Sunday 27 February 2011

'Flux ropes' and power generation

Two Russian researchers, Boyarchuk and Pulinets, posited back in 2004 that flares and associated Solar electromagnetic phenomena might induce Earth tremors and perhaps extra heat within the Earth’s nickel iron core. More recently, (2007) the NASA THEMIS experiment detected things dubbed 'flux ropes', or concentrations of electromagnetic force linking the Sun and the Earth. The net effect of these variations has, so I'm told, a minor effect on the inner Earth, and increasing convection of magma within the inner and outer mantle, rather like happens in boiling water. The extra energy venting itself via various volcanic outlets like ‘black smokers’ down in the various oceanic spreading zones, Volcanoes, and the melting of rock in subduction zones. At present there are no certain proofs in the public domain although such an induced heating effect is in line with electromagnetic theory, and can be observed under experimental conditions.

As an aside; this core heating effect is probably also why Venus has such a hellish corrosive soup for an atmosphere. Venus is, like Earth, thought to have a nickel iron core, and this is thought to be heated vigorously by its passage through the more tightly packed magnetic field closer to the Sun. As I've posted previously, volcanism is the culprit for Venus' atmosphere, definitely not CO2. For example if CO2 was the culprit, Mars would be a lot warmer than it is, having a similar concentration of atmospheric CO2 (About 95.32%) to Venus (96.5%).

To get to the crux of the matter; my friend Delcatto asked the question; “Could we harness the electromagnetic force from the Sun to provide power?”

My answer is ‘No’.

For the following reasons;
  1. The concentration of electromagnetic force, even at the poles, does not appear strong enough. If it were, then our biosphere would not be habitable, at least to us.
  2. Why? Because the Earth needs to have a molten core. Without it our fecund little world would be as dead as Mars. Life as we know it depends on a complex interplay of energies and forces requiring heat from both above (the Sun) and below (the Earth), which is what allows our fragile little 10 kilometer deep biosphere to exist, sandwiched between a figurative heaven and hell. Significantly reduce the heating effect of the Earth’s core, as would happen if enough of the electromagnetism at the poles were diverted for power generation, and, to put it bluntly, life on Earth would be (Eventually) buggered.
  3. To get sufficient concentration of force lines for power generation, you have to divert them from somewhere else into some kind of collector ring. It would not be a good idea to stick such a device over the polar regions of Earth, see reason 2, but near Venus to power something like a wormhole portal for interstellar travel? There’s an intriguing thought. If such a device were possible, power transmission issues would render transfer to Earth less than useful (Until some clever dicky rewrites the physics of power transmission that is). Venus would ‘benefit’ from the reduction in volcanism due to a cooler core and perhaps eventually become borderline habitable, or at least not quite so hostile as at present. However, such a cooling process would require (at the very least) a couple of million years. So, no panic there, then.
Which just gave me an absolutely spiffing idea for another science fiction story. Ta muchly.

1 comment:

delcatto said...

Cheers Bill. I have also saved the Nasa site to favourites.

Related Posts with Thumbnails