Capacitor to store lightning?

[Captain Kremmen]

Billy, I think a bit of that last post warrants repeating: BENNY read this again please.

.......lightning rods can be considered to work the same way, but with a copper rod sticking up it is the Zero voltage contour which is elevated up. This will attract lighting to it (instead of the house) as the lightning is "looking" for the easiest way to the zero potential surface (contour). With Benny's partially charged capacitor elevating the positive contours above it, it is REPELLING the lighting bolt - effectively telling the lightning: Look how high the potential is here above the capacitor - if you continue down towards it you will have a long way to go, thru many more positive voltage contours. Be smart - by-past the high voltage hill and take the quick way to ground.



Benny. Your capacity to ignore anything which is a problem is amazing.
I sort of admire it.

Have you seen St Elmo's Fire, Benny. I Haven't. I would like to.
There's something in a poem by Coleridge about it.
I'll look for it.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

WEATHER VERSE
ST ELMO'S FIRE



Last night I saw St. Elmo's stars
With their glittering lanterns all at play.
On the tops of masts and the tips of spars.
And knew we should have foul weather today.
from: The Golden Legend
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow


The light thou beholdest, streams through the Heaven,
In flashes of crimson, is but my red beard.
Blown by the night wind, afrighting the nations.
from: The Challenge of Thor
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sometimes I'd divide
And burn in many places; on the topmast,
The yards and bowsprit, would I flame
distinctly, then meet and join.
from: The Tempest
William Shakespeare


About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.
from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

All the yardarms were tipped with a pallid fire, and touched at each tri-potential lightning rod with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like gigantic wax tapers before an altar....in all my voyagings seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the ship...
from Moby Dick
Herman Melville


Taken from http://www.islandnet.com/~see/weather/arts/stelmpm.htm

Nice anthology, but I think that the Coleridge example is Photoluminescence, and the Longfellow one is the Aurora Borealis.
Saint Elmo's fire happens aboard a ship not outside it. That's why sailors are so afraid of it.
I like Longfellows conceit that his red beard might afright the nations though.

 

[Nasor]

The patent office does not check that a product actually works. Patents are issued based on whether that particular product is owned by another patent or is something new.

Not exactly. It actually IS a requirement for getting a patent in the US that the invention must really be able to do what it is supposed to do. However, the patent office does not require people to demonstrate a working prototype; the patent examiner (who is supposed to be an expert in the relevant technical field) simply evaluates the claims to determine whether or not it is possible for the device/process to work. If he is of the opinion that it could not work, he will reject it. That is why inventions which claim to violate the laws of thermodynamics are summarily rejected.

At that point the applicant can submit a followup explaining why the examiner is an idiot, and attempt to explain in greater detail how/why it really is possible for their invention to work. Of course, being able to demonstrate a working prototype is elegant proof that the invention works.

 

[BennyF]

Lightning is already at a voltage that is too high to do any reasonable work with. Multiplying it just adds more uselessness. You keep mentioning this, as if this feature somehow makes your contraption unique, and patentable. It won't.

You may not understand the concept of a current divider, so I'll give it a try. Once and only once, for your benefit.

No, forget it. I already explained the concept to Billy, and I'm not sure that he gets it, so forget it.

First you have to trap and store energy from the lightning, and you can't just get it to zap into capacitors, because as has been demonstrated to you, they block DC.

Pop Quiz: What's the difference between a capacitor and a broken wire?

The only way you can get capacitors to conduct, is if you apply a greater voltage across them than the breakdown voltage of the insulator, and well, you should be able to guess what happens then.

That settles it. You're a fraud. You never graduated from ANY school that teaches electricity or electronics. You don't know what capacitors do, you don't know how to charge them up, and you don't know how to regulate their charging voltage, and you don't have any qualifications to judge anybody else's thoughts about electricity, capacitors or lightning.

 

[BennyF]

The lightning is "looking" for an easy way to the zero potential ground, so it will avoid the region where higher above ground there is the bump up in the V voltage surface. I.e. even if Benny did manage to get some charge into his capacitor, that increase in its voltage would raise the voltage contours above his partially charged capacitor and cause the lightning bolt to by-pass his capacitor with an arc to ground at best, near his capacitor; however, I seriously doubt Benny will have this problem as the inductance of his lead in and divider wires plus that within the capacitor its self will make lightning by-pass his circuits from the very start so his capacitor will not develop much voltage and will not bend the voltage contours upward much.

