Energy

That's a rather sweeping statement..

Has the Earth a net negative charge?? Where are your information sources?

John.

Hi John,

How are you. Most of the earth is consisted of iron, (actually of its mass of 5.98x10^24kg, 32.1% is iron) and iron is a very good electrical conductor since it has an atomic number of 26. Current electricity is primarily the flow of electrons from a -ve to a +potential, so since electrons of iron are 'easy' to move, it should not be very surprising that, for example, +ve lightning, which is generally 6-10 times greater than -ve lightning, dishes out up to 300KA at 1GV producing up to 300GJ for close to a second.

You may go to yahoo and type in 'earth's electrical charge'. Go through the page looking for words highlighted in blue. Someone there agrees with me.

Thanks for your feedback. I had to do a little searching around in order to respond.

Ecarlo

Hi Guest.

I am afraid that you wrong in stating that the Earth is made up mostly of iron?

Here are the actual elements and their weight percentage which make up the world:

Oxygen = 50%

Silicon = 26%

Aluminium = 7%

Iron = 4%

Calcium = 3%

Sodium = 2.5%

Potassium = 2.5%

Magnesium = 2%

Hydrogen = 1%

All the other elements combined only add up to 2%

Spencer.

Don't rely on one source and check your source carefully. Make sure you are not looking at just the inner core, core, mantle, crust or atmosphere individually. Find the percentages of the elements comprising the earth holistically. Make full use of the internet.

Good luck with that.

Thanks for your response.

Ecarlo

Hi Ecarlo.

I don't need to use the internet to check my figures, I use this table every day as a geologist/mineralogist. The scale that I use is entitled; "Compostion of Earth, Sea and Sky by weight", this is given in weight percents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Of course this includes everything from the inner core to the boundry of our outer atmosphere. The inner core is solid Iron plus about 3% Nickel, the outer core is Iron in a very plastic habit, The mantle which is divided in two is a very plastic Fe Mg silicate that also contains the heavier elements, The crust which is not very thick ( 80-90km on the continents, to 2-5km at its thinest on the sea floor), consists mainly of the silicates.

The amount of Iron ores in/on the crust is minute indeed, and the core is also a very small sphere!

Spencer.

Venus and a good pair of jumper cables.

A large (many feet of wire) ungrounded antenna will produce some "angry" blue discharges on a continual basis.

I would be happier, if you would refine the question. Voltage is potential. Current is flow. Potential without flow is not work, and vica versa. Where would the power delivery come from?