More negative than actual ground?

Is there any way, either in theory or practice, to produce a voltage than is _negative_ in potential with respect the Earth's surface?

Pleae note, I am not referring to the relative ground of something like a plus and minus power supply. But rather to extract electrons from the ground.

I am also not looking for "free energy", as I realize energy would need to be expended to achieve this ... in effect, another kind of generator.

Before someone tells me it cannot be done, I would point out that natural lgihting involves just such a reverse flow. It is invisible to the eye but has been photographed with UV sensitive film. I believe the term is "convective current".

Fire away!

Evan Brisco

Reply to
Even Brisco
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Stick a wire in the ground, stick the + end of a 9V battey to it. Voila, the - end of the battery is now -9V wrt earth.... What's the big deal?

Reply to
a7yvm109gf5d1

Of course it is. Why wouldn't it be possible? Keep your day job.

Bob

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Reply to
BobW

Perhaps I did not state my question correctly.

In the arrangement you describe, the battery is still the source of the electrons, or negative voltage.

I want the EARTH to be the source.

Evan Brisco

Reply to
Even Brisco

The answer is yes. Use a circuit loop with a battery. The total voltage added up aroundthe loop is zero volts, following kirkoffs voltage law. Collect the electrons from Earth, send them into the battery positive terminal by using electrostatic attraction. Connect the battery negative terminal to complete the loop by using a wire from the battery to the Earth. Electricity flows in the loop in the form of current. The electrons leave the Earth, go to the battery and go through a chemical reaction in the battery. After they are involved in that reaction atoms send the electrons into the wire andd then on to the Earth to be cycled again in the loop.

Reply to
Globemaker

If the earth is sourcing the electrons, then the voltage they are flowing towards will be positive won't it? So reverse the battery. A high enough voltage would "extract electrons from the ground". Connect the battery ground wire some distance away and they will be fresh electrons, not recycled ones. :)

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John Devereux
Reply to
John Devereux

Friction.

Rub the ground with something that is more attractive to electrons than a typical basalt, silica or quartz granite. Same as polishing a glass rod with silk to charge it with static electricity.

Your question is ambiguous but it looks like you are asking about the triboelectric effect. eg

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Most rocks containing quartz will behave roughly like glass.

There may be severe leakage problems with damp earth.

Regards, Martin Brown

Reply to
Martin Brown

If the Earth is then the "source" of the ealectrons, does this imply the battery would last indefinitely?

Evan Brisco

Reply to
Even Brisco

They've been doing this for decades:

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and even AC:
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Hope This Helps! Rich

Reply to
Rich Grise

Evan asked,

No. The battery would heat up and leak. The Earth will maintain charge neutrality and cool off while absorbing the eventual leak age . Time is money. Knowledge is power. Energy is power multiplied by time. Time is as imaginary as the square root of minus one. Money is the energy of imagination divided among the knowledgeable.

Reply to
Globemaker

Electron movement implies some sort of work being done, or energy being stored or released.

Lightning? The sun delivers heat causing atmospheric pressue differentials that cause air movement that picks up static charges that, in lightning, are suddenly released. The earth acts as both a passive conductor and a terminal of sttrage in this case. The earth doesn't have to be involved in any specific lightning discharge - they occur much more frequently between charged spaces in the atmosphere.

If you consider the rotating earth (iron core) as an element in an electromagnetic or electrodynamic generator, you might couple out some of the spin energy as current flow in a properly-oriented conductor. The ionosphere may be one example. ELF field generation is probably another.

RL

Reply to
legg

Batteries don't go dead because you used up their electrons. You use up its potential energy.

What you are really asking is, can you make the earth the source of the potential energy. For that you need to rearrange certain chemicals of the earth in proximity to each other. But then you would have made a battery.

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Reply to
Tom Del Rosso

You misunderstand, then. The battery is the _pump_, but if electrons come out of the battery, it's because electrons are going into it from the earth.

The battery _is_ the 'source' of the negative voltage, whatever that means.

Go back to Physics 101. Go directly back to Physics 101. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

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Tim Wescott
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Tim Wescott

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