There were a number of patents for earth batteries in the 1800s. By the end of that century, a fairly simple earth battery that was powerful enough to power a modern house had been developed (but this battery did require the application of caustic chemicals to the soil every so often to keep the chemical reaction fresh).
What's interesting about this is a couple of things. Number one of course the use of sulphur which may increase the reaction between dissimilar metals is kind of interesting. But what I find most interesting is the use of coils around magnets which are aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. Then the use of other coils around those coils to create induction coils which implies that there is going to be some additional current or voltage created by the aligned pencil shaped magnets with the Earth's magnetic field. What it really makes me wonder is if there are enough fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field constantly at a rate of some hertz that is enough to trigger a induction in a coil wrapped around magnets which are aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. That to me seems like something new that I've not seen before in other Earth batteries.
I'm really wondering now if there are my new fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field at high enough rate to actually trigger an alternating current in a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet that is aligned with the Earth's magnetic field. I mean we always look at the magnetic field with a compass which doesn't jiggle enough in front of our eyes to give any indication that there are small minute fluctuations going on but they're certainly could be and if there were then that would definitely be able to be amplified in properly structured coils of wire and the presence of a magnet aligned with the magnetic field would possibly amplify any fluctuations in Earth's magnetic field which is just a really interesting idea. Kind of makes me want to go get a pencil shaped north-south magnet and wrap some wire around it and align it with Earth's magnetic field and just see if there is enough fluctuation to create any kind of a alternating current in that coil wrapped around the magnet.
About as useful as a potato battery.
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