Ozzie
02-25-2008, 08:53 PM
We all know that the world is addicted to oil....especially the more developed nations of the world. We also know that this oil is controlled by a select few, mostly corrupt and socially moribund, who couldn't care less for the planet as a whole except that it allows them to acquire more power and wealth. Now, I won't be talking about what needs to be done in the social sphere of things, here, but I will be putting forward three proposals for generating the energy we need and to get away from oil/coal/uranium. Apart from wind, solar and wave powered energy, which are the more obvious means of generating energy, there are some more esoteric forms of technology which can be used to generate energy. The may sound like something out of science fiction but the science behind the principles of generating energy from these technologies is quite sound.
The first of these methods I want to discuss is Geomagnetic Induction.
As everyone knows from their elementary school science, the Earth essentially behaves like a giant magnet. It has a hot, liquid metallic core surrounding what in effect is an enormous rotor, the Inner Core, made of almost pure solid iron. These two bodies rotate along with the rest of the planet and the movements of the liquid Outer Core surrounding the Inner Core generate enormous electrical currents and subsequently magnetic fields. The magnetic field surrounding the planet is generated in this way. What is being proposed here is to tap into this enormous magnetic field by inducing power in, essentially, an enormous aerial and then distributing the power to where it's needed. There are two possible ways of doing this. The first way is to build an enormous tower, anywhere between 1 to 10 kms in height, and place over an area of high magnetic anomoly within the crust. Using the tower's height in relation to the local magnetic field, you then induce a resonance within the tower which matches the frequency of the local field...or the global field if need be. To do this, you would need to prime the tower by setting up the resonance using radio waves in the ELF/ULF band, those which match the natural frequencies generated by the Earth. In effect, the tower would be humming at the natural resonant frequency of the planet, thereby setting up an enormous eletrical current within the structure. This would entail having to thoroughly insulating the tower from its surroundings by setting it up on a non conducting base of very large size. However, power could be taped from the tower using transducers resonating on the same frequency as the tower and then stepping the power down to usable voltages. The amount of power that could be tapped into is stunning....it amounts to many thousands of times our present worldwide energy consumption, just from one power station.
The second method of inducting power is to use laser or radio beams to tap into the potential difference in voltage between the ground and the upper atmopshere of the planet, namely the Ionopshere. Between the ground and the Ionopshere/lower Magnetosphere, there is a potential difference of some 300 trillion volts...an enormous amount of power. To tap into that power, a tower of significant height, not quite as large as the previous method but still substantial ( upto 5 kms), can be used. A powerful beam of laser or focused radio energy is fired from this tower up into the Ionosphere where the massive eletrical charges and magnetic fields surrounding the Earth are found. The radio/laser beam creates a highly ionised path along which the currents of electricity can flow down to the tower and then be tapped into. Insulation and power distribution methods are the same as for the first method and the current flow in both needs to be closely monitored and controlled.
Any shorting out of the current in either method could be dire...the subsequent explosion would make a H-Bomb look like a dud firecracker!!! However, the chances of that happening are minimal as the power can be cutoff almost immediately, much like a safety trip switch in a fuse box.
The second method that can be used is Zero-Point Energy Generation.
This is the first of the methods which relies on the science fiction like world of Quantum Physics to generate energy. It all hinges on an unique characteristic of spacetime itself...the Zero Point Field. What this field, essentially, is the energy which is left over after you have removed all the matter and energy from any one particular point in space. It is also known as the Vacuum Energy of spacetime. The easiest way to explain what that energy is, is to look at what is called a simple Quantum Oscillator. Think of all the matter and energy in a point in space as being represented by a tennis ball on an elastic band. Now, that ball is moving up and down on the band as it's bouncing around. Slowly but surely, the ball looses energy and gradually appears to come to a stop. However, because of quantum fluctuations in the movements of the ball and elastic band, it can never be said to have come to a complete stop. This is because the quantum fluctuations are probability based calculations on whether it has stopped or not. It may or may not have stopped, therefore it cannot be said with any confidence to have completely stopped. This manifests itself as residual energy within the system...the so called Zero-Point Energy. Whilst the amount of energy of this zero-point field would appear to be minimal, it must be remembered that this energy is present at every point within spacetime. Including all points in spacetime within its higher dimensions....all 11 of them. So, the actual amount of energy present, even within a small area of spacetime, is absolutely enormous. Why we don't experience this energy in normal life is that we're surrounded in all directions by it....it is a homogenous field of energy. It is even within the atoms which make up everything we see, including ourselves. Every point in spacetime has this energy. To put it in simple terms, there's more than enough zero-point energy in a coffee mug to instantly boil away all of the water on the planet. More than 2000 trillion megatons of explosive energy equivalent. Big enough to blow a hole 1000 miles wide in the planet, or about 10 billion times our present energy consumption. That's just in one small coffee mug!!!. The potential for tapping into this source of energy, is therefore, unlimited. But how do we tap into this source of energy??.
