small village in the Pyraees mountains, producing tonnes of zirconium this way... environment friendly, no emissions, no polutions, no hassles.

Solar energy use today I believe is paltry compared to the mind-blowing fossil fuel combustion technologies. A pity.

Regds

Plasmaspecialist

I have read somewhere a report of just such a Stirling engine at the focus of a parabolic reflector in; guess where?----Germany!! And they claim 35% of the sun light intercepted is being turned into mechanical shaft power. That is great. However what the plasmaspecialist is proposing is a generator with no moving parts; and that is an advantage if it can achieve 35% efficiency.

Yanthram,

Merci beaucoup!

You got the gist of my proposal all right, sir/madam. There are no moving parts, and the only possible energy losses could be in the transformer section, where I believe these days one can access some extra-ordinarily powerful (electro-magnetically) cores that boost the effciency to great levels.

I am more keen to see comments on the storage and retrieval, with minimum loss, of the electrical energy once it is generated.

Any ideas? Especially newly baked ones?

Regards,

Plasmaspecialist

From everything you've said so far, you probably won't generate plasma. Instead, you'll probably get hot gas moving to the other side of the U tube and a very hot spot on the tube.

If you do achieve a plasma, it's going to expand very rapidly straight for the walls of your tubing. Without expending energy for a containment field, my guess is you'll just plasma lance your tube and melt through the walls.

It would still be a good fireworks display, though.

Aren't there plenty of materials that can stand 3000 deg temps?

I think it depends on the length of exposure and how dense the plasma is.

Please supply me with any details you have of the German version.

With regards to Plasma and 3000°C, I have asked the plasma specialist what materials he proposes to contain this temperature in or how.....most things are molten at that point if I remember correctly, so he would probably be limited to under 1000°C and efficiency would dive.....

At the end of the day, the running costs usually have to be recovered within some particular time frame, in business it is often 3 years, but it could be longer......

Unfortunately I do not have the details of the German solar thermal engine. I read it some three years back in one of the engineering magazines. I wonder why we don't see these machines widely applied. After all there is no fundamental research required to impliment the scheme. I too share the plasmaspecialist's sentiment in favour of more effort to harness the sun in ways other than the photoelectric rout. For example solar thermal pumps (for agriculture) have been built; but some how these things do not become popular. When people think of power, they immediately think of electric power. Then again the design of wind mills for pumping water or grinding wheat remains medival history. Today wind powers electric generators.

There are certain materials that can stand that 3000 deg temp. Fusion probably requires 1o x that temp which is why its so hard to acheive. (they have to use magetic forces to contain the plasma).

There a major energy barrier just before particles get close enough to experience the strong-nuclear force and cause fusion.

Also if you create plasma within a magnetic field it will move out along the lines of force. Accelerators use large "tube" configurations, something like winding wire around a nail, only without the nail. Even still, while the plasma moves through the field, it loses energy, eventually collapsing against the walls of the containment vessel. To keep things going, you have to constantly keep feeding energy into the system to keep the plasma moving, as well as keeping it a plasma.

According to my understanding of MHD generation, doesn't the plasma need to have a fairly high velocity and not be random in direction. All the heat issues aside, I don't see a mechanism by which the kind of velocities that would be useful results from the described concept. Am I missing something?

You are right, MHD was an attempt to pass a heated material, like potassium, through a cone that was surrounded by wire coils. The concept was to blast the ionized material through the center of the coil and make a current to flow within the coils. Never really caught on. Just sort of fizzled out around the late 70s.

Hi,

if you generate the plasma inside an electrically conducting vessel the electrons generated will be lost to the walls but the ions will last longer.

So in principle you can gather pulses of electrons on one electrode and pulses of ions on another one.

Because self shielding of the ionised particles this is working not too well over distance unless the pressure is very low (µbar).

But gathering the electrons on an electrode will repel pretty soon the other electrons not yet gathered so limiting the efficiency very much: either the voltage is low or many electrons are not reaching the electrodes.

