> Even if it works, the method will not generate energy from thin air. It would tap Earth’s kinetic energy and, in doing so, cause the planet’s spinning to slow over time — although only slightly. If the technique provided all of Earth’s electricity needs, which was around 11 trillion watts in 2022, this would slow the planet’s spin by 7 milliseconds over the next century, the authors calculate. This is similar to the change in speed caused by natural phenomena such as the Moon’s pull and changing dynamics inside the planet’s core.
Really puts how small we are on a cosmic scale into perspective.
If we did it for a million years at current energy use scale it would shorten our day by about 1.1 seconds.
Like most things, nature is already doing it and has been for millions of years.
<https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/education/tutorial_tides/tides...>
Interestingly, it looks like the upper atmosphere generally rotates faster than the planet, so it could be that the opposite effect actually dominates. IE the uneven heating causes a atmospheric bulge that actually pushes the atmosphere around slightly faster than the planet rotates, thereby slightly contributing to planetary angular momentum.
That way a day can be 24 hours exactly instead of 23 hours, 56 minutes, 4 seconds, etc...
Calculate the change in the length of the Earth's day if the UK were to switch to vehicles driving on the right-hand side of the road rather than the left..
Presumably without roundabouts it's all random directions and balanced?
Or am I barking up the wrong tree?
Those tutorials filled me with dread at the time, but with hindsight they were - how can I put this - a fairly formative experience.
Watching your tutor use paper and pencil - and estimation - to calculate something like that was actually quite inspiring. That was, once it stopped being terrifying.
Its effectively the same principle as a figure skater pulling in their arms when spinning, to spin faster.
The only way you’ll care about what happens eventually is if you’re concerned about some detectable result. Meanwhile individual rocket launches to Mars extract like 10^18+ times as much energy as this will over it’s lifespan and those still aren’t detectable.
with energy, you need to consider friction, losses, thermodynamics 3rd law, but with momentum it's pure.