Free energy

[WaterD]

i'm not very sure why it's impossible to build a free energy machine. Isn't the gravitational forces an infinite amount of energy? Force is energy or it is not? and gravity seems to be applying forces to every object all the time wich seems as infinite energy. Same with magnets. It isn't possible to take advantage of those continuos forces to make a free energy machine? In fact hydroplants, wich work by taking advantage of waterfalls aren't taking avantage of gravity? Sorry if all this seems absurd, but if it does i do not understand the reason.

 

[Donn]

I ain't no scientist, but I'll have a shot:
There are electricity-producing machines that use these resources already; wind-turbines and water-turbines. I have heard of wave-turbines too.
I would guess the problem with things like magnets is that the amount of work they can do is not enough to turn a shaft to produce energy in excess. I suppose it's something like a balance. If you use electricity to make a magnet, that magnet cannot then produce more electricity than what already went into making it.

Or something like that...

 

[Mojo]

i'm not very sure why it's impossible to build a free energy machine. Isn't the gravitational forces an infinite amount of energy? Force is energy or it is not? and gravity seems to be applying forces to every object all the time wich seems as infinite energy. Same with magnets. It isn't possible to take advantage of those continuos forces to make a free energy machine? In fact hydroplants, wich work by taking advantage of waterfalls aren't taking avantage of gravity? Sorry if all this seems absurd, but if it does i do not understand the reason.

To get energy out of the system we have to make it do work: movement in the direction of the force. For example, imagine a wheel with a weight attached to its edge, near the top. If it isn't moving, we can't get any work out of it. If the wheel is released, gravity will pull the weight down to the lowest point possible, and so turn the wheel. For the wheel to continue turning, though, energy must be put back into the system to lift the weight back up to the top. This will always be greater than the energy that can be extracted from the weight falling (because of losses due to friction and the method of extracting energy from the system never being 100% efficient). Even if the system were 100% efficient, there would only be just enough energy available to raise the weight; none would be available for other purposes.

Hydro-electric plants (water wheels etc.) work by the action of gravity on the water, but the ultimate source of the energy they use is sunlight. Heat from the sun evaporates water (from lakes, the sea etc.) which falls as rain on high ground. The potential energy the water has gained can then be used to generate electricity etc. as it flows back down.

 

[Beady]

To use your own examples (hydroplants and waterfalls), have you considered that these only work until the water source dries up?

"But," you object, "most of these sources don't dry up."

They don't dry up because the water is being replaced in some fashion, and performing that replacement requires energy. You would have to be heavily into math and physics to run the numbers, but the overall gain in the energy generated is ultimately going to be cancelled out by the amount of energy expended in putting more water back at the source.

The energy expended also, BTW, includes that which is lost through friction in the operation of the generating machinery, so the amount of energy that must be used in replentishing the source is always going to be more than the energy that is produced at the generator's "Out" port. The amount of energy available for consumption, measured against the energy diverted by friction of the internal components, is how a machine's efficiency is measured. Friction is also the main cause of machinery wear and tear.

So, in order for Free Energy to work, it must generate enough power to run itself plus some other machine, while consuming no fuel. It should also, ideally, be frictionless so that no energy is lost and the internal parts will never need replacement (thus requiring an outside energy source to perform repairs); this, in turn, requires either no wiring (electricity is subject to friction, which is how we get heat from electricity), or a perfect conductor which, so far, has not been found to exist.

In all cases, the concept is pretty simple: Energy requires fuel, fuel must be replentished, replentishment requires energy. And here's a rule that's fairly safe to follow: If you can't see the replentishment in a particular system, you're not thinking about it hard enough.

 

[Donn]

In all cases, the concept is pretty simple: Energy requires fuel, fuel must be replentished, replentishment requires energy.

I have also wondered about magnets - do they not represent some form of 'limitless' energy?
I don't know how big they get (natural rocks I mean, not electromagnets), nor if they fade-out over time.
I can kinda picture some kind of device that draws a metal ball upwards and then it gets shunted (by a tipping lever or something) and it then falls and does work and then up again. etc.
I have a horrible feeling this has been tried. I can sense a google coming on...

