Environment

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Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

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Tidal Energy Is Not Renewable (cs.stanford.edu)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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It is incorrect to consider tidal power as renewable energy. Harnessing tidal energy will pose more severe problems than using fossil fuels. This study provides quantitative estimates to show how using tidal energy can destroy the environment in a short amount of time. Tides are induced by the rotation of the Earth with respect to the gravity of the Moon and Sun. The rotational energy of the Earth is naturally dissipated by tides slowly. Consuming tidal energy further reduces the rotational energy, accelerates the energy loss rate, and decelerates the rotation of the Earth. Based on the average pace of world energy consumption over the last 50 years, if we were to extract the rotational energy just to supply 1% of the world's energy consumption, the rotation of the Earth would lock to the Moon in about 1000 years. As a consequence, one side of the Earth would be exposed to the Sun for a much longer period of time than it is today. The temperature would rise extremely high on that side and drop extremely low on the other side. The environment would become intolerable, and most life on Earth could be wiped out.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Actually the axis of the earth has shifted a measureable amount due to groundwater exploitation by humans shifting around the weight distribution of earth.

Also in your comparision to windmills you need to consider the very strong difference, that the wind is generated by the heat energy that comes from the sun, whereas earths spinning has no external energy source to maintain it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Funny enough, if harvesting tidal energy were enough to stop the Earth's rotation, then a civilization advanced enough to use all that energy without burning the planet to a crisp should easilly be able to restart the rotation or even pause the slowing long before it becomes a real issue.

We could intentionally force a 24hr day, and/or a 365.25 day year at that point, because fuck it, why not? Show Mars and Venus what happens if they don't get with the program, right quick.