I'll try not to make this a post about vast, secretive conspiracies or mind-blowing theories about our planet's fabricated history, and I'll do my best to avoid writing about all of Earth's lost or hidden technologies, approaching ice ages, or such far-out things.
Now though, with impending economic chaos always flirting with our fears and industrial-strength propaganda constantly chiseling away at our collective mind, I think it's a good time for that collective mind of ours to think about how we can begin to decentralize everything-- starting with electricity.
Atmospheric Electricity, Going to Waste
It wasn't that many decades ago when scientists were excited about the idea of electricity being collected from the atmosphere itself, and they demonstrated ways that it could be done using various metals, shapes and lengths of material raised up into the sky before they were apparently told to shut the hell up about it by the gas and coal industry, but this isn't going to be about that. How hard would it really be to harvest the potential electrical energy that already exists in the atmosphere of the planet?
There's No Time to Explain Why We Don't Already Use Atmospheric Electricity
I could tell you why our modern civilization doesn't already use the electricity in the atmosphere as a common energy source, but then I'd have to try to describe one of the wildest and biggest conspiracy theories in the history of wild conspiracies.
Instead of dwelling in the past with such grand stories of older times, I would prefer now to look into the future, and I'll even be so bold as to make a prediction for that future: 2019 is looking like a year that will see humanity rediscover many of the lost technologies that were used in our past, and one of those rediscoveries will be the harnessing of atmospheric electricity.
Electricity- It's All New To Me
The schools that I went to didn't bother to teach us much about electricity. We were taught that signs saying "HIGH VOLTAGE" meant death and pain, and so that scary electrical stuff was kept well out of reach of us curious children. How our young minds were so deprived of such interesting and valuable knowledge about electricity is a story of it's own, and while a dumbed-down populace apparently has some use for someone, this won't be about that.
Enter the Internet
Now, instead of schools we have the internet, and with just a few clicks I can watch a video of a guy who threads a needle with one end of a copper wire, lifts the needle high into the sky using an ordinary remote-controlled drone to a height which forces the thin needle's tip to attract positive ions from the atmosphere which then circulates a current of electricity strong enough to turn a small electrostatic motor connected to the earth down on the ground. The little needle trades ions with the sky above, and the ions naturally move through the wire and the ground as fast as lightning.
None of this electrical trickery is new, and it was Benjamin Franklin who said "necessity is the mother of invention" and then apparently found it necessary to tie a metal key to the string of a kite during a thunderstorm, he invented 'Franklin's Bell'*, and is often credited with inventing a heating stove, but then he went and joined some wild secret society, they found the bodies later, and it's all shrouded in mystery from there. But I wasn't going to talk about crazy conspiracy theories here, as it is not relevant to the topic of this writing. This is going to be about electricity.
100 Volts-per-Yard Above the Earth Adds Up Quickly
There's an important difference between the surface of the Earth and the air, and that difference can be measured in polarity, like yin and yang. Or, the Earth is negative (-) and the atmosphere positive (+) like a battery. The higher into the air you go, the more intense that polarity becomes. In terms of electricity then, that difference is about 100 volts for every three feet above the surface of the ground. This means that around 12 feet above the ground, or 3 meters up, there's about 400 volts of potential difference.
What sort of 'antenna' could we use up there to collect that energy?
Ultimately the question comes down to this: Is that just a lightning rod or weather vane up there on the chimney, or is it a device that is effectively collecting and trading ions, balancing a sure current of electricity into the ground night and day? IF so, are the occupants of that dwelling below harvesting that energy, in the form of infrared heat as it escapes the conductors at the bottom of the chimney, radiating out of perhaps a metal plate in the back of the fireplace?
If the answer is no, then another question comes up: WHY NOT?
If a guy on Utube can turn a little motor using a needle and a thread of copper wire that's been raised into the sky, then what kind of power could be collected with 50 needles instead of just one, and how many of those atmospheric volts could be collected if the apparatus were grounded using thicker wire?
When trying to imagine what such an atmospheric heating system might look like, it's curious that many of the older buildings of the world already hold some of the features that would easily accommodate such an atmospheric electricity collector.