Same for the ions.

And: ionisation is in Argon at near 15 eV a high energy much higher than evaporation energy , and you will loose nearly all of this. You can use only the charge.

Somebody to invent a process to convert kinetic energy of electrons and ions into current or voltage?

RHABE

Do you know how to capture the pulse that occur inside the plasma without the using the shutter idea ? The plasma has a natural frequency, can this be used ?

Dear Jbestes1,

To my mind the best idea seems to be to allow the plasma to flow inside a tube over which a secondary of a transformer is wound. There may be better methods, but then what is the utility of this engineering forum unless we get together and brainstorm?

Some Japanese researchers, Satiko Okazako et al, claim to have patented a method for capturing and counting such plasma pulses.

As this seems like a hot link I am not reproducing the textual matter here, all those who feel excited enough kindly click on this link and read for yourselves. There may be many such nuggets out there in the universe of the cyberspace.

Regards,

Plasmaspecialist

Dear Jbestes1,

Well, try this then :

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20040095705.html

(The Patent says : A method of converting plasma energy into electricity comprising: forming a low pressure plasma at a pressure less than atmospheric; and using a converter to convert the plasma energy into electricity....blah blah blah...)

These are all for guidelines, each experiment would have some idiosyncratic approach very different from mine. However all this does add to our pool of knowledge, doesn't it?

Regards,

Plasmaspecialist

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20040095705.html

Please tell us the patent number of the one referenced. WHen we searched we could not find that actual patent number. or is it one that is pending? thanks.

It may be the start, I do not want to be too pessimistic or unfriendly and I wish you absolute and complete sucess.

But on the link you posted, they are mainly concerned with "detecting" only at this time, like I use my eyes and ears to detect lightning strikes near to me!! But harnessing lightning to do something useful is quite a different kettle of fish......

Best wishes anyway.

Hi to all,

1. question: the intense sun beam has to be absorbed by some material to generate the temperature that will then generate the plasma. Absorption of Argon is not really good. The experimental heat generators used in solar experiments are either the material that is tested about its behaviour in high temperature (same as Boettcher the German inventor of porcelaine or china-ware did it with a solar parabolic collector 300 years ago) or are absorbed at some cooled absorber to generate steam or else. So I guess that you would need an external starter to ignite the plasma (not a problem) and then use the plasma as an absorber.

2. question: the plasma will be neutral as any atom is ripped of one electron, the electron is much faster so it will be lost to the walls within microseconds, there should be an unidirectional extraction mechanismthat diverts the electrons to one collector electrode and the remaining much slower ions to another electrode. This would generate a DC potential as is known in the "self biasing" process in sputter coating. (See the book written by Chen: Plasma Coating Principles). To convert this to AC the direction of extraction of electrons and ions has to be interchanged for the next cycle. How to do this and how to extract without a big energy input into the extraction?

3. To use the plasma in one of its natural frequencies would be possible but these frequencies change with density, ionisation ..., so a fine tuning would be necessary. As there are a lot of independent energy states in the plasma there are a lot of different natural frequencies. (Pressure, kinetic energy, electrostatic, electromagnetic, electron , ion, ?) Only pressure seems to be a scalar magnitude all others vectorial thus complicating the situation.

To my feeling there may be a possibility to go one step back, not to use a plasma, but "only" break up water into hydrogen and oxygen.

The problem with solar energy is the cost per area of collector.

A thermal power plant is typically running at 3GW thermal or near 1GW electrical.

3GW thermal is - with ideal unobscured sun, no haze , no other absorbers - equivalent to 3 million square meter or near 1 square mile. To reach the mean power output nearly 5 to 10 time this area would be needed covered with mirrors to collect and concentrate the solar rays. This should be done at costs below 1$/W.

I dont think this will be possible on earth , if in space is to be evaluated.

Nevertheless:

Try hard to build something that gets the plasma burning and some energy recovered from it. It is worth while any effort.

