https://archive.is/5GHWF

The Earths rotation already generates power for us: wind. It’s why the jet stream only goes one direction.

The paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15790

(via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43520716, but we merged that thread hither)

Wouldn't this eventually slow down Earth's rotation? The rotational kinetic energy of our planet is 1/5 M * R^2 * w^2 with (approximately) M = 6e34 kg, R = 6.3e6m, w = 7.4e-5 rad/s, which gives approximately 5e36 joules. Yearly we need roughly 3e16 Wh. Yeah ok there's plenty. Woah! (also, I may be off by some orders of magnitude)

There was a decent science fiction serris based on this premise:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/700919.Signal_to_Noise

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/737628.A_Signal_Shattere...

This is really cool. Question for EEs / Material Scientists reading the paper - they mention you could shrink the cylinders and get the same voltage provided a "suitable material" could be found. Any back of the envelope or explanation of materials needed to make these cylinders say 1/1000th their current size? That'd be an extremely useful amount of energy when put into say a 1000x parallel array.

It seems hard to imagine that this kind of shrink-down could go on forever, but on the other hand, the earth is just sort of hurtling us around with great energy while it rotates.

My 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 would be interesting if this works. Last time people were hyping up a tiny effect with big ramifications that can only exist due to a subtle 'loophole', it was the EmDrive stuff that turned out to be driven by measurement errors. But I'm no expert in electrostatics.

A bad question, as it has been doing that literally (rotationally) since before life started. This power is busy generating the magnetosphere. We would not be enjoying our nice oxygen atmosphere and would be as dead as Mars if Earth's rotation wasn't also powering a dynamo.

Current = 25.4 ± 1.5 nA, Voltage = 17.3 ± 1.5 µV.

Making total power for the 30cm shell = 0.44 picowatts.

Suggest a hard sci-fi story where humans abuse this so much the Earth basically stops rotating.

I had an idea somewhat related to this where we use the solar winds as a sort of road and the earth's magnetic field as a sort of rotor to convert kinetic energy from the sun into electricity.

I have no idea on the claims here, but there is one method for extracting work from the magnetic field that I very much enjoy.

A magnetorquer is an attitude control system on a satellite that runs on electricity. Run the electricity through an electromagnet. The magnet couples to Earth's magnetic field and turns the satellite, like a compass needle.

Would this reduce the magnetic field stength allowing more cosmic rays to reach the surface.

I wonder how many wats of power we would be able to generate before earth slows down for i.e. 1 second longer day.

Imagine a massive planet spinning in empty vacuum. Can the inhabitants slow down their planet, and generate electricity?

I suspect that they can generate electricity with angular momentum with it, that can be only used to do work with the equivalent angular momentum.

I ask, ..... Would Extracting power would have the side effect of slowing down the earths rotation ?

how practical is this, eg how big would a device have to be to produce any meaningful energy?

Strong flashbacks of Southland Tales (2006). Underrated movie with this as a core premise

We could use this, by adding power, to fine tune the day to eliminate leap years...;)

They made a really terrible movie about this.

Spoiler: they nuked a bunch of stuff.

Why does the earth have a magnetic field?

but _why_ does the earth rotate ?

I mean… yes, the earth’s rotation can easily generate power. All you need is a gyroscope spinning in a vacuum on frictionless supports to make that work. Of course it’s only 1 revolution per day, but still, if it’s big enough…

It’s hard to beat solar though.there are very few technologies that stack up better financially than “just buy more panels” in most of the populated world. Batteries are really the key.

Futurama already did this episode though? It caused the Earth to stop spinning.

Wouldn't this slowly slow the earths rotation down? Let's say everyone tried to build power plants using this.

It's incredible the lengths humanity is willing to go to avoid adopting nuclear energy - despite the US navy driving mobile reactors millions of miles over the last 70 years.

The topic is very interesting. The spin of science, is not.

Side story: What's to argue over?

There's no shortage of scientists with breakthroughs who are pretty much abused by their profession and colleagues, sometimes for decades, simply for exploring possibilities and capabilities that are more than safe and conservative and incremental.

Either it's true, or it's not, and it can be explored, or not.

Division breeds who is right and wrong, not what is right or wrong.

Maybe it can be proven, maybe not. Maybe it's true and we don't understand it yet. The naysayers might just not be wanting someone else to succeed.