science

23229 readers

659 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

m3t00@lemmy.world

Joleee@lemmy.world

laverabe@lemmy.world

DeadPand@midwest.social

laverabe@lemmy.zip

131

Scientists build device to harvest electricity from Earth's spin (www.earth.com)

submitted 2 days ago by noumenon@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

47 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A Princeton-led team has built a tabletop device that generates voltage directly from Earth's rotation through its magnetic field. While the power output is orders of magnitude too small for practical electronics, the breakthrough suggests Earth's spin could someday provide constant, fuel-free energy if the effect scales up. The team is now calling for independent labs to reproduce the results.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] 5too@lemmy.world 1 points 8 hours ago

Nah, Earth's a giant blob of liquid with a thin skim of crust on the outer layer. If you apply a force that slows a portion of that crust, you're not going to affect the spin of the blob - you'll just push that part of the crust around a bit at most.

So apocalyptic earthquakes will shut this down long before you have any real effect on the day's length. (And that's a lot easier to recover from!)