RHABE

Break up water into hydrogen and oxygen? That sounds a sweet trick. Forgive me, my grasp of physics was lost when we proved that light was particles and waves depending how you looked at it that day! But..

If you had a tube full of dissociated electrons and you wanted them to oscillate up and down, if you had an electrode at each end connected together by the right capacitance/inductance wouldn't that do the trick? Sorry if this is facile, I'm not about to do the maths to see what values you might want and thus if there's a shred of feasibility; maybe all the electrons meanwhile disappeared down the shute never to return like my marbles.

Hi to all, let us return to the facts:

it is not a big problem to join dissimilar materials (like quartz and copper) may be sapphire and copper are better suited, you can buy examples of these at any vacuum products company, also electrical feedthroughs are made this way: make some elastic expansion sector inbetween the two parts so that the elastic expansion will accomodate for the diameter differences with temperature.

The temperature that you are talking about: you have the material temperature and the plasma temperature.

The plasma temperature of an individual ionised atom is more near 30000°C than near 3000°C but the mean plasma temperature (some ionised, most not) is likely to be anywhere between 1000 and 10K degrees.

The wall temperature is reached by heat influx from the plasma: radiation and particles and electromagnetic to be balanced by heat carried away by conduction and active cooling as in the plasma torches. Ask a welding produts company about details of micro-plasma-burners you will get the information there.

The gas coolers of one of the early nuclear reactors operating with Argon or Helium at 2000°C had walls made from copper and water cooled.

So the concept of a tube (U or straight) with transparent windows is pretty good.

To bring the solar energy to the windows may be done with a big chopper and then the concentrator as the high energy photonic flux is not suited to be reflected by any mirror.

What I am not understanding: how to capture the energy of the electrons : they separate from the ions as their velocity is much higher and if the electrons are lost to the walls there is massive heating and energy loss to the walls.

Also: how to start the plasma and absorb the incoming light flux?

The concept of the transformr coil surrounding the tube is admirable, to detail the concept we would need the frequency.

So who can solve these questions?

RHABE

Also, I am curious about the notion of temperature being the causative agent in the production of ions in a gas by sunlight. I was under the impression that it was the higher energy UV component that had sufficient energy to disassociate electrons and that occurred independently of flux density.

Consequently, were that to be so, why couldn't one concentrate the UV component and avoid considerable heat by not using the full emission spectrum of the sun, much of which is purely heat and would not contribute directly to the desired action. (Notwithstanding, of course, my prior question regarding from were does the presumed larger magnetic field emanate that would be inducing current in a coil.)

In a plasma torch, true there is lots of heat but isn't that more of a byproduct of the production of the plasma and not a direct cause of the plasma? Just thinking out loud. Perhaps someone could enlighten me if I have the facts wrong.

Doesn't the fact the the plasma would be in a tube kinda force the electrons to predominately produce a 'wave" in the direction of the tube. Sure some would be randomly scattered but once the plasma wave travels down the tube before being chopped wouldn't that insure that most of the electrons were also in that direction? (versus in a spere)

Seems to me that the local charge events being at an atomic scale would have no reason to organize in response to a structure that was different in scale by so many orders of magnitude. Can you cite a physical law that would produce such an effect? I do not know of any.

In a plasma generated by an electric field I can easily see that there would be a resultant and coherent magnetic field but you have there an electrostatic effect that is forcing the ions to move as a result of applied electrical current.

Even were you to apply a voltage across the tube it would seem that the chopping would only act as a switch to trigger the plasma, much as a high voltage spike is used to fire a xenon lamp in which case there would be no means to switch off the plasma once current were flowing except to discontinue the flow of current, just as in the case of a xenon lamp.

"Maybe" its as simple as an ocean wave .. the wave comes along (in this case a plasma wave ) and the tiny little grains of sand (electrons?) individually are randomly oriented and but over all they all move generally in the same direction. Hence sand dunes eventually appear.