What we need to do is to create a potential difference between points within the field to allow the energy to flow from one point to another. One way of achieving this is to create a vacuum field between two closely situated metal plates or mirrors and then pass particles in the form of electrons or photons between the plates. So long as the distance between the two plates is less than half of the wavelength of the particles entering between the two plates, the zero-point field between the plates will create a negative pressure difference between the gap inside the plates and the outside. It's essentially an attractive force between the two plates. This causes the plates to come together. This is known as the Casimir Effect, found by Hendrik Casimir in 1948. For a good overview of the Casimir Effect, goto.... http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9747 (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9747), or if you like the technical side of things, here's a good Wikipedia article... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect.
What needs to be found is a way of extracting the energy out of the field setup between the two plates (or mirrors), and so this is where research and much money needs to come in. Another way of extracting the energy is to exploit the zero-point field between the atoms in a crystalline solid, using the solid as both a power generating and conducting mechanism. It would entail using quantum oscillations between atoms of the crystalline lattice to extract the energy out of the field and then use the crystalline lattice to control energy flow and regulate the amount of power extracted. This, in principle, is what the ZPM (Zero-Point Module) in the sci-fi TV series "Stargate" and "Stargate:Atlantis", are.... crystalline power generators exploiting the zero-point energy field between and within the crystals of the modules. It will take much research and some breakthroughs in technology/science to accomplish these feats of engineering, but it can be done.
The next method is Matter-Antimatter annihilation.
You can almost hear the strains of the theme from Star Trek now:D
Yes, the power source which allows the Starship Enterprise to travel the galaxy is none other than the reaction between matter and its counterpart, antimatter. You may ask, what is antimatter??. Antimatter is just another form of matter except that its characteristics are opposite to what we call normal matter. Such as....an electron has a negative charge and positive spin state. Its antimatter counterpart, the positron, has a positive charge and a negative spin state. When the two types of matter are brought together they annihilate (destroy) one another in a blinding flash of 100% pure energy. So much energy, in fact, that tiny amounts of the both of them brought together produce enormous amounts of energy. A thimble full of matter-antimatter will produce enough explosive energy to lift a body the size of Mt Everest 10 feet off the ground!!!. Several tons worth would propel that body all the way to Mars and back. The main problem with harnessing matter-antimatter for power production, is the production of enough antimatter to achieve this. Whilst there are still some engineering problems with antimatter containment to overcome, we do know how to contain and store it, and how to bring it together with matter to produce the energy. We even have methods of, or know of in principle methods to extract the energy from the base reactions. What is the greatest difficulty at present is creating enough antimatter. At present only about 100 nanograms of antimatter is produced worldwide. Not enough to blow the head off of a pin. We don't have a method of producing antimatter on a large scale without expending a ridiculous amount of money...more than what the world economy currently spends is 10000 years. What is needed is a way of converting normal matter to antimatter and that will entail the precise manipulation and understanding of quantum fields on a subatomic scale. Something we have only just touched on in modern physics, but will hopefully be better understood in 50-100years (maybe less with the right research). If it's achieved, it is entirely possible that the world of Star Trek will become a reality. Limitless energy....the long sort after possibility for mankind as a whole, could be achieved. And all that's entailed with that achievement. The big problem with this method is if the containment fails on the antimatter. The consequences would be dire. That's why they need to develop safe containment procedures and methods, more so than what we have achieved already.