BTW, lightning rods can be considered to work the same way, but with a copper rod sticking up it is the Zero voltage contour which is elevated up. This will attract lighting to it (instead of the house) as the lightning is "looking" for the easiest way to the zero potential surface (contour). With Benny's partially charged capacitor elevating the positive contours above it, it is REPELLING the lighting bolt - effectively telling the lightning:
"Look how high the voltage potential is here above the capacitor! - If you continue down towards it, you will have a long way to go, thru many more positive voltage contours. Be smart: by-past this high voltage hill and take the quick way to ground to the side of this higher voltage hill."

Lighting rods also, and more frequently, avoid any lightning strike near them or the house as their top is sharply pointed to encourage a weak steady discharge, which "bleeds off" the charge that if it continued to grow could become a bolt.

NOAA's Central Region Headquarters, located in Pueblo, Colorado has a detailed explanation of what happens during one lightning bolt. Please note that they mention a "channel" that is formed by each "stepped leader".

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/pub/?n=/ltg/ltg_what_is_it.php

If a channel is formed all the way from a cloud to an object on the ground, whether that object is a treetop, a tall building, or a golf club being held by a golfer in his final moments on this earth, the channel becomes the path of least electrical resistance for the rest of that lightning bolt. Each new lightning bolt, however, will have to find its' own channel all over again, starting with a brand-new series of stepped leaders.

To bring this back to my hypothetical bank of capacitors, once my collection equipment has attracted one bolt, that channel will keep electricity flowing until that bolt's total charge has been delivered to my cap bank, perhaps modified by any special circuitry I've installed.

In other words, the channel will prevent any arcing to ground simply because it has a lower electrical resistance than any other path to ground.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

If a channel is formed all the way from a cloud to an object on the ground, whether that object is a treetop, a tall building, or a golf club being held by a golfer in his final moments on this earth, the channel becomes the path of least electrical resistance for the rest of that lightning bolt. Each new lightning bolt, however, will have to find its' own channel all over again, starting with a brand-new series of stepped leaders.


If If If If If If. And what makes that "If" likely or unlikely?
What the damn conductor is made of.

Sigh.

 

[Billy T]

More of Benny's ignorance on display but with a little truth mixed in:

... To bring this back to my hypothetical bank of capacitors, once my collection equipment has attracted one bolt, that channel will keep electricity flowing until that bolt's total charge has been delivered to my cap bank, perhaps modified by any special circuitry I've installed.

In other words, the channel will prevent any arcing to ground simply because it has a lower electrical resistance than any other path to ground.

I.e. When lightning has established an ionized path thru the air to ground it is correct to say there is a low impedance channel. All of the many individual strikes of that bolt will probably follow this same channel down to the ground IF that part of the ground remains near zero potential; but not if charge is accumulating there.

If however, that part of the ground begins to take the same voltage as the lightning bolt, because charge is accumulating there, then the sequential strikes of the bolt will abandon that channel and make a new one(s), as seen in the photograph below.

One bolt. (There is no smear of moving boat's points of light as in a time exposure.)

In Benny's case he hopes to be able to keep the charge delivered by the first strike of the bolt very concentrated so that point (his storage system) does not stay at essentially zero potential but has its voltage surge up to more than a million volts on his collecting rod and voltage divider network. Then the second strike of that same bolt will surely make a new channel and very likely even the first strike will terminate using the channel and branch off in a newly created channel.

Benny even knows this, but has too little mental ability* to transfer what he knows about one situation to another:

In an earlier post Benny even pointed out that if one wire was at a million volts and nearby another wire was also at approximately that same voltage then there would be no arc from the million volt wire to the slightly lessor voltage wire. If there were to be any arc from the million volt wire, it would be to a point at a much lower voltage, such as the ground.

This is exactly why when the charge accumulates in his capacitor (I don't think it will due to the inductance of his system, but lets assume it does.) the capacitor's voltage will approach the higher voltage of the arc (a "million volt wire") and then the arc will branch off from his collection rod and make a new channel to the ground as is seen in the photo above.

Benny, as others have told you before, wishing a fact were not true will not cancel it. For at lease two different reasons (inductance & lightning takes a path to a low, not high, voltage point) you will get very little charge in your capacitors.

Also 95 or more percent of the energy in the lightning bolt will heat the kilometer of air it arcs thru well above your collector rod.

But don't let facts discourage you. Keep struggling forward with your multiple carts before the horse: patent first, functionality evaluation second, economic analsis third, physical understanding of processes and problems many have failed to solve last. Hell, how can you fail - you have a circuit diagram.

