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[–] 9 points 1 week ago (11 children)
  • [–] 8 points 1 week ago* (2 children)

    Geothermal comes from friction inside the core, residual heat from planet formation, and radioactive decay. Since all elements heavier than hydrogen were fused inside stars, and heavier actinides like uranium are formed in second gen stars, and the inertia of dust that coalesces into planetary bodies including the earth and the moon originated from dying stars going supernovae, geothermal and tidal energy are products of stellar explosions, either inertial, kinetic, or radioactive. Tides are driven by the moon, whose energy is kinetic, stored from past supernovae

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (4 children)

    This raises an interesting question in my mind, does tidal power make the earth get closer to the moon? Because if you got all the energy out of it, then the water wouldn't move, so I guess it's the same as gravitational potential in that sense, but I guess it's removing it, so less gravitational potential means either less mass (not the case) or less distance.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (3 children)

    The opposite happens. Tidal energy is what causes the moon to drift farther away from the earth, as the moon loses angular velocity.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (2 children)

    But does harvesting it make it go faster or slower away?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    If you mean harvesting tidal energy, the effect on the moon would be minimal. The loss of angular momentum the moon experiences is due to the mass of the earth’s waters. I could not imagine anything humans could build that could extract enough tidal energy that it would disrupt the moon without utterly destroying the environment at the same time (by way of nullifying tides somehow). In fact, to harness tidal energy, one way would be to use underwater turbines. They would have an immediate effect to the local environment but a negligible amount to the moon itself.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    I know its minimal, I'm not saying it's a concern, I'm just saying if we are harvesting it, doesn't that mean it's pulling us closer to it? It's not magically free energy (in the physics sense), so what else could it be other than converting the potential gravitational energy between the earth and moon into something else?

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