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From: kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT)
Newsgroups: net.physics,net.misc
Subject: Re: "Free Energy Machine"
Message-ID: <661@hounx.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 10-Mar-86 10:14:02 EST
Article-I.D.: hounx.661
Posted: Mon Mar 10 10:14:02 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 12-Mar-86 04:23:55 EST
References: <326@inuxm.UUCP> <702@osiris.UUCP>, <1639@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel NJ
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Xref: watmath net.physics:3919 net.misc:9361

There is indeed abundant free energy flowing about the planet.
In telephony, differences in ground potential cause large longitudinal
currents in telephone lines.  The "balanced pair" was invented to
eliminate the noisy static when the earth was used to provide the
return path for the signal sent down a single conductor.  The amount
of energy in these sources is measurable but not commercially profitable
to tap.  Static discharges in the atmosphere (e.g. lightning and auroras)
contain enormous amounts of energy but are not easily tapped with
available technology.  Ben Franklin could have been eloctructed when
he flew a kite in an electrical storm.  So theoretically, we could
tap the energy in atmospheric static electricity, or ocean waves,
or thermal clines, or sunlight, or wind, or flowing water.  And we do.
Fluctuating magnetic fields also contain energy.  But a high school physics
student can calculate for you the energy potential, and a commercial investor
would be discouraged at the numbers.  Energy goes for about eight cents
a kilowatt hour.  Commercial energy supplies must be in the megawatt
range or higher.  Sources not meeting the criteria for commercial success
exist all right.  But they are in the category of toys and curiosities.

So I wouldn't condemn the inventor of the Free Energy Machine as a crackpot.
(Although I might suggest some edifying literature that he might peruse.)
But neither would I invest in his enterprise.

--Barry Kort   ...ihnp4!hounx!kort