 

[Donn]

Sort of answered my own question:

Machines which use magnets
Magnets are fascinating things, the way they push and pull and twist each other with no apparent connection between them. It's tempting to suppose that there must be some way of arranging them to extract energy from them. For example, one of the earliest perpetual motion machines proposed to use a lodestone, (a lump of naturally magnetic iron ore) to pull a ball up a slope towards a hole through which it would drop to cycle back to the start. This didn't work.


Neither do its modern derivatives, and for the same reason. Any work which a magnet does on an object has to be undone to get back to the starting position. (This is also why an unbalanced wheel won't work.) Moving something in a closed loop in either a magnetic or a gravitational field causes it neither to gain or lose net energy. Since this applies to all objects, it applies to every part of a machine, no matter how complicated it is. There's no way of combining many zeros to get a positive result.


This doesn't stop people proposing motors which are driven only by magnetic fields. These motors have rotors which are pushed or pulled most of the way around a circle by some arrangement of magnets. There's nothing impossible about this, but the designers then expect the rotor to suddenly ignore the magnetic field and to complete the cycle. This gets the rotor back to its starting point after delivering a net output of energy. This is impossible.

From : http://www.phact.org/e/z/freewire.htm

 

[WaterD]

i didn't mean ever that we know a why we could take advantage of those, but it seems posible, and i don't think is that hard to create a space with 0 friction.

 

[Terry]

Force is energy or it is not?

not. They don't even have the same units.

--Terry.

 

[Bob Klase]

and i don't think is that hard to create a space with 0 friction.

In that case you should patent an easy/simple way to create space with 0 friction. You could become a multi-millionaire practically overnight.

 

[L7Cz]

Here's an easy way to visualize why gravity and/or magnetism, while constant forces, are not sources of free energy:

Imagine an iron ball at the bottom of a wooden ramp. Above the top end of the ramp, place a strong magnet, strong enough to pull the ball up the ramp.

Your goal is to have the magnet draw the ball up the ramp, then once the ball is at the top of the ramp, gravity will take over and the ball will drop back to the starting level (providing extractable energy -- moving a lever or cogwheel), whereupon the magnet will again pull the ball up the ramp, and so forth. We (for illustrative purposes) will assume a frictionless ramp and lever/cogwheel mechanism, and also assume that the ball ends up at the exact starting point after providing the extractable energy.

Now, explain to me how a magnet strong enough to draw the ball up the ramp will be weak enough to allow it to drop.

Remember that magnetism is a constant force, it does not shut off at your whim. Also keep in mind that the common escape mechanisms (electromagnet cycling on and off; something to "block" the magnetism ((?)) inserted at the top of the ball's upward movement, etc.) ALWAYS require more energy (if they exist) than the ball can produce by simply dropping.

That's the seductive beauty of perpetual motion and/or free energy machines -- they SEEM possible because it would be so cool if they WERE possible.

 

[WaterD]

Magnetism can go trough any material? i mean, stone, Wood, paper etc? because if not , you could use that to cut out the interaction between the ball and the magnet. You just need a machine wich do a cycle between covering the magnet and not, but that machine would obviusly consume a lot of less work that the work produced by the magnet and the gravity.

 

[Mojo]

Magnetism can go trough any material? i mean, stone, Wood, paper etc? because if not , you could use that to cut out the interaction between the ball and the magnet. You just need a machine wich do a cycle between covering the magnet and not, but that machine would obviusly consume a lot of less work that the work produced by the magnet and the gravity.

Why would it consume less work than produced by the magnet and gravity? Why is this obvious? Am I missing something?

 

[Just thinking]

Now, explain to me how a magnet strong enough to draw the ball up the ramp will be weak enough to allow it to drop

I think I see where WaterD is coming from.

Let me propose a better (??) system. Imagine a clear plastic vertical cylinder, closed off at both ends, with a steel ball inside that is just smaller than the diameter of the cylinder. Above the cylinder (by several inches) is a permanent magnet strong enough to hold the steel ball up against the top of the closed off cylinder. If we were to somehow place magnetic shielding material (in the form of a sheet) between the magnet and the top of the cylinder the ball would drop -- producing at least some sound energy. Remove the shielding and the ball immediately rises to the top once again, ready for dropping. Now, imagine that the sheet of shielding is a large disc mounted to a frictionless bearing that is offset to one side of the cylinder-magnet assembly, but still has enough overlap to place itself between the two. And now imagine a hole in the sheet that will line up over the top of the cylinder. If we start the sheet spinning, this hole will occasionally allow the magnetic field to cycle on/off as seen by the ball -- thus allowing it to rise and fall.

