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Electric Ice
#1
This is a spinoff from my earlier post here: 

https://www.mooker.com/thread-26-post-3034.html#pid3034


In regard Tesla's "Self-acting-engine", Tesla proposed a heat engine that could operate continually without fuel using the ambient heat in the air by...; to quote:


"by expending initially a certain amount of work to create a sink for the heat or, respectively, the water to flow in, a condition enabling us to get any amount of energy without further effort."

I think a simple example of this is a Stirling engine running on ice.

By running "on ice", in reality, the engine is, at least according to generally accepted theory, actually running on the unlimited supply of ambient heat in the surrounding atmosphere/environment continually renewed by the Sun,  so long as the sun continues to shine.

The problem of course is that the ice melts but setting that aside for the moment, the level of "heat" or thermal energy in the ambient environment is an arbitrary BASE or GROUND level of energy. The ice then is NEGATIVE (-) in relation to ground (ambient).

Let's imagine that, not only is the environment all around us on planet earth "charged" with heat from the sun but also charged with electricity at an arbitrary energy level. Then perhaps the "ambient" electrical charge could be tapped into by creating or supplying a negative (-) (less than "ground") electrical "sink" for the surrounding "free energy" (ground state electricity, positively charged relative to our electrical "sink") to flow into.

Now, admittedly I'm a blind man groping in the dark when it comes to electronics, however, a few minutes spent browsing the terms "electricity negative to ground" convinced me I could be onto something.

For example, I found this blog discussion quite interesting:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/...e-voltage/

Of particular interest to me is that some of the comments there suggest that an electrical "ground" is arbitrary and there can be such a thing as negative voltage in relation to ground, especially in an isolated power supply, such as batteries connected in series with no external ground (Newman motor etc.). You can pick any terminal in the series arbitrarily to be "ground".

The question is, I think; can we create a negative terminal that is negative relative to the literal environmental EARTH  "ground" state? then run our motors on this "electric ice"? The electrical equivalent of a Stirling engine running on ambient heat by utilizing ice.

Here is a conventional explanation of how a Stirling "HEAT engine" can run on COLD.



Again, setting aside the question of where the heat actually ends up, does it (the "heat") simply MOVE through the engine and down into the ice or is the heat converted ? The question I want to explore here, primarily is; What would be the electrical equivalent of ICE so that, for example, we could literally stick a metal rod (conductor)  down into the earth (ground) and power a motor by connecting the other terminal to our "electric ice" or BELOW ground negative electrical potential?

Or, alternatively, perhaps it might be possible to create an "isolated" power supply that in some manner or another draws on the surrounding ambient electromagnetic energy?

To make ice requires a refrigeration system.

I believe, a long time ago, I once took apart a portable 12 volt travel refrigerator/heater to see what made it work.

From what I recall, it was not a Peltier device, rather, on the cooler side it (the electrical circuit) was connected to a very heavy gauge aluminum wire. The big fat aluminum wire itself was getting cold. This in turn cooled an aluminum plate that cooled a compartment.

This reminded me of an ordinary  vapor/compression refrigeration system, but in this case it appeared that the refrigerant or "working fluid" was electricity.

On one side there was an ordinary wire, or perhaps tungsten wire acting as a heating element in one compartment, (corresponding to a condenser coil in a refrigeration system)  this went through an insulated wall and emerged on the other side as, or attached to the heavy aluminum wire (corresponding to the evaporator tubes in a refrigeration system). I was quite young at the time I made these observations, but as far as I can recall, that was about all there was to this travel cooler/heater used to keep food warm and a drink cold at the same time. 

Can electricity be manipulated in such a way? "compressed" on one side of a circuit and "expanded" into a "vacuum" on the other side of a circuit, just by using dissimilar wire?

Now, if so, would not the "refrigerator" side of the circuit (heavy aluminum wire) be drawing in energy from the environment in the form of heat, like the evaporator (ice box) in a refrigerator?

Just speculating, but, there are all those self-running or "overunity" motors that reportedly get colder as they operate instead of warmer.

