POWER FROM THE AIR

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 914, 6 March 1930, Page 6

POWER FROM THE AIR

TOO FEEBLE FOR USE There is electricity in the air hundreds of inventors, lured by idea of something for nothing, b—attempted to make use of it, but if * collecting antenna for the atmosphS-,* electricity,, covered, say, the surface of New Zealand, only a bon> one ampere of current would flow, the dangerously high potential » 20,000 volts, and, in terms of ordinal electric power, this output of p 0 w ; would be worth only about os an hour according to recent researches. SuHh an antenna, covering the whole earth would collect only enough electricitv to cause a steady current of not more than 1,000 amperes to flow from thp antenna to the earth. Some of the most efficient atmospheric-electricity motors thus far invented are scientific instruments called “electrometers.” They have been under constant observation f or several years at the observatories o£ the Carnegie Institution at Washing ton, near Huancayo, Peru, and near Watheroo, Western Australia. These are quite different from th e ordinary electric motor and, on the basis of the amount of work they d 0 they may be considered as mere 'tors’ From their observations, scientists declare that enough is known to justify the opinion that motors operating from the electricity of the air will probably never be more than interesting toys or scientific instruments