Why would this system not continue forever -- producing, at the very least, perpetual motion?

PS: Magnetic shielding (to some degree) does exist -- we find it used on some Home Theatre (and computer) speakers that are expected to reside near television screens.

 

[Terry]

I think I see where WaterD is coming from.

Let me propose a better (??) system. Imagine a clear plastic vertical cylinder, closed off at both ends, with a steel ball inside that is just smaller than the diameter of the cylinder. Above the cylinder (by several inches) is a permanent magnet strong enough to hold the steel ball up against the top of the closed off cylinder. If we were to somehow place magnetic shielding material (in the form of a sheet) between the magnet [...]
Why would this system not continue forever -- producing, at the very least, perpetual motion?

You are assuming that it will not consume energy to rotate the disk (because of the frictionless bearing). I predict that this will not be the case (although I haven't done the calculations yet). Most likely there will be a small force opposing the introduction of the shielding between the magnet and the ball.

--Terry.

 

[Just thinking]

You are assuming that it will not consume energy to rotate the disk (because of the frictionless bearing). I predict that this will not be the case (although I haven't done the calculations yet). Most likely there will be a small force opposing the introduction of the shielding between the magnet and the ball.

Well, Terry, and I am playing Devil's Advocate here, so let's be clear about that, we can surround the clear cylinder with a wire winding and replace the steel ball with a small (but powerful) cylindrical magnet that induces a current (as it rises and falls) to power the disc. (A diode with a reversing circuit can take care of any change in DC, and another shield can surround one pole of the sliding magnet so that there is a net current.)

 

[Beady]

i didn't mean ever that we know a why we could take advantage of those, but it seems posible, and i don't think is that hard to create a space with 0 friction.

Well, it has been done.

Kind of.

It's called "mag-lev," short for "magnetic levitation," and is simply what happens when you try to place the positive pole of a magnet onto the positive pole of another magnet (or negative to negative). The two like poles repel each other, with the effect that the top magnet will float in the air above the bottom magnet. One major proposed application would be for railroads, so that the cars would float above the tracks and thus eliminate wheels, axles and all associated friction. However, there would still be friction in the form of wind resistance, as well as the energy required to overcome inertia at starting and stopping. Wind resistance could be eliminated by constructing a vacuum tube over the tracks, but then there's still the problem of inertia.

There are toys, such as this that illustrate the principle. As it turns out, though, eliminating friction is the easy part of the question, and it does virtually nothing toward developing perpetual motion and/or free energy.

 

[Beady]

Most likely there will be a small force opposing the introduction of the shielding between the magnet and the ball.

Maybe I missed something, but are you assuming it will require no energy at all to insert/remove the shielding, regardless of any opposing force? How will you overcome the inertia of the shielding without using energy?

 

[Mojo]

I think the magnetic shielding would be metallic, and therefore a conductor. Moving a conductor in a magnetic field will cause eddy currents in the conductor, causing resistance to movement. Energy would therefore need to be put into the system to move the shielding.

 

[Terry]

I think the magnetic shielding would be metallic, and therefore a conductor. Moving a conductor in a magnetic field will cause eddy currents in the conductor, causing resistance to movement. Energy would therefore need to be put into the system to move the shielding.

Hmmm... can't you make the eddy currents arbitrarily small by suitable lamination of the shielding?

--Terry.

 

[Terry]

Maybe I missed something, but are you assuming it will require no energy at all to insert/remove the shielding, regardless of any opposing force? How will you overcome the inertia of the shielding without using energy?

The plan was to assume a frictionless bearing. Thus, you'd pay a one-time startup cost to spin it up, but (assuming no opposing force (torque really, I suppose)) then it would carry on for ever. But I claim it won't work as a free energy machine, even with frictionless bearings.

--Terry.