[Physics] Energy of the Earth's rotation

[Thomas Goodey]

On 18 Jan 2017 at 12:00, physics-request at tuks.nl wrote:

> ... the Kinetic Energy of the spinning Earth has
> trillions of times  the energy that all seven billion of
> us use up every year as fossil fuels, Nuclear, etc.  

You can see at

http://tinyurl.com/earthroteng

what that energy is.

> Around then, I realized that there are few ways to try to
> extract that spinning energy, except for two forms which
> use gyroscopes and one which uses pendulums.  

The tides do that very well, and push the Moon away as they 
do it. We can harvest that energy by harnessing tidal 
energy. However, in the long term, it may not be a good 
idea, as Olaf Stapledon visualized in 'Last and First Men':

"This civilization was fortunately brief; but its fifty 
thousand years of unbridled waste of tidal energy was 
enough to interfere appreciably with the orbit of the 
moon." 

Thomas Goodey

************************************
What do you do when your dream dies?
Dreams die in every life. But not Pham's 
dream. He had pursued it across five hundred 
light years and three thousand years of 
objective time. It was a dream of a single 
Humankind, where justice would not be 
occasional flickering light, but a steady glow 
across all of Human Space. He dreamed of 
a civilization where continents never 
burned, and where minor kings didn't give 
children away as hostages.

............Vernor Vinge, 'A Deepness in the Sky'