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[mben68]

Could a ring of electromagnets have the energy of a wind turbine?

I have spent a year or so looking at the idea of electromagnets being used for what I call harvesting artificial gravity. By using super strong electromagnets, a turbine, a modern power storage device and a computer controller, surely it is possible using Newtonian Laws of potential and Kinetic energy to power the process purely from kinetic energy it produces?

It seems to be possible to create a machine using readily available materials, however, I don't have the ability to carry out the experiment. My drawings are at 'third-conditional.net'. A toy using Newton's third law of motion and magnets has the effect of propulsion of the original object, this is carried out using normal magnets which has the drawback of an equal and opposite reaction, something that doesn't have to happen with an electromagnet, as it can be turned off at the exact point of maximum benefit. 

To put into simple language you have a dog track where the dogs chase a rabbit, all the dogs are harnessed to a generator, purely to power the rabbit. Would it be possible to power the rabbit?

The electromagnet first discovered in 1825 can literally have an effect on materials hundreds of times its mass or weight, it forces a change in equations that has the side effect of creating kinetic energy, as objects try to change their position in accordance with the magnetic forces exerted on them. As they do this they create energy, the question is, with all the advances in battery storage, turbines, magnets and split second computer control, could they in effect harvest kinetic energy like a wind turbine only with a ring of electromagnets rather than the wind!

I have three designs for power generation,
1: A pendulum with short bursts of electromagnetism to keep the momentum of a heavy weight on a reversible turbine.

2: A see saw with powerful electromagnets above and below each end, a reversible turbine in the middle, all controlled by a computer.

3: A propeller surrounded by a circle of electromagnets controlled by a computer, with a turbine generator at the centre feeding an electrical storage device.

I can even imagine a machine similar in size to a washing machine producing electricity for household use.

One thing I should add is that this is childish when compared to the research of people who spend years studying in the field, so all I can think is there is research and development in this area, or, it isn’t possible for one reason of another.

I have visions of the little see saw design powering spacecraft without ever needing fuel, obviously fiction due to the complete lack of interest by science and technology.
One thing in its favour is that nearly every interaction we see is magnetic in nature, and maybe this is a natural extension, waiting to be discovered or examined.

If you got sciencefirst.com you can purchase lifting magnets for $49 each, they can lift 500lb. they weigh 2lb and they run on 1.5V. You can also purchase a hand wind generator that can produce 5V. My experiment is: if you placed 12 of the lifting magnets in a circle and turned them on and off in sequence would you produce enough torque to turn the 5V generator, remembering it is only costing you 1.5V to run the process.

You would also need a computer program that could turn the magnets on and off in sequence, at the exact point of maximum benefit and then drive the handle into the field of the next magnet and so on. You would need a conductive material in the shape of a shoe on the handle (or two or four handles for more torque) and a small mobile phone style battery device.

My belief is this machine will create more energy than it consumes.

In 1925 an inventor called William Sturgeon placed a copper wire around a 7 ounce iron horseshoe and attached the wire to a single cell battery, it changed the simple horseshoe into a magnet able to lift a 9lb object. I understand that these objects are in many everyday appliances, but can't help thinking Newton would have added to his laws had they been around a hundred years earlier.

[DeveloperChris]

Because no one has replied to this I thought it would be an idea to do so.

Unfortunately your assumption that somehow you will derive more energy than you put into it is wrong. The opposite is actually true. To keep the device spinning you need to overcome friction and heating losses. This means you will get less energy from it than you put into it. Remember the generator coil on the back of the "turbine" consumes power and therefore is hard to make turn. If that wasn't so, we could all have a hand generator in our electric car and as long as we kept turning it the car would run. Turning that hand generator would be as hard as pushing the car all the way to our destination.

To understand better imagine an electric motor that in turn drives an electric generator which charges a battery. If both the motor and the generator and the battery and all the circuits in between where 100% efficient. then you would get out of it exactly what you put into it. So you could connect the battery to the motor which turned the generator which kept the battery charged which kept the motor running... just! there would not be a milliamp left over for anything else.

But sadly nothing is perfect. a lot of loss occurs along the way. therefore the battery is never quite charged enough and the motor draws more power out of it than is going into it.

Eventually (actually quite soon) the battery will totally discharge and the whole thing will stop. there would be no leftover power for anything else.

Of course that assumes you had a fully charged battery to start with.

DC

[mben68]

You have wood for the trees problems. If I was a large piece of iron and someone was kind enough to add a 1.5 V battery and some copper wire to various parts of my anatomy, I would have an effect on magnetically attractive objects in my local area. As these objects were forced to change there positions due to this new demand on their time they would have inadvertently created energy, which I believe could be harvested.

Why is that then? Well, using Newton's equation for potential energy and gravitation as an example: Energy=Height X Mass X Gravity. This would give me an amount in Joules; now as my attraction is as much as half a ton, I could theoretically pull a large object on a dynamo device towards me, using the Newtonian Laws for Potential energy and a way of orbiting my magnetic attraction, I am convinced the harvest would exceed the 1.5V investment.

However, I take on board what you have said, but you get lost in the conservation of energy debate, when it isn't part of the process at all, it's purely down to harvesting potential energy from a moving object, similar to the Moon going around the Earth. and then using it as a dynamo, it is simply constantly attracted to my a magnetic source, and I can harvest its potential.

Thanks for your reply.