Free electricity from the Earth rotating through its own magnetic field using the homopolar generator effect.

The homopolar generator has a conducting disc rotating along with an axially
mounted cylinder magnet; the disc is cemented near the pole of the magnet.
Rotating through the magnetic field, a potential difference is between the
center of the disc and its rim. Brushes pick up voltage here.
The truly unique invention made December 26, 1831 consisted of the discovery
that the magnet and disc could be cemented together, rotated jointly, and
the same voltage could be obtained by sliding contacts touching the centre
and edge of the conducting disc as was obtained when the magnet was fixed
and the disc rotated alone.
[By cementing a copper disc on top of a cylinder magnet, and rotating the magnet and disc together, Faraday created an electrical potential. After pondering this phenomenon for many years, he concluded that when a magnet is rotated, its magnetic field remains stationary. Thus, he reasoned, the metal of the magnet moves through its own field, and the relative motion is translated into electrical potential.
Faraday's experiments led him to the revolutionary conclusion that a magnetic field is a property of space itself, not something attached to the magnet, which merely serves to induce or evoke the field.]
The Earth is doing essentially the same thing; it rotates through its own
magnetic field. The rotating Earth is therefore a big homopolar generator. However, any circuit contacts used to pick up voltage potential difference on the Earth, would be rotating along with the Earth. So sliding contacts or brushes would not be needed, and also, a rotating conductive disk would not be needed. All that would be needed is conductive cables. Emf is generated in a conductor which is perpendicular to the flux lines and velocity. Near the magnetic poles of the Earth the flux lines are pointed upward, and the rotation of the Earth would carry the conductive cables in a west to East motion as the Earth rotates through its own magnetic field. So, just like there is a charge separation in faraday’s rotating disc from the center of the disc to its rim, on the rotating Earth there would be a charge separation from the Earth’s north magnetic pole to the end of any conductive cable that is positioned running southward.
There is a fundamental problem with picking up potential difference voltage on the Earth:
Sliding contacts were needed, brushes, with the rotating Faraday generator
because the wiring does not rotate with it.
When the wiring *does* rotate, you get an equal and opposite
EMF induced in it. Result - no current.
In the case with the rotating Earth, this would be true if the potential difference is picked up between both ends of the cable, and the result would be no current. You can overcome this problem by picking up an electrical potential between only one end of the cable (the end away from the magnetic pole), and a ground wire positioned near this end. In this case there would be no opposite EMF and you would get a direct current.
So here is the wiring set-up that I think would work to get electricity from the Earth’s rotation through its own magnetic field:
Run cables from the magnetic north pole going like spokes in a wheel with one end of the spokes at the pole. The cables are run over ground that is an insulator or poor conductor. There would be a separation of charge in the conductive cables and not in the ground under the cables. There should be a potential difference voltage between the other ends of the cables, that are southward, and ground wires near those ends. A constant current should be produced between the cable ends and the ground wires as the Earth rotates through its own magnetic field. Direct current motors could be set up and attached to the ground wires and the cable ends. These motors turn Alternating Current generators, and the AC that is produced is stepped up to high voltage by transformers and then fed into high voltage power lines for distribution to the cities.
These are the two important aspects that would make this work:
[This should work without sliding contacts because you are taking voltage from only one end of the cable and are not taking it from both ends, so there should be no back EMF voltage to interfere with it. There would be separtaion of charge in the cables, and no separation of charge in the ground, so you should have a potential difference voltage between the cable ends and the ground wires.]
This whole thing could be set up at the south magnetic pole.
There are also other considerations. Because this is done in a cold climate, near the poles, there would be less resistence in the cables. Also, large diameter cables could be used to decrease resistence.
Experiments could be done on different lengths of cable to find out how long it needs to be to get any useful current and how long the cable should be to get the maximum current. Also, if large voltage is acquired then the direct current motors could be the type that run on large voltage. If only small voltage and large amperage is acquired, then the direct current motors could be of a type that run on large amperage and low voltage – depending on how the motor coils are wrapped in the motor.
Also the homopolar generator is much more efficient than an induction coil and the magnetic field of the Earth should be stronger near the poles. The magnetic poles and the geographic poles are not the same, but they are probably close enough that this would not matter much. Also the lay out of the cables could be adjusted to take advantage of this and still produce useful electricity.

