Johan, the energy is indeed impressive (if you take 60km height it is even more). But it is stored in a very large volume, the density is only 160pJ/m^3. 73, Rik _____________________________________
Hello Andy, Piotr, two ways, one result ;-) I would say Andy did it the engineers way and Piotr did it the scientists way. I hope I haven't insulted one of you (or both). 73, Rik ON7YD - OR7T _______
Andy Talbot pisze: Here's an interesting little thought excercise Consider the Earth as one plate of a capacitor, and the lower surface of the ionosphere as the other. Without actually doing the calc
Interesting thoughts... I had a vague, and probably wrong, memory that the electron density of the ionosphere had a maximum around 300km so I placed the outer sphere at that altitude and calculated "
A slightly different way of doing it - from EM first principle, but yes spot on Very close to both my calc and the quoted figure seen in a paper. Worked out from the parallel plate capacitor equation
Here's an interesting little thought excercise Consider the Earth as one plate of a capacitor, and the lower surface of the ionosphere as the other. Without actually doing the calculation, what do yo
