Dr. Gerald Pollack

Boom goes the dynamite as Greg used to say.

Finished listening to it this morning on my way to work. What a blast. Big thanks to Greg, Dr Pollack, and of course, ShamanG for putting this together, and for some insightful questions that pierced through the surface of the matter.

Mark LeClaire and Cavitation was a real treat. Ever since I heard of him from the Water Alchemy episode, that’s how I drink my water (for lack of a vortexer nozzle); its great!

So was the theory of charge separation (puts the whole gliding concept on its head) and the flyers (electrogravitics). Was so cool to hear Dr Pollack say he’s got them in his lab!!

To be honest, there was so much more to be asked, but hey, Greg did a great job, and potentially even scored a date upon the new book’s release (awesome news too).

For those who haven’t read his book, 4th Phase Water, it’s an awesome read that will flip your head inside out. One of those that change how you look/interact with life, for water is everything.

This one will definitely require a few listening for me to get all the crumbs.
Namaste y’all.

Yes, another great episode. Greg is killing it.

Listening to Dr. Pollack on electrostactics made me wonder what would happen if you made a copper frisbee...? : D

rani wrote: Yes, another great episode. Greg is killing it.

Listening to Dr. Pollack on electrostactics made me wonder what would happen if you made a copper frisbee...? : D

Was thinking along the same lines too!
Fabric, especially soft, fluffy stuff, or silk seems to always be conducive to static (in the dark it literally sparks light!).

Not sure how to embed a gif here, but check this out

https://imgur.com/CfccGqi

rani wrote: Yes, another great episode. Greg is killing it.

Listening to Dr. Pollack on electrostactics made me wonder what would happen if you made a copper frisbee...? : D

Copper is pretty heavy, aluminum would be better, but how many flying critters have conductive surfaces? A non-conductive material (plastic) would keep charge higher at the surface from a triboelectric airflow. Now put a small lithium battery and a transformer to boost the voltage to 50Kv and you might have something there, just be sure to wear some thick-ass gloves when tossing it around (if you can catch it) - if you are grounded well enough and the charge is high enough you could get a nasty shock that could stop your heart quite easily at those voltages.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/6/eaao5323.full

I was looking for fog collectors when I stumbled upon this interesting research study. It's not by Dr Pollack, but since it concerns electrostatics and water, I figured it fits right in.

The technicalities go way beyond my stoner mind, but it looks like the basic premise of the study is an enhancement to water fog catchers using electrostatically charged electrodes, because water droplets are attracted to the charged electrodes, thus harvesting water from the air, faster, and more efficiently.

The results of the experiment are quite convincing too (see attachment below/paper above). Where as a conventional meshed fog catcher only have about 1-2% efficiency, by using a high-voltage collector, the difference at which water is collected is like night-and-day!
See here for video of experiments too.
This one in particular (.mp4; 16MB), a time-lapse of 30mins without corona discharge and with. The comparison is mind-blowing!

While the operating voltages that we are using are on the order of 10 kV, the current is low and on the order of 0.01 mA. The power consumption in our experimental setup is thus ~0.1 W for a 5 cm × 5 cm mesh, which translates to about 40 W/m2.
[...]
In particular, one of the major applications of this study is the recovery of water from cooling tower plumes in power plants, where fog is much more concentrated and is on the order of 5000 liters/m2 per day. In that case, the energy consumption is esti- mated to be ~0.2 kWh/m3, which is one to two orders of magnitude lower than the energy consumption to produce clean water from con- ventional sources. [...]

We can adjust the voltage according to wind speed and droplet size to maintain a constant throughput of harvested fog water. When designing an active collection mesh, our model also offers design guidelines for the wire size, wire spacing, and operating voltage that should be chosen so as to remain below the voltage saturation and the spacing saturation in typical operating conditions to maximize collection while conserving energy.

I can't pin-point exactly why, but I think this relates directly to something that Dr Pollack talks about, which is the Kelvin Water Dropper:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sArNxGnYhNU

From my understanding, this is a simple apparatus that generates high voltage static from water droplets falling into a conducive cylinder.
I feel like the two projects can be combined to create a self-sufficient water harvester near coastal areas with plenty of humid winds.

In the prophetic words of Fela, Water No Get Enemy :D:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQBC5URoF0s

PS: Found this AWESOME version done by Veritasium on Youtube!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv4MjaF_wow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z99Q2DInywI

Great little teaser video of Kurt Kung's presentation at this year's ETSC on fourth-phase water battery.
I like this guy, very clear communication and much potential. Wish we could access the full thing for free. Alas, all good things cost money (and deservedly so!)

PS: Here's the link to the full thing:
https://emediapress.com/category/kurt-kung-phd/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z07bkhI0ZN8
PPS: The link to Part 2 of the Discussion/Q&A of the conference is available. Haven't watched it yet, but it looks as promising as Part 1, if not more!