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Scientists build device to harvest electricity from Earth's spin (www.earth.com)

submitted 1 day ago by noumenon@lemmy.world to c/science@lemmy.world

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A Princeton-led team has built a tabletop device that generates voltage directly from Earth's rotation through its magnetic field. While the power output is orders of magnitude too small for practical electronics, the breakthrough suggests Earth's spin could someday provide constant, fuel-free energy if the effect scales up. The team is now calling for independent labs to reproduce the results.

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[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 12 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

For a fraction of the cost of what it would take to make this possible, we could have every desert on the planet blanketed with solar panels and have enough energy for 100 civilizations.

All we need to do is bury about 100 individuals that are determined to fuck it for the rest of us.

[–] Tedesche@lemmy.world 4 points 15 hours ago

I have a feeling covering deserts with solar panels will have some sort of negative impact on the environment. Those are habitats too, although inhospitable to most organisms.

Still, I see you point. It makes more sense to invest in green energy sources we know work and are already cheap. A combination of wind, solar, and hydro should be more than sufficient to supply the world’s energy needs. Although I still think we should be investing heavily into cold fusion research, because that’s still the holy grail.