Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
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Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#2Current = 25.4 ± 1.5 nA, Voltage = 17.3 ± 1.5 µV.
Making total power for the 30cm shell = 0.44 picowatts.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#3My Stupid Question, please don't laugh:
If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#4My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
I'm not saying that is why we left Mars.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#5My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
No because of conservation of angular momentum. Maybe it would cool the Earth's interior faster than otherwise though. It's heat flow from the inside to the outside that drives the fluid flows in the mantle and generates the magnetic field.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#6Current = 25.4 ± 1.5 nA, Voltage = 17.3 ± 1.5 µV. Making total power for the 30cm shell = 0.44 picowatts.
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Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#7My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
No because of conservation of angular momentum. Maybe it would cool the Earth's interior faster than otherwise though. It's heat flow from the inside to the outside that drives the fluid flows in the mantle and generates the magnetic field.
Earth's rotation has been slowing down despite principle of conservation of angular momentum, at about 2 mille-sec/century. Dinos had an hour shorter days than we do now.
I'm not an EE, but isn't this related to Tesla's last invention which bankrupted him - I believe he was working on electricity generation from thin air.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#8My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
It isn't a stupid question, it is a good one. The answer would depend on how the field is generated in the first place.
Given a field generated by asymmetric rotation of the molten core at the center of the Earth, 'shorting it' (apply a load) would presumably affect the core's rotation. In terms of relative energy however, the poor coupling at the surface would suggest that this would be a very challenging way to divert any meaningful amount of power from the core itself. It would however have to deal with points in time where the core reverses its magnetic field. The papers on core reversals are fun to read.
I think more usefully, the presence of the voltage, might be an interesting way to localize one's location and orientation.
I remember brainstorming "off the wall" power generation ideas and one that has yet to be realized would be to inject dust ahead of a wind turbine with a collector in the back. Then using the Van DeGraf effect to generate power instead of lightning as it currently does.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#9Current = 25.4 ± 1.5 nA, Voltage = 17.3 ± 1.5 µV. Making total power for the 30cm shell = 0.44 picowatts.
Still more net energy than fusion reactors have ever produced.
Re: Can Earth's rotation generate power? Physicists divided over controversial claim
#10My Stupid Question, please don't laugh: If you did this on a massive enough scale, to generate serious amounts of power, would that accidentally slow the Earth's rotation down over time?
The term "generate power from Earth's rotation" is basically saying "convert kinetic energy from Earth's angular momentum". If you extract energy, by conservation of energy that energy has to come from somewhere. So yes, we would normally expect Earth's rotation to slow.
But I think if you do the math, it would be absolutely miniscule.