This is very similar to the Nasa Tether Experiment and should work in the same way using air for the return current instead of the ionosphere which provided the return flow in the tether experiment. It would probably look like corona discharge at the polar ends of the cables.
Nasa Tether Experiment: Read about it at this website.
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wtether.html

This theory of producing electricity from the Earth rotating through its own magnetic field, using cables laid out like spokes in a wheel near the magnetic poles, would probably work to produce electricity in any place that the auroras can be seen. The reason that the auroras happen is because the Earth's magnetic field lines are pointing upward and out of the Earth in these areas, and strong enough to cause the aurora light.
Standard high voltage cable would provide far greater amperage than the thin tether that nasa used, and so more power. The tether experiment got 3500 volts with a tether, 12.5 miles long. The magnetic field that the tether was dragged through was probably a lot weaker than the magnetic field at the surface of the Earth near the poles.

Read your work and the link - good stuff!

How much energy do you think is possible with a system like this?

What would be some of the potential hazards of running a system like this that powers cities?

Many types of these ideas have repercussions that may stop us from implementing them. Wind turbines are found that slowing down the wind messes with the environment; hindering natural processes such has seeds, moister, bacteria from flowing strongly in the atmosphere.

I love the Wave power station idea but I'm sure it has environmental problems too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1032148.stm

Thats an ambitious idea for generating power. I can't imagine the length you need for the"spokes" so that you can obtain a significant difference in magnetic field strength between the inner and the outer spokes. I think it is abit impractical but an interesting idea nontheless.

And of course DC current is very ineffective at distance and I think the conversion to AC would negate what DC power was made. This is why the alternator replaced the Magneto in Automobiles. The 6-volt Magneto would spark the plugs , but lights, radio ext, was out of the question.
If you want cheap electricity, go geo- thermal instead.

I wouldnt be surprised if we discovered a free power source that bases itself on magnetism and gravity . The rotation of our planet without any kind of resource being drained shows there must be a way .

Would it not be preferable to place such a device at the equator, where the earth spins faster with respect to it's magnetic field? I think its around 700 mph, but not sure.
In any event, the current drawn on earth is negligable to that of a tether in space which crosses those lines of magnetic force at 17+ thousand miles per hour.
In addition, the infrastructure cost of an earth-based system would likely far exceed the cost benefit of the power generated.

Some more ideas about this theory:

There are thousands of miles of conductors running north-south such as telephone wires etc. We see fluctuations on these, but not enough current to be very useful.

Those conductors running north-south, such as telephone wires, etc., are connected in circuits. Circuits will not work in this case. It must be single cables. A circuit or loop will produce a back current at the back end of the circuit that will cancel out any current on the front end, producing no net current. So that is probably why there is nothing bigger than fluctuations in those.
The Nasa tether experiment used a single cable:
The space tether experiment, a joint venture of the US and Italy, called for a scientific payload--a large, spherical satellite--to be deployed from the US space shuttle at the end of a conducting cable (tether) 20 km (12.5 miles) long. The idea was to let the shuttle drag the tether across the Earth's magnetic field, producing one part of a dynamo circuit. The return current, from the shuttle to the payload, would flow in the Earth's ionosphere, which also conducted electricity, even though not as well as the wire.

The generation of electricity from the high voltage power cables laid out like spokes in a wheel near the poles, depends on each cable being a separate length of cable, running north and south, and it does not use cables connected in circuit. This way, there is no back flow cancelling out the current. The air will provide the back flow like the ionosphere provided the back flow with the tether experiment.

Possibility of higher current with a flat sail laid horizontally rather than a round cable. However, the machining and insulating of such sails would probably be not economically feasible.


High voltage towers could be used holding several of these cables laid out along side of each other, each one going to its own large direct current motor. Test on standard high voltage power cables.


Should the fact that the line speed of earths surface gets smaller near the poles be taken into account too? So that the optimal location of the origin point of the cables wouldn't be exactly at the poles.
Yes.

The polar end of the cable does not need to be started close to the pole. The area on the Earth where the magnetic field lines come up out of the Earth and are strong enough to generate electricity, would probably extend for over 150 miles (more or less) away from the magnetic poles. Comparing to the tether experiment, the length of the cables needed might only be about 15 miles long.
It could be done far enough away from the actual pole that the weather conditions might not be a problem. I was thinking about small insulated power sheds that could be heated by small electric heaters, the power for that coming from the cable. In this shed you would have the large direct current motor and the alternating current generator, and the transformer. The shed might only need to be heated to 25 degrees fahrenheit to keep the equipment functioning without temperature interfering. Power lines from the shed take it to high voltage lines headed for the cities. High voltage lines can transmit power for 300 miles or more, before you need to do anything to boost power or change it in any way.