Construction of an Electric Fireplace
We might begin with a thick metal plate on the back wall of the fireplace, firmly connected to the ground with metallic fixtures. From that plate, we might run a metal rod, basically a lightning rod, into the ground and then all the way up the chimney.
Let's climb the chimney, and at the top we could erect an elaborate antenna with sharp pointed ends so that the earth's negative ions can spill out into the atmosphere in their attraction to the positive ions in the sky.
In this exchange, a current is formed, and the thick metal plate in the fireplace should begin to heat up, being the easiest way for the energy to escape from the conductive metal.
Too hot? We'll need to be able to adjust it, so maybe a couple of andirons, or 'fire dogs' could be used to control the current. A twist or a kick to the moveable andirons could divert the current more into the ground, less into the plate, or bypassing the radiator plate entirely, allowing the current to flow naturally from the ground to the lightning rod.
When the metal plate gets hot, the chimney could still be incorporated to draw any fumes or 'bad air' that might be emitted by the heated iron, pulling it up and out of the hut, while most of the infrared heat would still be radiated into the room below.
Am I going to electrocute myself screwing around with a fireplace?
I'm scared to mess with it, I'll admit, and I should stress that we are talking about voltages here that could ruin your day if not handled properly. We don't want to suddenly become the connection between a tower and the ground.
Meanwhile, let me add that I can't recommend messing with electricity at all, even the free stuff, without having a good understanding of it's potentials.
I have a neighbor who's an electrician, I plan to ask him about the dangers of building atmospheric electricity collectors of any size before I start hoisting lightning rods into the heavens, daring the gods to lend me some of their might. Really I just want to design a small heater for the greenhouse I'd like to build, in case the food supply chain is broken somehow. (I'll probably leave that part out, and just ask about electricity stuff for now.)
Calling All Inventors!
If Ben Franklin was a real person, and if he really did say "necessity is the mother of invention", then I would like to invite every mind that can envision a decentralized electrical system, to see the necessity of inventing the gismos and devices, or even the structures and architecture that will allow humanity more freedom, more spending cash, more heat with less smoke, and untold further inventions to better the world.
Looking at the old fireplaces and the ornate architecture that was built back before anyone can remember or will tell, it really is interesting that many of them already possess the elements that are needed to generate an electrical current. It could be just a coincidence though, those glorious copper roofs with curious little portals and topped with aerials of all kinds that have survived antiquity, that all could be just ornamentation.
Many of the fireplaces in antique mansions look so clean, it's as if they've never had a wood fire in them.
Is it possible that there is a free source of energy that has been forgotten, or hidden and occulted away from the masses for a century or two? Perhaps the churches never mentioned it because they were hoping to retain their monopoly on communication with 'god', even while real electricity is being accidentally accumulated by every ancient cathedral, with every little steeple across the planet being a potential energy source. Maybe the churches were designed to collect more than just electrical energy, and maybe they are transmitters of some kind, but that would be a whole different topic I think. Also, notice that 'cathedral' is a lot like 'cathode' for more coincidences.
Let's Decentralize It!
If things get cold and the food won't grow, and the money's all broken and the gas is low, we will know that we should have already figured out how to collect this abundant, ever-present energy that has always been here, and we will remember how it's done, or how it was done before.
Can we safely modify our old fireplaces into free atmospheric electric heaters? As a guy who knows almost nothing about electricity, it's easy for me to presume that if electricity were so simply collected from the sky, someone would have already been doing it by now. Then, of course, I have to wonder if that's exactly what I'm supposed to think?
I predict that we'll remember this electrical trick and put it to into use again, or will finally begin using it, and I have a feeling we will soon discover much, much more about Earth's history as well, but that's for another time. This was just about incorporating a device with no moving parts using metal, shapes, distance and height to harvest electricity from the air, and how we should maybe try it sometime, since many of the buildings of the world are already fit for it for some reason.