IF a super concentrate beam of photons were injected into the end of the tube wouldn't this also tend to make electrons go in that same direction predominately?

Wouldn't any electron that happened to be in the direction of the tube axis also "collide with" or repel other electons which would tend on a mass volume to make more electrons go in the direction of the axis? Each of these might statistically also make other electrons go in the axis direction. Once you have that flow its easy to see a magetic field that can be used with transformer coils.

Don't some of the super colliders use the statistical general direction motion to achieve their beams?

How does a laser make (enough of) the photons go in one direction? Maybe thats a key to the solution.

Possibly all wrong but food for thought .

Seems like best case you create a path of conduction. It seems you would be just as likely to develop current flow in a metal bar by pounding on one end with a hammer. Somehow, without any underlying theory that starts out "Maybe" that it isn't going to produce any better results than "wishing" the current to flow. According to quantum physics there is a non-zero chance that all my atoms will suddenly tunnel through this wall against which I am leaning. Of course I might only tunnel half way and that could be a problem. Practically speaking, none of these events seem statistically likely.

You seem most unlikely to ever invent anything that works because you find reasons not to. Simple. I won't bother to tell you all the strange things that weren't supposed to work but do work. If you are so negative why not start a Darkness worshippers club? Tell us why the bumblebee doesn't fly.

I hesitate to say anything here, since you seem to take everything as a negative. Like several others here, I would love to see some breakthrough concept either in physics or technology that would make this a viable system.

One thing that could conceivably help: If the pulses of solar energy do indeed cause waves of some kind, then these waves will travel with some velocity. If the tube (U or straight) is long compared to its diameter, and the waves are able to travel the full length of the tube, then they will reflect off the other end. Now if you can adjust the timing of the pulses of solar energy such that the time from peak at one end of the tube to peak at the other end of the tube is equal to the travel time of the wave (or possibly multiple or sub-multiple), it should be possible to achieve some form of resonance, which would greatly enhance the amplitude of the waves. The frequency of the resonance would depend on many things, including the length of the tube, the kind of gas, the temperature, pressure, etc. I have done NO calculations, but off the top of my head, at these temperatures I would expect this frequency to be in the kHz to MHz range rather than the 100Hz mentioned. Rotating faceted mirrors could easily achieve the required frequency.

The higher frequency would also have another significant advantage: Transformers for high frequencies can be significantly smaller than those of equal power operating at low frequencies.

Mentioning the faceted mirrors also reminded me of one other item. plasmaspecialist has mentioned the '1000 Fresnel lenses' several times. I believe the UV portion of the spectrum is the most important part for this concept, and most lenses do not pass UV well if at all. Consider mirrors instead.

If any of this is of use, Wonderful! I still do not see any physics that will produce the electric currents required to energize a transformer at any frequency.

Now PRESSURE waves is another story entirely: Perhaps this system could be used in conjunction with some of the newer piezoelectric devices...

Thanks.. ! (see how well it works when its positively oriented?) PlasmaSpecialist said (as I remember) that if the plasma could be started and then pumped with the solar source and chopped to get the ac and frequency desired (perhaps on both ends of tube if possible) that electrons "might" flow and that could be used with transformer to get the energy out of the closed system. Again a small prototype might reveal other more interesting phenomena.

So. If all that is true. Doesn't this kind of remind us of the TWT (traveling wave tube) that made no sense at first but did indeed propel us into the radar age?

I'm not at all sure what it means to 'reflect plasma'... I assume that the nuclei would be reflected by (bounce off) any solid material, and the electrons would be reflected by (bounce off) any non-conducting solid.

If you were referring to the '1000 Fresnel lenses', I assume they were to concentrate the incoming solar energy, where mirrors would do better than lenses.

I do not understand 99% of what has been put on this blog.

Things like "reflecting of plasma" with mirrors, complete no go. Using quartz (or anything else that I know of) to contain plasma at 3000°C also a no go.....