What is needed, is the money and the political willpower to look into the future, just as JFK did back in the early 60's. To look towards doing those things that are difficult, not because they're hard to do but because they're the right things to do. Because in achieving those goals, not only will our science progress but if it is accompanied by the right ways of thinking, our society as a whole will benefit from the transformations. It will also take some creative thinking by scientist, willing to make some out of the box suggestions and ideas on how to proceed with developing this type of technology. It can be done, it just needs that push along.
The first of these methods I want to discuss is Geomagnetic Induction.
As everyone knows from their elementary school science, the Earth essentially behaves like a giant magnet. It has a hot, liquid metallic core surrounding what in effect is an enormous rotor, the Inner Core, made of almost pure solid iron. These two bodies rotate along with the rest of the planet and the movements of the liquid Outer Core surrounding the Inner Core generate enormous electrical currents and subsequently magnetic fields. The magnetic field surrounding the planet is generated in this way. What is being proposed here is to tap into this enormous magnetic field by inducing power in, essentially, an enormous aerial and then distributing the power to where it's needed. There are two possible ways of doing this. The first way is to build an enormous tower, anywhere between 1 to 10 kms in height, and place over an area of high magnetic anomoly within the crust. Using the tower's height in relation to the local magnetic field, you then induce a resonance within the tower which matches the frequency of the local field...or the global field if need be. To do this, you would need to prime the tower by setting up the resonance using radio waves in the ELF/ULF band, those which match the natural frequencies generated by the Earth. In effect, the tower would be humming at the natural resonant frequency of the planet, thereby setting up an enormous eletrical current within the structure. This would entail having to thoroughly insulating the tower from its surroundings by setting it up on a non conducting base of very large size. However, power could be taped from the tower using transducers resonating on the same frequency as the tower and then stepping the power down to usable voltages. The amount of power that could be tapped into is stunning....it amounts to many thousands of times our present worldwide energy consumption, just from one power station.
The second method of inducting power is to use laser or radio beams to tap into the potential difference in voltage between the ground and the upper atmopshere of the planet, namely the Ionopshere. Between the ground and the Ionopshere/lower Magnetosphere, there is a potential difference of some 300 trillion volts...an enormous amount of power. To tap into that power, a tower of significant height, not quite as large as the previous method but still substantial ( upto 5 kms), can be used. A powerful beam of laser or focused radio energy is fired from this tower up into the Ionosphere where the massive eletrical charges and magnetic fields surrounding the Earth are found. The radio/laser beam creates a highly ionised path along which the currents of electricity can flow down to the tower and then be tapped into. Insulation and power distribution methods are the same as for the first method and the current flow in both needs to be closely monitored and controlled.
Any shorting out of the current in either method could be dire...the subsequent explosion would make a H-Bomb look like a dud firecracker!!! However, the chances of that happening are minimal as the power can be cutoff almost immediately, much like a safety trip switch in a fuse box.
The second method that can be used is Zero-Point Energy Generation.
This is the first of the methods which relies on the science fiction like world of Quantum Physics to generate energy. It all hinges on an unique characteristic of spacetime itself...the Zero Point Field. What this field, essentially, is the energy which is left over after you have removed all the matter and energy from any one particular point in space. It is also known as the Vacuum Energy of spacetime. The easiest way to explain what that energy is, is to look at what is called a simple Quantum Oscillator. Think of all the matter and energy in a point in space as being represented by a tennis ball on an elastic band. Now, that ball is moving up and down on the band as it's bouncing around. Slowly but surely, the ball looses energy and gradually appears to come to a stop. However, because of quantum fluctuations in the movements of the ball and elastic band, it can never be said to have come to a complete stop. This is because the quantum fluctuations are probability based calculations on whether it has stopped or not. It may or may not have stopped, therefore it cannot be said with any confidence to have completely stopped. This manifests itself as residual energy within the system...the so called Zero-Point Energy. Whilst the amount of energy of this zero-point field would appear to be minimal, it must be remembered that this energy is present at every point within spacetime. Including all points in spacetime within its higher dimensions....all 11 of them. So, the actual amount of energy present, even within a small area of spacetime, is absolutely enormous. Why we don't experience this energy in normal life is that we're surrounded in all directions by it....it is a homogenous field of energy. It is even within the atoms which make up everything we see, including ourselves. Every point in spacetime has this energy. To put it in simple terms, there's more than enough zero-point energy in a coffee mug to instantly boil away all of the water on the planet. More than 2000 trillion megatons of explosive energy equivalent. Big enough to blow a hole 1000 miles wide in the planet, or about 10 billion times our present energy consumption. That's just in one small coffee mug!!!. The potential for tapping into this source of energy, is therefore, unlimited. But how do we tap into this source of energy??.
