In principle, the Earth is a giant flywheel. In particular, there is an immense amount of stored energy in its angular momentum as it rotates about its own axis.<\/p>\n
Theoretically it might be possible to tap into that energy, through some mechanism as yet uninvented. One intriguing aspect of such a mechanism is that it could be used anywhere, at any time. A motor powered by the rotation of the Earth could remain completely mobile and untethered, never needing to be recharged.<\/p>\n
Of course, the moment you start tapping into its angular momentum, the Earth will start to spin more slowly. At first this slowing would be imperceptible, but eventually its effect on global climate would become catastrophic to life, both human and otherwise.<\/p>\n
Therefore, to be an ecologically responsible species, we would need to continually “recharge” our planet by restoring its angular momentum. One way to do this would be via solar energy. We would need to devise some mechanism to translate heat from the Sun into a slow but steady “push” to keep the Earth spinning at the same rate about its axis.<\/p>\n
In effect, such an energy ecosystem would be a form of solar energy, drawing on the Sun’s nuclear fusion energy, while using the rotation of the Earth as a form of temporary storage, in the form of a giant flywheel.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying that this would be a good idea… \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In principle, the Earth is a giant flywheel. In particular, there is an immense amount of stored energy in its angular momentum as it rotates about its own axis. Theoretically it might be possible to tap into that energy, through some mechanism as yet uninvented. One intriguing aspect of such a mechanism is that it … Continue reading “Flywheel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19125,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19124\/revisions\/19125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}