Daedalus' Invention: Underground Electricity Storage

Daedalus is the pseudonym of an English scientist David jones. He led for many years Daedalus column in New Scientist magazine, where he shared with the readers of the magazine his ideas and inventions.

Daedalus’s inventive fantasy is always based on scientific reality. And strangely enough, approximately 17% of inventions in one form or another were subsequently taken seriously, patented, implemented, and some, as it turned out, had already been implemented before! Some of Daedalus' ideas published in the magazine were demonstrated “in practice” - in television popular science programs.

Underground Electricity Storerooms

The homopolar theory of terrestrial magnetism argues that in convection flows of molten iron moving in the Earth’s core under the influence of the planet’s magnetic field, an electric current arises, which in turn supports this field.

Daedalus sees in the existence of these currents the key to solving the energy problem - you just need to lower the electrodes so deep as to connect to the deep currents. The depth of conventional drilling is limited to several kilometers.

Daedalus, however, recalls that the rocks are actually plastic and the globe is in hydrostatic equilibrium. That is why underground oil deposits are under pressure, and in order to compensate for it, oil producers have to pump heavy clay mud into the wells.

Let's say Daedalus, we we fill a ten-kilometer well not with a clay solution, but with a much denser liquid, say, mercury. The hydrostatic pressure at the bottom of the well will be about 13,000 atm, i.e. far exceed the pressure in the surrounding rock. The rock will begin to give in a little - and possibly quite quickly - because the temperature at this depth can exceed 400 ° C. Mercury will begin to break down, and if it is continuously poured from above, the process will go at an ever-increasing rate.

Any solid body at a sufficiently high temperature becomes a conductor of electricity (due to the thermal excitation of electrons). This gives Daedalus reason to hope that the mercury “bur-electrode” will reach the “dynamotoks” within a few tens of kilometers and that it will not be necessary to drill 1,000 kilometers deep into the Earth to reach the actual liquid core. In addition, as you go deeper into hotter layers, mercury can be replaced with less expensive and more refractory alloys — from the Wood alloy to molten iron.

To create the greatest possible potential difference, Daedalus intends to connect to underground currents at several points having different polarity. It is likely that the potential difference will not exceed 100 V, but the internal resistance of the Earth, apparently, is so small that it will be possible to select currents of billions of amperes without fear of shorting the Earth. The new source of energy will solve all the energy problems facing humanity without creating a threat to the environment. But will members of the Society of Friends of Nature approve of this project?

New Scientist, July 14, 1977

1. In order to extract heavy metals from the lava, molten metal (for example, iron) is sprayed onto its effluent from the bowels.

2. An electrode made of molten iron serves as a current collector and is also used to extract metal ions from lava.

3. Garbage is discharged into a downward flow of lava.

4. The gas outlet. Lava may contain useful gases (such as methane).

Last week Daedalus unveiled his a project for drilling to a depth where electric currents flow that support the Earth's magnetic field. This will allow, according to Daedalus, to receive cheap electricity through current collectors made of molten metal. Now Daedalus notes that the current diverted from the underground dynamo can heat metal electrode columns to very high temperatures. When they become so heated that the surrounding molten rock itself becomes a good conductor of electricity, the need for electrodes will disappear.

Self-heating current-carrying column, white-hot, like Nernst’s candle, will connect the earth’s bowels to the surface - you’ll get something like tamed electric volcano, or, as Daedalus calls it, "Elektran". Through it, a huge amount of heat will come to the surface - both due to electric heating of the conductive column, and due to convection of hot magma to the Earth's surface.

Deep rocks that come to the surface will prove to be extremely interesting for geologists, and will also be of great importance for the economy (since Daedalus suggests that over the past geological eras, heavier elements such as gold, platinum, palladium, etc.) have gone down deep into the bowels of the earth). Downward convective flows of molten rock can be used for the disposal of all kinds of waste, including radioactive and carcinogenic substances.

Thanks to action piezoelectric effects in overstressed red-hot rocks, seismic “creaks” and “moans” of the planet should be transmitted to the conducting layers. The resulting electric current will be amplified - under the influence of the same homopolar mechanism that supports global electric currents and the geomagnetic field.

An analysis of the electrical noise auditioned by the electran will provide important geophysical information. It will be possible, for example, to predict or even prevent earthquakes by applying a voltage at a resonant frequency to an electran, which, when amplified by the action of a homopolar mechanism, will cause resonant electrostrictive destruction of overstressed rocks.

Similarly, telegraph signals applied to one electran will be received by others around the globe. Moreover, perhaps they will cause modulation of the Earth’s magnetic field, so to receive them you just need a regular compass! What will these Daedalus fantasies turn our miserable planet into?

New Scientist, July 21, 1977

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