Ummm.. Vacuum Energy if it's true as NASA and Magnetic Power Inc says..?
I don't see how we can get out of vacuum.. cause it dosen't exactly exist..?
Ehh.... google Zero Point Energy, it's all theoretical.
Solar Panels provide free energy.
We have to be careful with that word "free"... but I see you clarified it a little further down.
Sure, I accept that creating energy from nothing is impossible, but maybe they simply don't understand their own technology, and it isn't coming from nothing at all, maybe it is coming from a very definite source which will be identified at a later date.
Yeah, exactly my thoughts, I don't think there is free energy at any level, just sources we can't really comprehend.
Here's my crazy free energy scheme (not really free, and not really worth it):
One thing I've thought about is how to extract energy from the natural rotation, orbits, and inner convection of the planets in the solar system, no doubt some energy would be produced, but most likely at too low of levels to even be worth the effort, but here it is:
Picture a typical dynamo, power is generated by moving the field of permanent magnets perpendicular to tightly wound coils of wire, when the field around a particular section of the wire collapses, this creates a flux, this in effect "drags" electrons through the wire and creates a current, now... if we were to build a large enough coil, and set it deep enough into the earth's crust, we might be able to pick up some of the flux from the molten iron and nickel swashing around inside, since that is where the planet's magnetic field is generated.
Similar could be done by placing such a coil between two orbiting (and still geologically active) celestial bodies... [but we have to account for the inverse square law, which would make this option too impractical to even mention in a post on a forum board]
Does someone know the approximate magnetic field strength of the sun? I'll google it, but still, some info from someone who knows more about it than me would be cool.
- Or -
Use rockets with a thin wire tether and shoot them into the atmosphere during lightning storms to
trigger lightning, and use the energy in the wire to drive a giant electromagnetic armature to lift something really heavy into the air, and have a self locking mechanism to keep it there, then use the converted electrical energy as gravitational potential energy and slowly let the weight fall to the ground all the while driving an array of small dynamos which output electricity (but now at levels that won't detonate even our biggest capacitors)
But again... I expect solar technology to mature greatly in the coming decades, and even if they top out at 50% efficiency, they will still be more economical than any other source. Besides RTGs of course.
EDIT: Typo
Edited by Joseph, 16 July 2007 - 06:47 AM.