Maybe heat energy and electrical energy are, or can be, mediated by Newman's "gyroscopic particles" so that environmental heat/energy can become, or in some way feed into an electromagnetic circuit?
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#2
I just came across this incredibly interesting and informative video that even relates the Peltier effect to the Stirling engine!

Most interesting also is how he also relates electrons to a "gas" and how a gas heats up or cools when compressed or expanded

https://youtu.be/O6waiEeXDGo



Here is my attempt at relating (or conflating) the Seebeck effect with a vapor-compression (heat pump) cycle:

Image grabbed (screenshot) and modified from the not particularly interesting video here: https://youtu.be/YUTlzcOHs5w

   


My assumption being that the electron flow is from negative to positive.

Also, the Bismuth segment appears to serve the same function as a capillary tube or expansion valve.

My old travel cooler I believe has the heavy aluminum wire on the expansion (positive) side (probably) serving as a "vacuum".

In other words the restriction (capillary or valve, the Bismuth) causes electrons to stack up at the junction on the right, or probably the entire wire on the right.(Negative side) But the electrons on the left are absorbed out of the wire into the battery positive terminal, leaving a partial electron "vacuum".

I can see replacing the battery with a generator for continuous operation.

This is a somewhat different theory from the conventional. If correct the "junction" is not important.

The "refrigerating" effect should be throughout the "evaporator" side wire but due to lack of thermal insulation the cooling effect that starts at the junction is quickly neutralized by ambient heat (or so I'm speculating/theorizing)

Likewise the hot junction is immediately cooled by the relative cold of the ambient surroundings.

At any rate, my recollection is that the heavy gauge aluminum wire, in my old travel cooler, which was of some considerable length, perhaps a few feet, grew cold from end to end, but, of course, was thermally insulated within the coolers cold side compartment. The heating and cooling were not just at the junctions, I don't believe.
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#3
This video provides some additional food for thought touching on, in addition to the Seebeck and Peltier effects, the generation of magnetism and also the Joule and Thomson effects.



What I found most interesting was the mention about these devices, in some respects violating conservation of energy, at least until you throw heat into the mix.

I may need to watch this video another half dozen times and look up the other related subjects.

The Thomson effect, I know from refrigeration (or is it the same Thomson effect) when a gas passes through a restriction and expands it cools [usually]) but I've never heard of it in connection with electricity.

Newman's "unified field" theory is starting to make more and more sense to me.

We now have heat, electricity, magnetism, heat pumps/refrigeration, Stirling engines...

So,... We could use a candle flame to power an electromagnet. Magnetism to generate heat or electricity or mechanical motion... Expand and compress electrons in a metal like gas in a cylinder etc. etc.
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#4
A thought crosses my mind.

If, (a big "if" I guess) a junction is not really, or not always the main factor.

Like suppose you could put a conductor between a wood stove and the earth, there could be an electrical potential generated. But, it wouldn't, or might not actually go anywhere because, well, the electrons in the wire in the stove are "expanded" but then at a certain point stop. There is a potential between the "gas" or electrons expanded at one end in the fire but compressed at the other end, but maybe no continuous flow
between.

But, there is a similar, or apparently the same situation in certain Stirling engine designs.

If you heat up the engine at one end the gas will expand and drive out the piston a certain distance and then stop.

These engines do not have any displacer to shift the air from the hot to the cold side, so the gas only expands and pushes the piston out a ways and that's it.

To get the engine to begin running you have to mechanically expand or compress the air in the cylinder, it doesn't matter which, but to set up an oscillation you have to do one or the other.



These engines, instead of a displacer use a different mechanism to "pulse" the heat and create an oscillation or ALTERNATING CURRENT! (Sort of, maybe?)

So, what I'm thinking is, between the wood stove and ground you get a build up of "pressure" in a wire (I'm theorizing) if you could then give that a bump one way or the other to set up an oscillation you could produce an alternating current between the heat source and ground that would oscillate back and forth in the wire.

The Stirling engine in the above video has a few additional elements. A wad of stainless steel turnings or steel wool that IMO acts as a thermal accumulator. It also has a restriction, similar to a venturi.

