Water-Wind Generator

Someone in another forum I frequent posted a question about this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_water_dropper



I followed a link from there to here:

http://amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html

Way down this page, I found this:

In a private conversation someone told me that there were patents on a wind generator based upon the Kelvin Generator. Build two big parallel vertical metal screens the size of outdoor movie theater screens (or larger). The upwind screen has coarse mesh, the downwind screen has fine mesh to gather water droplets. Suspend them on insulators which are good for millions of volts. Charge the upwind screen with a power supply. Spray a fine mist of water into the screens upwind, and let the wind push the spray through the screens. The upwind screen will attract imbalanced charges into the sprayer tips, and the water droplets will have an imbalanced charge of opposite polarity. The wind takes the place of gravity in the classic Lord Kelvin device. Wind pushes charged water to the second, fine-mesh screen. Water droplets touch this screen and deliver their charge. The wind is slowed by repulsion of the water mist, the upwind screen uses no current, and the downwind screen puts out amperes at millions of volts of electrical potential (amps times megavolts equals megawatts). Simply step down the megavolts of DC, then convert it to AC. Ta-da, a wind generator with no moving parts! An artificial thunderstorm, harnessed as a commercial generator, powered by the wind.

Don't know if it could be made to work, but it is a fascinating concept. I am curious how much electric energy could be garnered from the dropping water, if there is a relationship between water velocity and output, and what a realistic yield might be. (I am guessing the net yield would be substantially less than simply turning a generator with the same moving water, but it is still interesting.)

Just thought I would share.

Fish

[Gotwind Ben]

Thanks for sharing Fish.
Can't really see it doing too much personally in the real world, could be wrong.
On a side note:
On my ever web surfing trips i ran across this, that may be of interest to a water (fish) man..
http://cgi.ebay.com/Water-Wheel-Turgo-K ... 2eb309d31c

Still needs the addition of an alternator however - Might interest some

That's interesting Ben - I'm looking for the some kind to micro hydro kit to get me going as I don't have the time, at the moment, to develop something myself - any links for companies doing this sort of kit would be useful.

Pete