In fact, I find all the theories put forward do not hold water (or plasma) at all.

I am leaving this Blog completely to the Area 51 mob to play with! bye.

I don't want to sound mean but after reading about the 12th post I decided to leave it to the "Area 51 Mob" as you put it. Everyone has gotten way off track. The thing that I never understood was that everyone has been talking about containing 3000C but how do you get to that temp????? Can you really reach those kind of temperatures using solar alone????? Even if it is possible it would only be at a hugh expense.

Now when I read the first post the first thing that came to my mind was something like a Neon tube. Now if you could reverse a neon tube by directing solar light so that the neon would excite the electrodes instead of the other way around, "I know that isn't exactly how it works I'm just keeping it simple". Wow that would be cool. I'm no expert but somehow I don't think that is possible, but if you could do it and get an alternating current out of it with that rotating shutter thing he first talked about, you would really have something. And neon tubes do not operate at 3000 degrees so thats a plus.

Good luck with this crowd.

Fishpipes

When we need to make a little spare cash, we tape flashlights onto all the light bulbs in the house and sell the power, generated by turning on the flashlights, back to the Power Company...

Uh, we're still waiting for that check, but the nice lady at the Power Company said we can expect it anytime now.

I take your comment as being very prejudice toward anyone who would offer what is known as a starting point for discovery. Insecure people such as those who interpret everything as negative seem unable to engage in any form of critical discussion without accosting personalities. Why should this discussion result in your negative opinion of what I may or may not be "able" to invent? I do not call you a fool for expressing your ideas. I make no comment regarding your ability. I only conjecture on what I know and ask for information that alters what I know or corrects it. In response I get personal attacks which leads me to believe that perhaps it is the only response you can make in the face of any comment that doesn't blindly and without any clear understanding of method, technique or underlying physics, cheer on assumptions without any effort toward critical thinking. Without fail the ones with the most narrow view seem to waste no time in playing the victim card and accusing negativity. Critique and challenging assumptions are critical to the progress of science but these concepts seem lost on those who's main interest may be in garnering attention for an idea simply because it would be swell that you could just get a whole bunch of really cheap energy without much effort. But hey, if you can't hang in a critical discussion with people who have valid questions and try to answer those questions without getting all whiny then I question what good you think will come from complaining. I suspect you have no answers for my questions and that the personal attack is just a smoke screen for your own lack of ideas or knowledge, but that's just my opinion, I invite you to quit the personal attacks and prove me wrong.

But let us remind you : you started the practice of " accosting personalities" . If you can't see that they just reread everything you have written. Other agree with us.

Positive reap more positives. I will say no more to you .

Your reminder, like the understanding of reality demonstrated by the typical pie in the sky posts in this blog, is based on nothing more than wishful thinking.

For your statement to be correct you would have to interpret asking questions for which you have no answer as a personal assault.

Disagreeing and asking for facts is neither personal nor an assault. It is how we learn.

Now if only we could harvest all the heat generated by this kind of post....

Honestly though this thing (and I should have abandoned it much earlier) belongs on half bakery not CR4.

What a pointless negative post!!!

Very well put!

Hi to all of you,

once more:

the ion temperature will likely be above 30thousand degrees C,

the mean gas (ions plus neutrals) will be between 3000 and 10000 C depending on ionisation,

the wall temperature will be below 1000°C as cooled walls are quite common to many applications.

The whole thing could be operated as a MHD (magnetohydrodynamic) generator.

This concept was proven functional in the 50ties til 70ties and developed to a degree that showed not a very efficient energy capture nor a long electrode life.

This machine was intended to run with a continuous plasma stream. So the here discussed idea to switch to an alternating plasma velocity will eliminate the problems with the electrodes.

The MHD generator relies on the fact that a plasma stream is diverted by a crosswise oriented magnetic filed and the chrged particles are diverted perpendicular to the plasma velocity and perpendicular to the magnetic field.

RHABE