JF Ptak Science Books   Quick  Post    
Part of the History of Lines series

Hermann Plauson, a German engineer and director Fischer-Tropsch Otto Traun Research Laboratories of Hamburg, Germany (in the 1920’s)  built on an idea of N. Tesla to “convert alternating radiant static electricity into rectified continuous current pulses”. It was an expansive idea of at least artistic merit, as seen in his patent application (below) and visualization of the completed installation. 

“For many years electrical engineers have endeavored to devise some means  whereby it would become possible to utilize the free electrical energy ever  present in the atmosphere, but they were not successful, as every now and then an extra heavy surge of static current would rush down the elevated conductor and endanger the lives of the experimenters, or else destroy the apparatus  connected with it. A German engineer has, however, devised the somewhat  elaborate scheme here shown in brief, and he has succeeded, at least so his  report states, in safely extracting several kilowatts of electrical power from  the atmosphere with metallic surfaced balloons, elevated to a height of only 1000 feet.”–Hugo Gernsback, “Power from the Air (II)”, in Science & Invention, March 1922.