Will this kind of electrical generator work?

Here is a copy of the writing that I originally posted "Science Hobbyist - General Science Forum"

********************************** Greetings from Finland to you all :)

For some time now I've been thinking about building an experimental generator that produces electric power. So far I haven't been able to find from anywhere writings or thoughts of this kind of device. So this might be unique idea or just my imagination running too wild. I would hope that you could judge, from this writing that follows which case it is.

Some time ago I was gazing the "How stuff works" website

and read about the Van de Graaff generator (afterwards VG) which produces high amount of voltage. I started to thinking about how this machine could be used to harness substantial amount of electrical energy. The VG produces only a tiny amount of current so at first it seemed that it would be useless to be used anything but to rise peoples hair or to some other things that aren't involved to produce electric power. Then I started to think about how to increase this electrical current. I went on searching the web and found this great "Science Hobbyist" site and from there I found answers to many of my questions along with huge amount of information about electricity and other stuff.

One of the most interesting things that I found was this picture

in which "static electricity versus current electricity" was neatly illustrated. In the picture there were of course these "tabletop" VGs in the right lower portion of the picture. As we can see from this picture, the current involved with VGs is measured in micro amps. What really caught my eye were thermocouples. I already knew that these things exist, but before I wasn't familiar at all to their characteristics. This picture shows that thermocouple is quite an opposite to VG. It creates a high current with only a minimal voltage. Here is address to another site that describes functionality of a thermocouple Here are two interesting quotes from that site.

"The voltage produced by thermocouple junctions is strictly dependent upon temperature. Any current in a thermocouple circuit is a function of circuit resistance in opposition to this voltage (I=E/R). In other words, the relationship between temperature and Seebeck voltage is fixed, while the relationship between temperature and current is variable, depending on the total resistance of the circuit. With heavy enough thermocouple conductors, currents upwards of hundreds of amps can be generated from a single pair of thermocouple junctions! (I've actually seen this in a laboratory experiment, using heavy bars of copper and copper/nickel alloy to form the junctions and the circuit conductors.)"

"Thermocouples, however, can be built from heavy-gauge wire for low resistance, and connected in such a way so as to generate very high currents for purposes other than temperature measurement. One such purpose is electric power generation. By connecting many thermocouples in series, alternating hot/cold temperatures with each junction, a device called a thermopile can be constructed to produce substantial amounts of voltage and current:"

At first thermocouples or VGs alone aren't type of things which come to a mind when thinking about producing electric power. But what if the VG and the thermocouple can be somehow combined to produce a high current with a high voltage? After thinking it for a while (month!), the answer seems to be pretty simple. Just connect two wires made from different metals together to make a thermocouple and connect the + wire to the positive end (=sphere, if it's built to be positive) of the VG and similarly connect the - wire to the negative end of the VG. Don't ground the VG but instead connect the grounding wire or the negative sphere to this - wire. To complete the electric circuit, connect + and - ends from the VG to a electric load (e.g. light bulb).

Imagine a simple circuit of two conducting wires where thermocouple is in the left side. This is the first junction point of the wires. The VG is in the middle touching the upper and lower wires of the circuit with it's + and - ends (=spheres, if it has two of them). The load is in right side and this can be considered as the second junction point of the wires.

There you have it. An electric circuit powered by combined generator which produces direct high current, high voltage electric power to the load. Key concept of my idea is that in the complete electric circuit, which uses these combined energy sources, the VG doesn't short-circuit the whole thing. Electromagnetic energy, harnessed from VG and thermocouple, and carried along using conductive wires, will go to the load and therefore can be used to operate normal electric applications (electric motors, to produce hydrogen, light bulbs etc).

Let's assume for a while that this generator really works. Of course the VG and the thermocouple need energy from somewhere to operate. This is when things get interesting. The amount of voltage or current these devices alone generate is very high. My current understanding is that for purpose of generating electric power the size of the VG can be very small. The whole operational circuit, powered with VG and thermocouple, will be easy/cheap to build and it's capability to harness the energy from heat (for the current) and motion (for the voltage) is very high.

Small generator, in which the thermocouple would be heated using e.g. a thermal solar energy and VG operated using a e.g. small windmill or watermill (=renewable energy sources :) ), could be used to generate extra electric power for your home. Another approach could be burning biomass to produce heat for the thermocouple and motion (e.g. boiling water) to operate the VG. At first I think it would probably easiest to just use normal tabletop VG with small motor, a candle flame heated thermocouple using thick, conducting metal wires to see quick results. Of course for almost any electrical application, the high voltage direct current produced must be run through transformers, regulators and inverters, which all decrease the efficiency. If the power output of this generator is still high enough (now I'm truly speculating :) ), one could setup a power plant in which one (or more) very large combined generator is operated and use this plant to provide electricity to the power grid.

How much electric power could be produced with this type of generator (if it works) is one question to which I can't find answer unless actually trying it for real, although playing with the math (volts, amps, watts, etc) can give you some impressive numbers. Simple way to visualize this is to look again this electric map picture I mentioned earlier and draw vertical and horizontal lines from thermocouples and VGs to see where the connection point of these lines would be. As you can see, the dot (this new generator) is placed relatively high in the combined electromagnetic energy scale. There are two reasons why I haven't yet tried to see if this works myself or encouraged someone else to investigate it. First reason is that if I'm correct, the amount of electromagnetic energy harnessed can be very, very dangerous. I'm an amateur when considering electricity or electric engineering, but curiosity keeps me wondering about what kind of things one could do with this type of generator. Another reason is that I would like to have (maybe more professional) opinions from other people about this idea before proceeding. I want to know if I'm totally misunderstood the concepts which I'm talking about or if this is something worth of trying.

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