--------------
* Being of low mental ability is usually associated with the lack of ability to learn, even when things are explained repeatedly to you.

 

[phlogistician]

You may not understand the concept of a current divider, so I'll give it a try. Once and only once, for your benefit.

No, forget it. I already explained the concept to Billy, and I'm not sure that he gets it, so forget it.

I understand the idea of a current divider. What I don't understand is why you would then combine the capacitors to make an unusable potential difference. You haven't explained why you think this is desirable, what it will achieve or the practicalities of that arrangement.

Pop Quiz: What's the difference between a capacitor and a broken wire?

Why are you banging on about this? What relevance does it have? You aren't making your collector out of broken wires, so stop trying to divert the conversation.

That settles it. You're a fraud. You never graduated from ANY school that teaches electricity or electronics. You don't know what capacitors do, you don't know how to charge them up, and you don't know how to regulate their charging voltage, and you don't have any qualifications to judge anybody else's thoughts about electricity, capacitors or lightning.

Benny, I showed you the certificate. Twice. You meanwhile have FAILED to demonstrate any grasp of the subject, let alone proof of a qualification. Benny, go google 'capacitor breakdown voltage', you'll get 188,000 results, here's one;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitor#Breakdown_voltage

"Above a particular electric field, known as the dielectric strength Eds, the dielectric in a capacitor becomes conductive. "

So, you either have an ungrounded (because capacitors block DC) element you are hoping lightning will strike, except lightning will not strike it, because it's looking for a path to ground, OR the lightning will break down the insulator, and find a path to ground through it, and then of course, you aren't storing anything, are you? Do you not understand this?

 

[phlogistician]

A note to phlogistician:

True that DC will not flow thru a capacitor, but implied is that the voltage of this DC is constant. If it should change, then the wires of the capacitor will have a current (out of the capacitor if the voltage is dropping and into the capacitor is it is rising, which would be Benny's case.)

My point about capacitors blocking DC, is simply that lightning is looking for a path to ground, and capacitors, having an insulator in them, do not provide that path to ground, so I don't see how Benny is going to encourage lightning to strike his apparatus. The only way surely, is if he has a very, very large lump of metal that looks like a virtual Earth, and capacitors between that and ground, and then of course, the potential difference between the virtual Earth, and true Earth is going to be smaller than the potential difference between the original lightning bolt and Earth.

 

[MacGyver1968]

Benny, I believe you are missing the point that Ph and Billy are making. The aren't saying you can't charge a cap with DC. They are saying there is no direct path for current to flow through the cap.

Let's look at a simplified version of your circuit. Consider a lightning rod connected to one side of a cap, and the other side of the cap is connected to ground. In this circuit, there is no direct path for current from your lightning rod to ground because of the plate separation in the cap. The cap would act like an "open" with reference to ground. Lightning is trying to get to ground. In this circuit, the lightning would be more inclined to just jump over your cap, and go directly to ground, rather than into the cap to charge it. Does that make sense?

 

[Billy T]

Benny, I believe you are missing the point that Ph and Billy are making. The aren't saying you can't charge a cap with DC. They are saying there is no direct path for current to flow through the cap. ...{and the lightning's charge is "trying" to reach the ground}

I am saying that and a little more, which is:

That just as sticking up a grounded lighting rod into the air attracts lightning if some of the lightning's charge were collected by Benny's capacitor, which is connected via his dividers to his still higher collection rod(s) Benny will be doing exactly the opposite from the lighting rod - Repelling lightning bolt strikes (or even causing the remaining part of the first strike to arc from his collecting rod to ground, by-passing Benny's capacitor. I.e not charging it any more.

But it is worse than just not collecting more charge:

When the lightning bolt's first strike is terminating, there is this new, well-ionized, low impedance path to ground from his collection rod,which was made by that arc remaining for some mill-seconds, so the energy that was stored in the capacitor with the first part of the first strike of the bolt will sustain the arc to the ground until there is essentially no charge left in the capacitor.

But again I do not think Benny needs to worry about getting only a tiny part of the 5% of the lightning energy remaining after the bolt has spent 95% of its energy heating the air path a kilometer above Benny's collection rod(s). ("Getting only a tiny part" because of the charge in capacitor is repelling more of the same polarity charge from entering.) The inductance of Benny's collection rod, the divider network and his capacitors will cause even the first part of the first strike to by-pass Benny's storage system and go more directly to ground.

