Capacitor to store lightning?

Status
Not open for further replies.
1. How is what you are doing different from what the original Benjamin Franklin did in June 1752?

He also captured power from a storm and held it in a Leyden jar.

He also invented what he called a battery, banks of Leyden jars, so that he could store more power.


obj_72_201_med.jpg


I would check out his patents if I were you.
You might be 260 years late:)

Knowing Benj, he'd have had a saying about it.
Something like "A patent made early, makes your competitor surly" or
"File your patent in time. They're screwed! drink some wine"

One thing that this thread has done for me. Thank you Benny F.
I'm now a huge fan of the original Benjamin Franklin.
He's the American Leonardo.


2. Why don't you make your own leyden jars out of old discarded plastic pop bottles.
You can make one like this for a few pence.
FYSEDIEFCZERFDY.LARGE.jpg


I bet they pack a punch, and I bet they are cheaper per unit energy than anything you can buy.
Get a bank of them, and it'll blow your bloody arm off. (Mods. Can I say hopefully without getting barred?)
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/02/homemade_capacitor_leyden.html
 
Last edited:
BennyF said:
Well, you didn't answer my question, and I asked it first. If current can't go through a capacitor, as you claim, then why are they used in billions of circuits?

No more answers to your questions until you answer my first question.
Click to expand...

OK, among other things capacitors are used:

1, In DC circuits to BLOCK current flow, or store charge, or as part of timers in RC circuits.
2, In AC circuits to decouple inputs to pre-amps, as filters, and to make oscillators.

But, under no circumstance, does current pass through a capacitor.

OH, and on your petty ad homs about my knowledge of electronics, I have an Advanced O level, Grade A, in Electronics, and studied electronics as part of my degree.
 
BennyF said:

I'm getting a patent whether Billy wants me to or not.

After that, I'll examine the economics of electricity prices, hydrogen prices, capacitor prices, labor costs, other costs, and make further decisions at that time.

Benny
Click to expand...

You'll possibly get your patent granted, but it means nothing, you still have a pie in the sky idea that is unfeasible. A patent is no seal of approval about the validity of an idea. Take these for example;

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

Also, before you waste your money, you might want to search to make sure your idea hasn't already been patented by some other free energy loon. It almost certainly has been more than once.

You could spend the money you save on some electronics night classes, for example.
 
Phlog.
Give up now. You won't win.
You are just causing yourself unnecessary pain.
Whatever you say will never convince him.
 
Last edited:
Captain Kremmen said:
Phlog.
Give up now. You won't win.
You are just causing yourself unnecessary pain.
Click to expand...

Oh no, I'm loving this.

Some facts for Benny;

A lightning strike contains 1-10Billion joules of energy.

The world's largest capacitor bank can only store 50MegaJoules of energy, and cost €10 million. You cannot afford to make your device.

Steve LeRoy (mentioned in the article I linked to) sold his idea for capturing lightning to Alternate Energy Holdings (AEH) in 2007, and they still can't make it work, and they are messing around in the lab, using controlled conditions. You want to harness real lightning, well, seems the ideas you have had, have already been had, and aren't feasible. Suck it up, failure boy.
 
Good link.
50 Megajoules is 0.0139 Mwh
Multiply by 1000 to get Kwh

139 Kwh? That can't be right can it?
That is exactly, by some cosmic chance, some cosmic benificence, the right equipment to collect the power from a lightning bolt.

See
http://www.convertunits.com/from/megajoule/to/MWh

You think you've got him on the back heel now don't you? Just wait.
 
Capable of storing 50 megajoules of energy and used to drive magnetic coils with very high and super-short energy pulses, it is the world's largest and most advanced capacitor bank.

50 megajoules at a time, yes.
The flow of energy could possibly be larger.

Though perhaps not, the charging times on such equipment could be many hours.
They may charge up and then run the magnetic coils for very short amounts of time.
 
Captain Kremmen said:
Capable of storing 50 megajoules of energy and used to drive magnetic coils with very high and super-short energy pulses, it is the world's largest and most advanced capacitor bank.

50 megajoules at a time, yes.
The flow of energy could possibly be larger.

Though perhaps not, the charging times on such equipment could be many hours.
They may charge up and then run the magnetic coils for very short amounts of time.
Click to expand...

Even if it stored 10 pulses, that's still a ballpark figure of €1 million Benny would have to stump up, to get 139Kwh of juice. At 10p per Kwh, he's going to need a hell of a lot of lightning to recoup his expenditure!
 
phlogistician said:
...
A lightning strike contains 1-10Billion joules of energy.

The world's largest capacitor bank can only store 50MegaJoules of energy, and cost €10 million. {Benny} You cannot afford to make your device. ...
Click to expand...
Thanks for this link - I did not know of this new high magnetic field facility. One thing that helps make it economical is they can use much cheaper capacitors than Benny. They take about 0.3 seconds to discharge them as they are driving a large inductance coil so do not need to buy low inductance capacitors. Benny needs capacitors that can charge and discharge 100 times faster as the individual strikes of a lightning bolt only last about 3 milliseconds. So lets assume, generously, that Benny only pays twice as much for his low inductance capacitors, his copper straps interconnecting them and what ever amount of high dielectric strength oil his system is emerced in to avoid internal arcs.

