Energy From The Medium—the Windmill And The Solar Engine

Motive Power From Terrestrial Heat

We might eventually derive power from limestone.

The carbonic acid can be freed through sulphuric acid or otherwise. This acid can then run machines.

I once constructed such an engine, and it operated satisfactorily.

Whatever our source of primary energy may be, we must obtain it without consuming any material.

Long ago I concluded that this can be done only 2 ways:

1. Use the energy of the sun stored in the ambient medium, or
2. Transmit, through the medium, the sun’s energy to distant places from some locality where it was obtainable without consumption of material.

Back then, I rejected the latter method as entirely impracticable, and turned to examine the possibilities of the former.

Since time immemorial, man has used the windmill to utilize the energy of the ambient medium.

The power obtainable from wind is very considerable.

Many deluded inventors have spent years trying to “harness the tides”. Some have even proposed to compress air by tide- or wave-power for supplying energy. They never understood the signs of the old windmill on the hill, as it sorrowfully waved its arms about and bade them stop.

A wave- or tide-motor would have, as a rule, a small chance of competing commercially with the windmill, which is by far the better machine.

The windmill allows more energy to be obtained in a simpler way.

The machines are large for a given output, and the power is intermittent, thus necessitating the storage of energy and increasing the cost of the plant.

Solar Power

A far better way, however, to obtain power would be to avail ourselves of the sun’s rays, which beat the earth incessantly and supply energy at a maximum rate of over 4 million horsepower per square mile.

Although the average energy received per square mile in any locality during the year is only a small fraction of that amount, yet an inexhaustible source of power would be opened up by the discovery of some efficient method of utilizing the energy of the rays.

The only rational way known to me at the time when I began the study of this subject was to employ some kind of heat- or thermodynamic-engine, driven by a volatile fluid evaporate in a boiler by the heat of the rays. But closer investigation of this method, and calculation, showed that, notwithstanding the apparently vast amount of energy received from the sun’s rays, only a small fraction of that energy could be actually utilized in this manner.

The energy supplied through the sun’s radiations is periodical.

The same limitations as in the use of the windmill I found to exist here also. After a long study of this mode of obtaining motive power from the sun, taking into account the necessarily large bulk of the boiler, the low efficiency of the heat-engine, the additional cost of storing the energy and other drawbacks, I came to the conclusion that the “solar engine,” a few instances excepted, could not be industrially exploited with success.

Another way of getting motive power from the medium without consuming any material would be to utilize the heat contained in the earth, the water, or the air for driving an engine.

The interior portions of the globe are very hot, the temperature rising, as observations show, with the approach to the center at the rate of approximately 1 degree C. for every hundred feet of depth.

The difficulties of sinking shafts and placing boilers at depths of, say, twelve thousand feet, corresponding to an increase in temperature of about 120 degrees C., are not insuperable, and we could certainly avail ourselves in this way of the internal heat of the globe.

In fact, it would not be necessary to go to any depth at all in order to derive energy from the stored terrestrial heat.

The superficial layers of the earth and the air strata close to the same are at a temperature sufficiently high to evaporate some extremely volatile substances, which we might use in our boilers instead of water.

A vessel might be propelled on the ocean by an engine driven by such a volatile fluid, no other energy being used but the heat abstracted from the water. But the amount of power which could be obtained in this manner would be, without further provision, very small.

Electricity From Natural Sources

Electricity produced by natural causes is another source of energy which might be rendered available. Lightning discharges involve great amounts of electrical energy, which we could utilize by transforming and storing it. Some years ago I made known a method of electrical transformation which renders the first part of this task easy, but the storing of the energy of lightning discharges will be difficult to accomplish.

Electric currents circulate constantly through the earth, and that there exists between the earth and any air stratum a difference of electrical pressure, which varies in proportion to the height.

In recent experiments I have discovered two novel facts of importance in this connection. One of these facts is that an electric current is generated in a wire extending from the ground to a great height by the axial, and probably also by the translatory, movement of the earth. No appreciable current, however, will flow continuously in the wire unless the electricity is allowed to leak out into the air.

Its escape is greatly facilitated by providing at the elevated end of the wire a conducting terminal of great surface, with many sharp edges or points.

We are thus enabled to get a continuous supply of electrical energy by merely supporting a wire at a height, but, unfortunately, the amount of electricity which can be so obtained is small.

The second fact which I have ascertained is that the upper air strata are permanently charged with electricity opposite to that of the earth.

So, at least, I have interpreted my observations, from which it appears that the earth, with its adjacent insulating and outer conducting envelope, constitutes a highly charged electrical condenser containing, in all probability, a great amount of electrical energy which might be turned to the uses of man, if it were possible to reach with a wire to great altitudes.

It is probable that in time, other resources of energy will be opened up, of which we have no knowledge now.

We may even find ways of applying forces such as magnetism or gravity for driving machinery without using any other means. Such realizations, though highly improbable, are not impossible. An example will best convey an idea of what we can hope to attain and what we can never attain. Imagine a disk of some homogeneous material turned perfectly true and arranged to turn in frictionless bearings on a horizontal shaft above the ground. This disk, being under the above conditions perfectly balanced, would rest in any position.

We may learn how to make such a disk rotate continuously and perform work by the force of gravity without any further effort on our part; but it is perfectly impossible for the disk to turn and to do work without any force from the outside. If it could do so, it would be what is designated scientifically as a “perpetuum mobile,” a machine creating its own motive power.

To make the disk rotate by the force of gravity we have only to invent a screen against this force. By such a screen we could prevent this force from acting on one half of the disk, and the rotation of the latter would follow. At least, we cannot deny such a possibility until we know exactly the nature of the force of gravity.

Suppose that this force were due to a movement comparable to that of a stream of air passing from above toward the center of the earth. The effect of such a stream upon both halves of the disk would be equal, and the latter would not rotate ordinarily; but if one half should be guarded by a plate arresting the movement, then it would turn.