If Benny were to used energy from the power line to reverse charge the capacitor prior to the lightning strike, then Benny's collection rod would work even better than a lightning rod as a collector of lightning. The lightning rod only elevates the zero potential voltage contour. I.e. this way, with capacitor reverse charged and waiting for a lightning bolt, when one was possible Benny could increase the probability it would hit his collector rod. - Sort of "suck it in."

The lighting bolt would cancel out the initial stored energy from power line and leave the capacitor uncharged. - Each bolt Benny collects would then consume the power line energy and yield none, so I don't think Benny plans this; but it is hard to be sure as most of his ideas are crazy and some even violate the laws of physics..

 

[Captain Kremmen]

......and ye canny change the laws of physics Benny.

 

[Captain Kremmen]

Benjamin Franklin has appeared on the news in Britain.
Well, something about him anyway.
A scientist was discussing the huge cloud issuing from the Iceland earthquake, and mentioned that Franklin was the first scientist to see the link between Volcanoes and climate.

This is from his journal. (Note that s's used to appear in books as f's)

During feveral of the fummer months of thc year 1783, when the effect of the fun's rays to heat the earth in these northern regions fhould have been greater, there exifted a conftant fog over all Europe, and great part of North America- This fog was of a permanent nature; it was dry, and the rays of the fun feemed to have little effect towards diffipating it, as they eafily do a moift fog, arifing from water. They were indeed rendcred fo faint in paffing through it, that when collefted in the focus of a burning glafs they woul;l fcarce kindle brown paper.

Of courfe, their fummer effect in heating the earth was exceedingly diminifhed.
Hence the furface was early frozen;

Hence the firft snows remained on it unmelted, and received continual additions. Hence the air was more chilled, and the winds more feverely cold.

Hence perhaps the winter of 1783-4, was mor fevere, than any that had happened for rnany ycars.

The caufe of this univerfal fog is not yet afcertained. Whether it was adventitious to this earth, and merely a fmoke, proceeding from the confumption by fire of fome of thofe great burning balls or globes which we happen to meet with in our rapid courfe round the fun, and which are fomecimes feen to kindle and be deftroyed in paffng our atmofphere, and whofe fmoke might be attracted and retained by our earth; or whether it was the vaft quantity of fmoke, long continuing; to iffue'during the fummer fiom IIecla in Iceland, and that other volcano which arofe out of the fea near that ifland, which rmoke might be fpread by various winds, over the northern part of the world, is yet uncertain . It feems however worth the enquiry, whether other hard winters, recorded in hiftory, were preceded by fimilar permanent and widely extended fummer fogs. Becaufe, if found to be
fo, men migbt from fuch.fogs conjecture tbe probability of fucceeding hard winter, and of the damage. to be expected by the breaking up of frozen rivers in the fpring; and take fuch measures as are poffible and practicable, to fecure themfelves and effects from the mirchiefs that attended the laft.
Passy, May 1784.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comments by the editors:

Franklin imputed the volcanic fog to Hecla Hecla erupted in 1768 but Lakigiger the long fissure in southeastern Iceland erupted the largest volume of lava in historic time in 1783. This was quite surely the culprit. The text of Franklin's article, which was scanned, was supplied to the editors by the Dartmouth College Libraries


from http://www.dartmouth.edu/~volcano/Fr373p77.html

 

[BennyF]

Benny, I believe you are missing the point that Ph and Billy are making. The aren't saying you can't charge a cap with DC. They are saying there is no direct path for current to flow through the cap.

Let's look at a simplified version of your circuit. Consider a lightning rod connected to one side of a cap, and the other side of the cap is connected to ground. In this circuit, there is no direct path for current from your lightning rod to ground because of the plate separation in the cap. The cap would act like an "open" with reference to ground. Lightning is trying to get to ground. In this circuit, the lightning would be more inclined to just jump over your cap, and go directly to ground, rather than into the cap to charge it. Does that make sense?

MacGyver, I've always treasured your ability to put your emotions aside and talk turkey about electric circuits. This response of yours is just as enjoyable as the rest.

I mentioned earlier that the CN Tower in Toronto gets hit more than 20 times every year by lightning bolts. Part of the reason why is the fact that until last year, that building was the tallest building in the world, but another very important part is the metallic nature of whatever is the highest point on the roof. A short distance from a grounded metallic object to the clouds almost guarantees frequent lightning strikes.

My cap bank, purely hypothetical until I receive a patent on the cap charging process, will be attached to some collection equipment that will have a high probability of getting hit during any nearby thunderstorm. This high probability will be raised by having a metallic lightning rod and as much height as the law allows in that area. The other end of the cap bank will be well-grounded. Remember, this is all hypothetical for the purposes of this online discussion.

