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So if earthquakes do generate "electric field lines", can we tap into that and generate electricity from those field lines? And, if so, since that would be "st

So if earthquakes do generate "electric field lines", can we tap into that and generate electricity from those field lines? And, if so, since that would be "stealing" energy from the quake, could it diminish the quake intensity? Theoretically.

c3534l 7y ago
It's energy that's already left the quake. It's not like wave generators stop earthquakes which cause tsunamis.
heavenlyblue 7y ago
Next in the agenda: stealing energy from lightning.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-a-way-to-harness-electricity-from-lightning/ https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-... TIL a lightening bolt is a nickle's worth of energy.
  - enjo 7y ago
    TIL that 1.21 gigawatts is $.05.
    - heavenlyblue 7y ago
      It's 1.21 gigawatts, but only 0.25KiloWatt/hours.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    TL;DR: a literal nickle. The article estimates that a typical lightning bolt contains only about 0.25kWh, which is surprisingly little, if you put it like this. I always thought lightning bolts had something closer to a megawatt-hour, so thanks for clearing that up for me!
    - jsjohnst 7y ago
      A megawatt-hour is enough to power a small/medium data center for an hour. Or to power tens of thousands of homes for an hour. A lightning bolt lasts for seconds at best, so not sure why you’d think it’d provide megawatts for a duration of an hour. That would mean the instantaneous current would need to be much higher than a terawatt, which is several orders of magnitude higher than what it is.
TallGuyShort 7y ago
For the purpose of generating electricity, I would expect very low energy from these fields in any localized area - and thus no efficient way to capture a significant amount of that energy. It would be more or less comparable to generating electricity from existing background radio noise. As for the purpose of weakening earthquakes, this energy may as well have already left the system - it's propagating away from where the problem is. This article is like saying that exhaust from a car engine decreases air quality. You could harvest that exhaust but it won't affect the engine. If somehow you did have enough pressure and containment to keep the exhaust from leaving the engine at all, that would have some effect. But if we could do that EM fields over all of California, I think that would have bigger effects on the planet than weakening the occasional earthquake. That's like a Star-Trek-level of control over a planet.

c3534l 7y ago

It's energy that's already left the quake. It's not like wave generators stop earthquakes which cause tsunamis.

heavenlyblue 7y ago

Next in the agenda: stealing energy from lightning.

Ericson2314 7y ago
https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-a-way-to-harness-electricity-from-lightning/ https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/is-there-... TIL a lightening bolt is a nickle's worth of energy.
- enjo 7y ago
  TIL that 1.21 gigawatts is $.05.
  - heavenlyblue 7y ago
    It's 1.21 gigawatts, but only 0.25KiloWatt/hours.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  TL;DR: a literal nickle. The article estimates that a typical lightning bolt contains only about 0.25kWh, which is surprisingly little, if you put it like this. I always thought lightning bolts had something closer to a megawatt-hour, so thanks for clearing that up for me!
  - jsjohnst 7y ago
    A megawatt-hour is enough to power a small/medium data center for an hour. Or to power tens of thousands of homes for an hour. A lightning bolt lasts for seconds at best, so not sure why you’d think it’d provide megawatts for a duration of an hour. That would mean the instantaneous current would need to be much higher than a terawatt, which is several orders of magnitude higher than what it is.

TallGuyShort 7y ago

For the purpose of generating electricity, I would expect very low energy from these fields in any localized area - and thus no efficient way to capture a significant amount of that energy. It would be more or less comparable to generating electricity from existing background radio noise. As for the purpose of weakening earthquakes, this energy may as well have already left the system - it's propagating away from where the problem is. This article is like saying that exhaust from a car engine decreases air quality. You could harvest that exhaust but it won't affect the engine. If somehow you did have enough pressure and containment to keep the exhaust from leaving the engine at all, that would have some effect. But if we could do that EM fields over all of California, I think that would have bigger effects on the planet than weakening the occasional earthquake. That's like a Star-Trek-level of control over a planet.