What we need to do is to create a potential difference between points within the field to allow the energy to flow from one point to another. One way of achieving this is to create a vacuum field between two closely situated metal plates or mirrors and then pass particles in the form of electrons or photons between the plates. So long as the distance between the two plates is less than half of the wavelength of the particles entering between the two plates, the zero-point field between the plates will create a negative pressure difference between the gap inside the plates and the outside. It's essentially an attractive force between the two plates. This causes the plates to come together. This is known as the Casimir Effect, found by Hendrik Casimir in 1948. For a good overview of the Casimir Effect, goto.... http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9747 (http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/9747), or if you like the technical side of things, here's a good Wikipedia article... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect.
What needs to be found is a way of extracting the energy out of the field setup between the two plates (or mirrors), and so this is where research and much money needs to come in. Another way of extracting the energy is to exploit the zero-point field between the atoms in a crystalline solid, using the solid as both a power generating and conducting mechanism. It would entail using quantum oscillations between atoms of the crystalline lattice to extract the energy out of the field and then use the crystalline lattice to control energy flow and regulate the amount of power extracted. This, in principle, is what the ZPM (Zero-Point Module) in the sci-fi TV series "Stargate" and "Stargate:Atlantis", are.... crystalline power generators exploiting the zero-point energy field between and within the crystals of the modules. It will take much research and some breakthroughs in technology/science to accomplish these feats of engineering, but it can be done.
The next method is Matter-Antimatter annihilation.
You can almost hear the strains of the theme from Star Trek now:D
Yes, the power source which allows the Starship Enterprise to travel the galaxy is none other than the reaction between matter and its counterpart, antimatter. You may ask, what is antimatter??. Antimatter is just another form of matter except that its characteristics are opposite to what we call normal matter. Such as....an electron has a negative charge and positive spin state. Its antimatter counterpart, the positron, has a positive charge and a negative spin state. When the two types of matter are brought together they annihilate (destroy) one another in a blinding flash of 100% pure energy. So much energy, in fact, that tiny amounts of the both of them brought together produce enormous amounts of energy. A thimble full of matter-antimatter will produce enough explosive energy to lift a body the size of Mt Everest 10 feet off the ground!!!. Several tons worth would propel that body all the way to Mars and back. The main problem with harnessing matter-antimatter for power production, is the production of enough antimatter to achieve this. Whilst there are still some engineering problems with antimatter containment to overcome, we do know how to contain and store it, and how to bring it together with matter to produce the energy. We even have methods of, or know of in principle methods to extract the energy from the base reactions. What is the greatest difficulty at present is creating enough antimatter. At present only about 100 nanograms of antimatter is produced worldwide. Not enough to blow the head off of a pin. We don't have a method of producing antimatter on a large scale without expending a ridiculous amount of money...more than what the world economy currently spends is 10000 years. What is needed is a way of converting normal matter to antimatter and that will entail the precise manipulation and understanding of quantum fields on a subatomic scale. Something we have only just touched on in modern physics, but will hopefully be better understood in 50-100years (maybe less with the right research). If it's achieved, it is entirely possible that the world of Star Trek will become a reality. Limitless energy....the long sort after possibility for mankind as a whole, could be achieved. And all that's entailed with that achievement. The big problem with this method is if the containment fails on the antimatter. The consequences would be dire. That's why they need to develop safe containment procedures and methods, more so than what we have achieved already.
What is needed, is the money and the political willpower to look into the future, just as JFK did back in the early 60's. To look towards doing those things that are difficult, not because they're hard to do but because they're the right things to do. Because in achieving those goals, not only will our science progress but if it is accompanied by the right ways of thinking, our society as a whole will benefit from the transformations. It will also take some creative thinking by scientist, willing to make some out of the box suggestions and ideas on how to proceed with developing this type of technology. It can be done, it just needs that push along.