Water Battery

A battery maybe a generator is more likely.

First thought is water traveling down the plastic tube is causing a static charge. The tube is being polarized left outlet to right outlet. Running thru the cans it is passing the charge to them. Charge builds up in the cans until it arcs the gap.

Second is energy has to be expended to put water in the drum. Is this means of electric generation more efficient then hydro plants in use today?

This device is commonly called the Kelvin water dropper and was described by Lord Kelvin in an 1867 paper. Any energy here is due to Igor, the lab assistant, lifting the water up to pour it into the top reservoir. Sorry, no battery.

Is this similar to the static charge built up from jostling water vapor in clouds and rainstorms? If so, then it's lightning lite, right?

This device is commonly called the Kelvin water dropper...

Yes, and it's also called "Kelvin's Thunderstorm". Here is a short list of links to sites describing this interesting device:

http://borderschess.org/energy.htm#kelvinthunder

It is a classic example of solar power.

The sun makes the corn grow. The cows eat the corn. Igor eats the cows in the form of a Big Mac and then lifts the water.

So liquid Van de Graff generation provided to us by Lord Kelvin.

So if you daisy chain a bunch of these do you get a lightning storm

I don't know how bad the corrosion would be but for every two foot drop the voltage could be turned into useful work.

Good question: What is the efficiency? And can the potential be efficiently harnessed for work?

Brad

Probably still more efficient to use falling water to drive turbines as in hydro-electric plants.

Again, a classic example of solar power, everything except nuclear for that matter.

Technically, partially nuclear. The molten core of the earth heats the oceans some. some of its heat come from nuclear decay. Solar energy is added and water vapor is created.

The food chain part is a very high percentage solar. Ok so I'm splitting hairs

Brad

Well I considered inferring that it's all solar in that all the heavier elements were formed in a star but wasn't sure if it was all formed in this star we call the Sun. Maybe if I said it's all star power instead of solar since I'm unsure of the ultimate origins.

Can't split that hair. Short term thinking I was, Millions not Billions,

http://supreme.justia.com/us/383/39/

probably not the same thing

A quick google search "Daniel Kwok water battery" revealed the following

"Kwok details that the theory behind the discovery is based on making use of the known principle of electrokinetics by pushing water into tiny

channels (1/100 the size of the human hair), which acts as a means of charge separation. "The idea is that the positive and negative

charges of water (H+ and OH-) will preferentially be separated by forcing water into a negatively charged channel wall."

Strange things happen when you reduce the size of channels (see other developments where small channels have been used to create super efficient heatsinks), the problem this creates is that it is only good for producing small amounts of power. Their 2cm disk produces 1.5uA of current. Not enough to replace a hydroelectric turbine (but that is hardly the point) but, how about a remote sensor where a long-life zero-maintenance small-current power supply harvesting energy from its surroundings is useful.

That could be a useful application - sort of like an intelligent alfalfa plant...

In your average bucket of water filled at the sink, you have some amount of positive and negative charged ions. Note that for the Kelvin Water Dropper, the conductive rings are connected to opposite conductive pails used to catch the dripping water. As one pail collects a slight positive or negative charge, the ring connected to it, now electrically charged, will attract slightly more of the opposite charge to drip into the other pail, which causes even more charge separation. This is a runaway process and the charge separation will increase until there is a discharge between the two wires and then it starts over again. It is a fun physics demonstration and Halloween display, but it is very inefficient in terms of power generation. Part of the problem is that if you draw off any appreciable portion of the electrical charge separation, you reduce the process efficiency - such as it is.

I think this is the same guy who came up with a perpetual motion machine a couple of years ago

So is it still moving? "Perpetual" would be more than a couple of years. Or is this a case of it didn't move so he moved on?

As far as I can tell he hasn't been involved in perpetual motion, just real science. The only mentions i could find are news articles where reporters are saying such things as the following (from the The Standard of St. Catharines - Niagara).......

"We can only wonder at what this astonishing new development will mean to mankind. Their discovery -- announced Monday by the London-based Institute of Physics -- means a clean source of renewable energy involving no moving parts. In theory, a closed system using pure water could be used to make electricity indefinitely."

It doesn't help when people with limited understanding of science start making things up to create a better news story.

Yeah, to paraphrase that story:

"We can only wonder at what this astonishing news story will mean to mankind. This article -- released today by The Standard of St. Catherines -- means a Pulitzer prize for the reporter if enough people fall for the gag. In theory, a closed readership could be used to generate praise indefinitely."