If you stretch a wire across your yard, would it generate a voltage?

Question

If you touch the wire to a meter and the other meter lead to ground, how many volts could I expect to get? I heard talk of some experiment in Canada where they were to build a large tower to generate power from the sky, not solar.

It was a tower that could catch energy from somewhere like the milky way or northern something. The place in Canada was closest to this area.

Answer 1

if the wire had a diode somewhere along its length, wou could expect to see a little DC voltage/current. The strength would depend on how far you were from a radio transmitter, and how nearly the length of your wire matvhed the frequency of the radio station.

it was proposed to build giant solar energy collectors in orbit, then beam the energy to earth as radio waves which would be picked up by "Rectennas" short pieces of wire with a diode in the middle.

The towers you read about were to catch the northern lights, or more accurately the electrical energy in the solar wind, which is channeled to the poles by the magnetic field of earth.

Answer 2

NO

The wire would not generate anything, It would just be a wire hanging in the air. Any meter you used to measure the wire would read "nothing" when placed between the wire and ground.

To have a voltage generated, you must have a "circuit."
That is, both ends of the wire must connect to something, and then the wire must be influenced by an external force.

For example:
If you took the wire and ran it all the way out into the yard and back again you would create part of a large loop. Now if you connected one end of the wire to a 100 ohm resistor, and the other end to the other end of the 100 ohm resistor, you would have a loop terminated in a 100 ohm load.

During a heavy electrical storm you could place a sensitive AC voltmeter across the 1000 ohm resistor and see some voltage blips caused by the static charges given off by nearby lightning activity. These blips are not of much use in the operation of any electrical device like a motor, radio, or power unit.

Depending upon the sensitivity of your particular AC voltmeter, you could simulate the effect of those static energy bursts upon your wire loop by winding part of the loop wire around a soft iron rod (very magnetic) for say 50 - 100 turns. Then take the magnet out of a busted radio speaker and move it rapidly across the side of the soft iron rod, passing over the coiled wire. You will induce an electrical pulse in the wire for each time you pass the magnet over the coil. that pulse should be visable on a sensitive AC voltmeter. Now you are generating something. The trick is to stand there and do that for hours and hours and hours to produce electrical current.

Oh yeah, i almost forgot... That wire... it must be insulated from everything except where it is soldered to the ends of the 100 ohm resistor. Without the insulation, you are back where you started. At nothing...

Answer 3

I guess there'd be some background voltage, maybe (like background radiation.) But it wouldn't be much. Otherwise, we'd go plug our appliances in the ground instead of in outlets. You might get some more electricity during a storm or if you lived under an electricity wire thing, like remember that X-Files where the dude's head was gonna explode if he didn't keep moving west? Where he lived under high-voltage wires and it made some kind of aneurysm or something in his brain? That kinda thing.

As far as a sky tower to generate power...you might be missing a couple of steps. Does it, like, catch lightning bolts or something? I don't get it. There must be more to it than just a big tower. See if you can find out more about the tower--I'm intrigued.

Answer 4

Inducing a voltage requires a current carrying conductor, a magnetic field, and relative motion between the two. You will probably be able to measure some small voltage with a multimeter, but you are only measuring a difference in potential, and not generating anything. The large tower probably is just getting static electricity from the air.

Answer 5

You would get a voltage. If from nothing else, then stray magnetic fields from nearby power lines. But there is a basic rule: voltage is essentially free. Heck, you can generate it just by walking across a carpet in a dry room. The stuff that costs $$$ is current. And voltage without corresponding current is pretty much useless for powering anything.