Their capacitor bank cost only €10 million, which with currently depressed Euro is only 13.5 million dollars, so Benny's to capture a 50MJ in only 0.003 seconds will cost about 27 million dollars. Now 50MJ is only 0.0139MWH or 13.9KWH and the power companies get less than 5 cents per KWH (customer may pay twice this), so The energy stored is worth about 70 cents, if I made no computational errors. Just to get his capital paid back will take 27,000,000 /0.7 = 38,571,428 lightning strikes captured and stored. (I have initially neglected the interest he will pay for so many years that the interest costs much more than the capital.)

I believe the most strikes on any tower in the world is about 70 per year. So Benny will get his capital back in 38,571,428 / 70 = 551,020 years. If the interest rate is only 3%, a very generous assumption too since 100% safe 10 year treasury bonds now pay 4%, no one would lend to Benny at 3% for more than half a billion years. Even at only 3% the interest will equal his capital every 24 years, but to make analysis easier (can divide by 4) lets assume every 25 years Benny pays interest equal to 27 million dollars. Now in 551,000 years there are 22,040 blocks of 25 years each. (I will assume Benny pays the interest when due so it does not increase his capital debt.) Thus, when Benny has reccovered his invested capital after 551.020 years, Benny will have paid, in interest: 22,040 x 27,000,000 dollars, which is too big for my simple hand calculator to display.

After Benny gets his patent, he will do some economic analysis like this and discover no will buy his worthless patent and no one will lend him money to build it himself, even at 300% interest on a project with a capital pay-back time of 551,020 years. (It never, even in an infinite period, gets a positive return as every 24 years must pay interest equal to the capital.)

But Benny, keep working -you have four years invested you do not want to lose. Don't do the economics first - you might get discouraged.
I.e. continue to keep your cart before the horse.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Billy T said:
Neither magnesium, Mg, nor antimony, Sb are cheap and their electro negativities are 1.31 & 1.96V for a open circuit voltage of no more than 0.65 volts.

Keeping this battery at 700 degrees is costly. What is the attraction?
Click to expand...

On the bright side...he probably wouldn't have the same problem as this "Pizza of Fail"

11inzbq1185801.jpg
 
Billy T said:
BTW Benny, if you have two parallel wires not very far apart, each carrying 100,000 amperes in the same direction there will be a huge attractive force between them. It may even disconnect or break them.
Click to expand...

100KA is the PEAK amperage that I've seen in reliable estimates, with one exception. NASA reported a 200KA strike at one of their launching pads. That means that any divider I build will have a fraction of the total 100KA amperage going through any one wire in the divider, and so your concern is no longer my concern.

Besides, if the size of the attraction is equal to the square of the distance between them, I can easily reduce to near zero the attraction simply by increasing the distance between any two divider wires.

Problem solved.
 
Last edited:
MacGyver1968 said:
But why wait until after you get a patent? A few minutes of googling and a calculator could at least give a ball park figure on cost.
Click to expand...

Because I'm not trying to BUILD AND USE a lightning storage system now !!!!!!!!!!!!

Billy is currently obsessed with dire economic forecasts, so much so that he ignores the intrinsic accomplishment in having a rare commodity, a U.S. Patent, awarded to only one person, the one who applied for it. I hope that you don't fall into his trap, the one that leads to mental mediocrity (notice the alliteration). Recessions and recoveries come and go, but a patent lasts for 25 years whether the economics of using your invention are favorable or not.

The economics of water electrolysis are not favorable right now, which is the biggest reason few are doing it, and none in large quantities, as I said earlier. Two years from now, our dear sweet fascist president could implement wage and price controls over wide sections of our formerly free country (notice the alliteration) and create a favorable climate for large-scale production of hydrogen. Such a climate could also be caused by terrorist attacks on oil and gas facilities, forcing consumers to ask for alternatives to fossil fuels for their transportation needs and other uses.

In short, there are good reasons why I am pursuing an application to the patent office, and why I will continue to pursue them even if Billy becomes a bore (notice the alliteration).
 
Captain Kremmen said:
1. How is what you are doing different from what the original Benjamin Franklin did in June 1752?
Click to expand...

The U.S. Patent office didn't exist in 1752, so Mr. Franklin couldn't get a patent on anything he did. The patent laws hadn't been passed yet, so what you're implying is historically impossible.
 
phlogistician said:
OK, among other things capacitors are used:

1, In DC circuits to BLOCK current flow, or store charge, or as part of timers in RC circuits.
2, In AC circuits to decouple inputs to pre-amps, as filters, and to make oscillators.

But, under no circumstance, does current pass through a capacitor.
Click to expand...

That's funny, because if you were to install two DC ammeters, one on either side of a capacitor, and if you were to apply a DC current to the wire, you'd see the exact same reading on both ammeters.

What's even funnier is that you keep making foolish statements, like capacitors block DC current.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top