It's Time to Decentralize Electricity
I'll be thinking about this electricity harvesting hobby some more, and now I'm imagining church bells vibrating the granite towers that hold them, and imagining the vibrations shaking the quartz, creating piezoelectric charges. Would that process produce enough electricity to flicker a light bulb or two for an hour or so? I don't know. I need help! Meanwhile, below are a few videos I found that give an idea of what atmospheric electricity is, and clues on how to collect it from the sky.
images above provided by Wikimedia Commons
Wow! - you can knock out quite a post can't you?
I suspect this stuff may not be appearing on TV any time soon...
Fascinating
It won't make the news unless someone zaps themselves or their neighbors while messing around with the electric sky gods, then all atmospheric energy collecting experiments can be properly banned and forbidden for our safety.
This is a really hard subject.
Capacitors... Tesla called them condensors.
And that is a proper term for them.
Even the super capacitors do not really have "capacity".
So, electrical engineers do not have any clue about electricity.
Now, what can electricity do? Should you be afraid?
How about a technician working for a phone company. His metal rimmed glasses slipped from his face as he was working on a battery bank (only 42volts) and the arc caused by the falling glasses melted his face.
The first thing to note about atmospheric electricity is that it isn't one voltage. A wire, ran from one building to another can have hundreds of volts potential. Thus, such wires have to be coupled through transformers.
The next thing about atmospheric electricity is that it is not from the sky.
The earth and sky(s) are a condensor (capacitor)
The last thing i will talk about is frequency. What you will create is not a DC circuit. And, it is not electricity as we are taught.
There was a guy who built a box, that was mostly a couple of transformers. Connecting an aerial and a ground to it, after tuning, he could light a light bulb. However, a light bulb place in the aerial wire would not glow. But, removing that light bulb would turn off the other bulb.
I would be excited if I could get a little flicker out of a light bulb by such an experiment, especially since I know virtually nothing about electricity, yet!
I still have to look up words like 'capacitor', but in a way I'm glad I didn't learn all the wrong terms and ideas, I have a lot of 'what if's' and questions because I don't know a thing about it.
I did figure out that it doesn't come from the sky, but is a flow between the earth and the atmosphere, I was trying to be careful with such wording, and since, as you noted, there is only one wire involved, it gets weird right away as far as 'current' goes. Even 'ions' are a new thing for me to conceive, so I'm oblivious to how this might work so far. I'm glad you commented, I'd hoped that a builder of castles would have some input on this topic.
i was just philosophizing the other day about decentralized utilities. no one corporation should be in control of providing services like phone, electric, gas and other life supporting services. imho, thats just common sense. if the major utility service provider is attacked, millions suffer. becoming independent from the infrastructure is the first step in avoiding corporate/governmental control of the masses.
The decentralization of energy is going to change everything when it happens. As it becomes more obvious that the centralized banks invented their bank notes as a way to restrict the natural flow of energy between individuals, we might soon discover that the centralized electric company has been tying us all down with its miles of copper wire all this time.
oh i think that they think they are doing us all a service under the guise of capitalism. i just disagree that we need to have a utilities system where we are dependent on someone else to provide at a cost. if we could all get our own electric etc ourselves at a fraction of the cost, why should we be beholden to shareholders just so they can see a profit on investments? my county i am in has a service where houses that create their own energy can sell excess to the county. would it not be better to create and co own rather than to pay to make others rich?
Hello @therealpaul, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
I like all of the hints about secrets and mystery riddled throughout the post. It really makes one wonder. It's an interesting idea (harnessing electricity from the air) and I hope your prediction about 2019 is correct. I hope your consultation with the electrician is fruitful as well and you can put this theory to the test for your greenhouse. I also hope that you can solve the riddle as to whether or not all of those buildings with the old fireplaces were actually generating free electricity.
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Wouldn't it be a trip to find out that we've been doing it wrong for hundreds of years, and that all this old technology is sitting around in plain sight, not being used? I've been having a lot of fun with the idea, coming up with all kinds of things. I really think some clever kids are going to demonstrate this forgotten tech to the world soon, but also I like knowing that if times get tough, some inventors might be able to bring a little light and warmth into any shelter.
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