Is anyone building these free energy devices?

Question

I can't help but think that there are more ways of generating electric power than what we currently do.

What about tide wve generators? I know that the tides are hugely strong and you cannot reist their power, so why hasn't there been power stationes built upon craggy, rocky coastal areas of earth?

How about the geothermal vents on the ocean floor, fast flowing HOT water to power turbines?
deep and not so deep ocean currents?
volcanic heat exchanger, thermocouple electricity?
antarctic 300 mph wind electricity farms? Mountain top fast wind farms?

Has anyone theoretically figured out how to handle and capture the giga watt energies of lightning?
Could lightning strikes be attracted sufficiently and used to charge mountainous battery arrays?

I just wonder if these things could be done to free us from oil dependence.

Opinions and thoughts?

Answer 1

There is some interest in tidal generators, but they are very costly to build and the output is not constant. Not only does it vary during the day, it varies with the phase of the moon. (Maximum at new moon and full.)

There is also some interest in geothermal power. There is a geothermal electricity plant north of San Francisco. There are problems:
- What you get out of the ground is not nice clean steam -- it is a mixture of steam, water droplets, sand, gravel, hydrogen sulfide, and other contaminants that will turn your turbine into junk unless you clean it up first.
- You have to pump the condensate water back into the ground. That takes energy.
- The thermal efficiency is lousy, because the steam is at low temperature. Hence, great gobs of waste heat are released to the atmosphere.
- There are not a lot of sites around the world where geothermal energy can be obtained. The one near San Francisco is, I think, the only one in the US. Iceland has quite a lot of it; there is a lot of volcanic activity there.

Lightning: Not practical in the foreseeable future. The flashes are too short to be easily captured, even if you had a mast that lightning liked.

Answer 2

All the tree huggers keep complaining about our dependence on foreign oil, but it seems that every time someone comes up with an idea on a solution they don't like it. They talk about wind farms, but when someone wanted to put one in Nantucket sound... Oh no! The Kennedy's would have none of that! Even Robert Kennedy Jr., a supposed wind power proponent, didn't want it (they have a house there). The old NIMBY effect (Not In My Back Yard).
One statement they use to try to justify not supporting solutions is "that would just be a drop in the bucket". If we had enough "drops" the bucket would start filling up.

Answer 3

First of all, think of the consequences. Tapping the earth's termal energies could potentially disrupt the ecosystem in the oceans for instance. Second, think of what the conditions on the arctic would do to a rotor blade for instance: it would freeze shut in no time at all.

There are, however, people building zero point energy devices. These devices could, in potential, solve the entire crises. We should be very carefull at first though, seeing as we do not know the full effects of tapping into these energies....if we ever learn how...just think of what we are doing now using fossil fuels

Anyway..I am currently planning some experiments on the matter and am looking forward to seeing some proof or denial of theory.

Answer 4

I see you have given this a lot of thought.

I have high hopes for these greener energy sources, but I don't believe in my life time that I will see them as the norm rather than the exception.
Here's the dilemma as I see it. The power to make big change is in politics, but politics is not usually the arena that most 'green' people are comfortable in. (A broad generalization I know, but I think you know what I mean.)
I've been trying to compose this answer for quite some time and I'm finding it really hard to put things succinctly. I'm going to quit while I'm ahead. Good night. (I'm taking this Answers thing way too seriously!!)

Answer 5

The earth is a big battery we just need to run wires from north pole and south pole to power the earth or short it out?
Turing off our magnitophere protecting the earth from the sun and killing us in a few days
But i think the oil companys will buy the rights or cover it up like all the other inventions.

Answer 6

What about a blanket that converts body heat into electricity?
sounds dumb, but if it charged up 2 AA batteries in a week, that would save batteries and making batteries takes energy!
sometimes a little savings saves a lot.
make less batteries, less factory energy. less boxes and the energy to make them, less fuel to deliver them, less ink to print on boxes and packages

just thinking out loud I guess

Answer 7

You left out the Aurora Borealis as an energy source. Bottom line, cost. It's much cheaper to do it with other sources.

Answer 8

1. tide generators, tried them, to costly to be useful
2. vents are to unstable to be cost effective
3. lighting is to undependable of a source