How hard (and how efficient) would it be to capture the energy of static shocks, to e.g. power my PDA? Today I've had several severe shocks without trying.
On a dry day, it takes about 20,000 volts to push across a 1cm gap. 4 milliamps is a good guess for a sharp shock you can feel (twice that, your muscles twitch)
20K volts * 4mA = 80 Watts
And it only lasts for a fraction of second. Accumulated across a bad shock day is, what, a full second?
So 1 day of shocks ~ Enough energy to light a bulb for a second.
Also it is nearly impossible to capture shocks--batteries simply can't recharge that fast, and will lose most to all of that energy. Capacitors could, but having the circuits set up for that would be um interesting. This is one of the major problems with wind power, actually--high intensity intermittent sources of power are just not terribly helpful.
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Date: 2008-01-29 01:50 am (UTC)4 milliamps is a good guess for a sharp shock you can feel (twice that, your muscles twitch)
20K volts * 4mA = 80 Watts
And it only lasts for a fraction of second. Accumulated across a bad shock day is, what, a full second?
So 1 day of shocks ~ Enough energy to light a bulb for a second.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-29 02:12 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-29 06:31 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-29 02:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-01-29 09:42 pm (UTC)