After burning incense in the Temple of Tesla, a few months ago I did a calculation on just how much electricity is naturally in the atmosphere. It would take an antenna one square kilometer in area suspended ten kilometers over the surface of the Earth to collect one watt of electrical power.

I believe it takes about five watts to charge a cell phone, so the antenna used in this video must have been the size of Manhattan Island:

What was the motivation in producing this video? It doesn’t seem to be promoting a commercial service or product. Maybe the ‘proof of concept’ is to demonstrate someone’s professional video production and editing techniques (the channel name ‘web19designer’ seems to hint that). Anyhow, I saw the video at a news and commentary site where apparently they were taking it seriously, so I thought I should respond seriously.

The idea of drawing electricity from the air isn’t all that flakey — you just have to put it there in the first place. There is a place in England, I believe, where people are powering electric lights with electricity drawn from the air. They just happen to be next to a very powerful radio station.

Well, there are concepts (if I may use that word) to move satellites into lower and higher orbits by extending very long tethers which draw electrodynamic drag and thrust. I don’t recall seeing any calculations for this, but the concept is taken quite seriously.

In contrast, no one with any technical knowhow in the matter seems to be taking seriously the idea of powering stuff on Earth just with an antenna drawing natural electricity from the air. Even a giant government/corporate conspiracy couldn’t stop millions of private citizens from doing it on their own if it were possible.

Yet in a sense, there is a lot of electricity in the atmosphere. It’s called sunlight. It’s over a thousand watts per square meter — so if you buy a solar charger for your cell phone, THAT will get the job done.