Could these have their electrical analogs in a capacitor perhaps and....

What would constitute a "venturi" or narrow passage that accelerates the flow of electrons?

Probably not a resistor.

Maybe a thinner segment of wire composed of silver? Narrow but still highly conductive so the electrons speed through.

You would need some sort of alternating current load in the circuit I suppose.

Basically just electron "gas" expanding and contracting in a conductor to create an "alternating current" that doesn't actually go anywhere but can power a device.

The Thomson effect is particularly interesting and puzzling.

In refrigeration it is unusual in that different gases, when expanded in most cases will cool down or in some way lose energy but in some cases, like helium the gas will heat up rather than cooling.

The same is apparently true when applied to electric current through various metals.

If a metal bar is heated in the center and a current is passed through, the bar will heat up on one end and cool down on the other. But this changes depending on the type of metal

Some metals will heat up on the positive side of the heat source and cool on the other end but other metals will do the opposite, heating up on the negative side of the circuit and cooling on the positive.

What on earth causes such strange effects?

Does the heating a small section of the metal conductor act as a restriction, a point of high "pressure" or "expansion" of electrons.

Does this act similar to the expansion valve in a refrigeration system?

But strangest of all, why does the temperature flip flop when using different metals?

Maybe the particular metal is conducting "holes" in the opposite direction?
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#5
Now, assuming "electron gas" can be used in a refrigeration system or heat pump similar to an ordinary refrigerant...

There is a refrigeration method that does not involve phase change, generally referred to as an "air cycle system" or ACM or air cycle machine.

There are various configurations possible, but one of the most interesting is a bootstrap system using a turbo expander.

A turbo-expander is basically just a compressor and air driven motor coupled together on the same shaft so that the compressor compresses the air that runs the air motor which air driven motor in turn runs the compressor that compresses the air to run the motor in a kind of perpetual loop that requires relatively little outside energy input to maintain.

Let's imagine that an ordinary electric motor is, by more than just analogy, a king of "compressed gas motor" using compressed "electron gas" as a driving force.

The compressed "electron gas" driven motor (just an ordinary electric motor) can be mechanically coupled to a generator, which is an "electron gas" compressor.

This, theoretically, could be the basis for a heat pump.

The generator "pumping" (compressing)
the electron gas through a heating element (basically just a wire with some heat output) to a motor that acts as a restriction or expansion valve or rather an expansion turbine.

The electron gas "pressure" then, builds up on the "condenser" side of the system releasing heat due to so many electrons being crammed together into the wire (heating element).

After the motor the compressed "electron gas" is released into a fat, very roomy wire. (Recall the heavy aluminum cooling wire in my travel cooler) Where the electron gas is free to expand into the relative "vacuum", which is deficit in electrons due to the pumping action of the generator constantly "sucking" out electrons from the "evaporator" and putting them over into the "condenser".

In the "evaporator" (heavy aluminum wire) heat can be absorbed (cooling).

Now you have, in effect, a nearly "self running" heat pump using "electron gas" as the working fluid.

But of course, there will be loses.

There is a whole load of heat continually being dissipated.

Here is a visual representation:


   

Probably everyone has heard, or knows: "it is easier to MOVE heat than to create or generate heat.

Well, here we have (theoretically) a kind of heat pump, using, (based on previous information posted) demonstrated technology (Seebeck, Peltier, Thomson effects etc.) that pumps a lot of heat while using a relatively small amount of input energy, ideally, no input energy at all if the system were entirely lossless.

Not only is heat being moved and concentrated but the mechanical energy consumed by the generator is added in with the MOVED heat, producing some additional heat.

Now, of course, ordinarily, in any electrical system, any heat generated is nothing but "waste heat".

Well, there is also the COLD side.

Remember the COP of a heat pump is based on either its cooling capacity OR it's heating capacity relative to the energy input. But if you can use both the heating and cooling simultaneously, then the COP is effectively doubled.

Well, what use is this?

So we have a HOT. heating element and a COLD element and a lot of loses. You can't REALLY use a generator to drive a motor to drive a generator that drives the motor and get "free" heating and cooling out of it right? That would be "perpetual motion", a violation of the 2nd Law of thermodynamics and probably the first as well. No way, impossible, right?