I plan on disengaging this metallic lightning rod at some point during the lightning strike, thus ensuring against overcharged caps caused by two strikes on the same cap bank during the same thunderstorm. The details won't be revealed until after I receive my patent. In addition, the cap bank will have some special circuitry added to ensure that it remains a low-impedance collector during the first strike. This is something I was taught way back in my electronics school.

I must note with sadness, however, that I see a fork in the road ahead. One road leads to me posting all the details of my circuitry, thus feeding my poor ego. The other road leads to a patent application, which requires that any application contain unpublished details of the proposed invention. I'm afraid I may have to stop adding to this thread. I hope you all understand. Phil is a logician, so I'm sure he understood this ages ago.

 

[BennyF]

When the lightning bolt's first strike is terminating, there is this new, well-ionized, low impedance path to ground from his collection rod,which was made by that arc remaining for some mill-seconds, so the energy that was stored in the capacitor with the first part of the first strike of the bolt will sustain the arc to the ground until there is essentially no charge left in the capacitor.

As I said in the post I just left milliseconds ago, my cap bank will be disengaged from the lightning rod during the first strike, so I care not if a second strike hits the rod.

Benny, trying to honor the scientific mind of Mr. Franklin

 

[phlogistician]

In addition, the cap bank will have some special circuitry added to ensure that it remains a low-impedance collector.

The only way to do that, is to ground the lightning with a lightning rod, surrounded by induction loops. That method is already in use by other researchers, so you cannot patent it.

 

[BennyF]

The only way to do that, is to ground the lightning with a lightning rod, surrounded by induction loops. That method is already in use by other researchers, so you cannot patent it.

It's not the only way, Phil.

 

[Billy T]

... I plan on disengaging this metallic lightning rod at some point during the lightning strike, thus ensuring against overcharged caps caused by two strikes on the same cap bank during the same thunderstorm. ...

If you have new idea for a circuit breaker that can interrupt large currents (>10,000 amps) with high voltages in sub milli-seconds, I.e. make a low impedance path into such a high impedance one that the voltage will not just arc around or thru your circuit breaker, congratulation.

Don't foolishly try to use it in the very uneconomical attempt to store energy of lightning - Patent just that (forget about your capacitors etc.) and then make a fortune selling it to power companies. They have tried for a 100 years to find a way to quickly* disconnect transformers etc. to keep them from being destroyed by lighting strikes.

-------------
* Significantly less than a ms so the lighting bolt does not have time to deliver much energy into the device they want to protect. AFAIK, the best they have come up with is a gap to grounding rod, but you do not want to short the lighting bolt to ground - you want to capture it in your capacitors. A quick disconnect device for high voltage that can interrupt large currents would be valuable. Forget about the rest of your nonsense.

PS I doubt that someone as ignorant as you about this subject could have succeeded in making such a device when really brilliant people like Steinmetz** could not and no one else could in a 100 years of trying.

---------------
** It was either GE or Westinghouse, I forget which, which tried to induce Steinmetz to join them, but he refused huge offered sums of money. He had come to the US (with financial aid of friend) to help that friend in his modest scale electric company. So they bought the whole company just to get Steinmetz!

 

[BennyF]

If you have new idea for a circuit breaker that can interrupt large currents (>10,000 amps) with high voltages in sub milli-seconds, I.e. make a low impedance path into such a high impedance one that the voltage will not just arc around or thru your circuit breaker, congratulation.

Don't foolishly try to use it in the very uneconomical attempt to store energy of lightning - Patent just that (forget about your capacitors etc.) and then make a fortune selling it to power companies. They have tried for a 100 years to find a way to quickly* disconnect transformers etc. to keep them from being destroyed by lighting strikes.

I graduated from my electronics school in 1980, so you may want to consider this an old idea. As I said, it will not be divulged here or anywhere else until I get my patent.

My school didn't teach the technology that power companies use. They had two classes - computer electronics (my specialty) and radio/tv electronics.

 

[BennyF]

To all who read this board.

That fork in the road is getting closer. If I have to choose one road, I will choose to stop adding to this thread and spend my time finishing my patent application(s). There may be two of them, one that saves all of the electricity from a single bolt, and one that saves part of it. The two applications will employ two different technologies, so they would qualify for two different applications.

If I do leave this thread, I will say so. You may still find me on other threads in this website, however, and I will gladly say 'hello' to anyone (well, almost) anyone I have met here.

That means you, Phil.

Benny