In their simplest form, batteries are two different metals that exchange ions via an electrolyte that functions as a separator. The search for the best combination may continue for as long as human time. In the past, we have scrambled over many innovative ideas in our search to get rich quickly. In this post, we revisit the long-forgotten topic of earth batteries.
How Telluric Currents Power Earth Batteries
Extreme low-frequency telluric currents – the word means earth – flow across Earth’s crust and mantle. They also travel through the sea for immense distances. They may be the result of induction from Earth’s magnetic field.
In 1841, Scottish inventor Alexander Bain created a device that transformed Earth’s telluric energy into mechanical energy.
He was an innovative fellow who invented electric clocks, and installed telegraph wires between Glasgow and Edinburgh. In this instance, he buried plates of zinc and copper a meter apart, and used these earth batteries to power his new-fangled timepiece. Remember, they had no AA or AAA cells in those days. This was new ground.
How Earth Batteries Retreated from the Headlines
Other innovations followed that eclipsed the idea of burying electrodes in the earth. Nonetheless, we do still use telluric energy to explore Earth’s structure. In 1912, fiction writer William Hope Hodgson published a book titled The Night Land.
His work envisaged a world gone cold and dark after Sun failed. His ‘last redoubt’ contains earth batteries buried deep underground, and upheld by ‘earth current’. While we do not hold to the survivalist movement, this is nonetheless an interesting thought.
Perhaps modern science should re-investigate earth batteries, and other technologies cast aside in the haste for commercially lucrative alternatives. We are left with a feeling of ‘what if’ we applied technology discovered after Scottish inventor Alexander Bain died.
There were no electronic circuits then, and no computers either. Perhaps Bain’s mind was born too early to materialize a global warming solution. We may need one soon if we want to avoid William Hope Hodgson’s vision of a Night Land. This is a food for thought to ponder.
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Basic Battery Facts & What Batteries Do
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Preview Image: The Magnetosphere