Well, I don't know. It looks kind of feasible to me, actually.

And you could make up for the loses by using the "waste heat" output to run a Stirling engine, mechanically coupled to the heat pump.

And a Stirling engine will run on supplied heat, OR cold, OR BOTH with double the power output of just one or the other.

It's hard for me to imagine how a system that generated or "pumps" or supplies so much heat, but takes practically no input energy to run, with a combined heating and cooling COP of say 3 for heating + 3 for cooling = 6, can't make up its relatively modest loses from the output of a Stirling engine running on all that "waste heat" with at least a little left over to spare.

Peter Lindemann has been singing basically this same song for a couple  decades:



This is just a kind of new twist on the theme.
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#6
If I'm right, then I think my old travel cooler probably worked on the Thomson effect.

That would also mean that the "problem" of the Thomson effect discussed in this earlier video, towards the end: https://youtu.be/KFHFReWGjMA. Is wrong, or, maybe not so much wrong but based on a faulty understanding. Infact, the whole rationale for the Peltier device would be based on a faulty understanding.

According to that video, the Peltier device, those flat wafers that get hot on one side but cold on the other, was developed out of an effort to ELIMINATE the Thomson effect. (See from about 9:30)

But, if my theory is correct and we are dealing with the compression and expansion of "electron gas" as a refrigerant, then trying to eliminate the Thomson heating and cooling effect would be like trying to eliminate the long condenser and evaporator tubes from a heat pump, just because we noticed that the hottest point was right at the junction of the condenser pipe near the compressor, and the coldest point right after the expansion valve.

While this IS actually true, the "junctions" in a refrigeration system ARE actually the hottest and coldest points, no refrigeration system or heat pump engineer would consider it a good idea to eliminate the long condenser and evaporator tubes and instead have hundreds or thousands of "junctions".

While that, in theory, might actually SEEM to work, it would not really be based on sound principles and would be pretty inefficient.

Poking around a bit I found some papers on efforts to utilize the Thomson effect for thermoelectric cooling as an alternative to the Peltier device, and it appears that the findings are, or suggest that a Thomson effect thermoelectric device can be many times more efficient than a conventional Peltier device and not as limited as far as the temperature differences achieved. One paper suggested that a Thomson thermoelectric cooler might, theoretically, be able to reach cryogenic temperatures.

I think the Thomson effect could be much more effective if properly understood (if  the "electron gas" theory is correct) and needs a lot more looking into

My impression is that not much has been done to investigate the phenomenon since Thompson himself discovered it.
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#7


Note, in this description how the Thomson effect is "throughout the length of the wire".

It is believed or assumed that the effect depends on the direction of the electron flow, which would still be true if the "electron gas" refrigeration theory is correct.

Think of a reversible heat pump.

The "reversal" simply changes which side of the "expansion valve" is being observed.

Electrons or "electron gas" accumulates (or is compressed) on the negative side of the restriction (expansion valve) whereas a "vacuum" develops after the valve or restriction resulting in cooling.

Naturally reversing the current reverses which side is "before" and which is "after".

In this video only 1/2 of the "heat pump" is being looked at.
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#8
One thing that is a bit mysterious is the Thomson effect is reversed for different metals.

"Positive" for copper, antimony, silver, zink cadmium, tin, and... sources almost always include "etc." or "and similar metals"

"Negative" for iron, platinum, Bismuth, cobalt, nickel, mercury and "etc" or "similar"

What is not explained is what differentiates these categories, positive and negative?

What do the positive metals or substances have in common? Same question for the negative.

I've compared the various properties of the metals in these two "sets" but haven't found any shared properties for which there are not exceptions.

I also cannot find a full list to fill in the "etc" or any real explanation of what constitutes "similar" in either case.

Oh, and lead seems to be alone in that it has neither positive nor negative Thomson effect.

I can also find virtually no video demonstrations using infrared or other actual temperature readings showing this phenomenon live on camera.

It seems like a rather neglected area of study and research, but one that may have considerable potential.
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