Is it possible to generate electricity using an electric motor to turn the generator?

Question

Is it possible to use an electric motor to turn a generator to generate electricity, then in turn for the generator to supply a minute amount of the generated electricity to power the motor that turns the generator whilst still feeding the national grid with electricity.

The generator would produce 33,000 volts of electricity but the motor would be powered by a 1,000 volt current using 5,000 watts of electric power.

Answer 1

to turn electricity into a reuseable resource has been every engineer/electricians dream, if it could be done it would become the planets cheapest energy source.

Answer 2

You might be interested in a dynamotor.
That is a unit containing a motor and a generator.
Many military radios from World War 2 used 12 volt power from trucks and used a dynamotor to generate 250 volts to activate the vacuum tubes.
You seem to be interested in making 33,000 volts from 1000 volts at 5,000 watts. This would work, but the most current you could draw from it would be 5/33 , that is 0.151515 Amps at 33,000 volts if it were 100% efficient. As everyone else pointed out you can not get better than 100% efficiency, and in practice dynamotors were more like 30% so the maximum current you could get would be about 1/20 amp. Do not try it without professional help because 33,000 volts will jump about 2 inches through air and 1/20 amp is more than enough to kill someone.

Answer 3

Motors turning a generator is called The Ward Leonard system.

It is Good system, but Nature NEVER allows you to get something for nothing. The motor by its self cannot generate electricity and it uses it. The generator cannot generate enough electricity so that if connected to the motor, the motor would run and not require any additional electricity.

Answer 4

No. This would be a perpetual motion machine, and the laws of thermodynamics say such a thing can't exist. Even if you could get every last electron moving through that wire to turn the motor, you'd still only have 100% efficiency, so it wouldn't generate any EXTRA power. And of course, in the real world the electrons would lose some of their energy through the wire, there'd be energy lose to friction, etc, so the whole setup would stop very quickly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion

Answer 5

Certainly you can use a motor to turn a generator. It is done to change AC to DC, or vice versa, or to change between 50 Hz and 60 Hz. But neither the motor nor the generator is 100^% efficient, so you can't turn the thing into a perpetual motion machine.

Answer 6

The arrangement is possible. However, because there is no 100% efficient system, your motor will slow down as it will get lesser and lesser power from the generator and in turn, the generator will generate lesser and lesser power and eventually, the whole system would stop.

Answer 7

Since a generator is less than 100% efficient, the process would not be self sustaining.
You can't create energy from nowhere, so a generator can't create more energy that is used to turn it.
Sorry, back to the drawing board!

Answer 8

You are talking perpetual motion here.

Even if you cooled all conductors to absolute zero, and had a very efficient design, you would still have to add enough energy from outside the system to make up for the losses from friction and radiation.

Good luck, have fun, and if you succeed, I'll be glad to invest.

Answer 9

I'm sure its possible but that would just kinda lead you in circles, you would gain as much as you lose. The point of generating energy is through other souces besides pre-generated energy, thats why solar power, wind, water, and maybe nuclear fusion/fission will work better.

Answer 10

no due to the fact that a 3phase generator needs power for the rotor in order to excite the stator and get power from it.