="From Electrostatic Potential to Usable Power: An Event-Driven Conversion Framework for High-Impedance Environmental Fields"

This work introduces an event-driven framework for converting high-impedance environmental electrostatic potentials into usable power. While atmospheric and Earth–air electric fields are well established physical phenomena, they are typically regarded as impractical energy sources due to their negligible steady-state current and extremely high source impedance. Rather than attempting direct current extraction, this paper reframes electrostatic potential as a stored physical state capable of performing work only when transformed into dynamic events. These events emerge through symmetry breaking, threshold-triggered instabilities, and coupling to mechanical and electromagnetic subsystems. The study presents a minimal Earth–air model at centimeter-scale separations and supports the proposed framework through numerical simulations. The results clarify why conventional electrostatic energy-harvesting approaches fail and outline a new class of non-equilibrium, event-based conversion pathways. This work does not propose a finalized device, but establishes a conceptual and physical foundation for future research into environmental electrostatic energy utilization.