Grandiose 'free' energy:

Ok, you have this superscience making a shaft, big one, say
50 feet wide, going all the way to the center of the earth and back up
so it connects to its antipode.
Its set up so there are magnetic transformers along the route so
something conductive falling will generate energy, this tunnel
is not used for transport, just to collect energy.
Obviously self limiting but suppose you drop 1 million KG of iron
into the tunnel and there are magnetic fields all the way to the bottom
which will convert the kinetic energy to electricity.
Not worrying about the energy cost of building such a shaft, they
were done by Von Neumann robots who just ate their way through
and make superhard coatings which withstands the forces and heat
deep inside the earth. So assuming 50% efficiency, how much
energy does the system generate from this falling mass, 1E6 Kg on
its way to the center of the earth?
You can see that if the kinetic energy was all sucked out of the mass
and converted to electricity, the mass would stop at the center,
or close to.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Ok, you have this superscience making a shaft, big one, say
50 feet wide, going all the way to the center of the earth and back up
so it connects to its antipode.
Its set up so there are magnetic transformers along the route so
something conductive falling will generate energy, this tunnel
is not used for transport, just to collect energy.
Obviously ...[text shortened]... out of the mass
and converted to electricity, the mass would stop at the center,
or close to.

How is the mass returned to the surface? Or are you proposing a system whereby we drop our rubbish down a well and forget about it?

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
How is the mass returned to the surface? Or are you proposing a system whereby we drop our rubbish down a well and forget about it?

Thats the general idea, just wanted the energy generated, its a
huge amount! Like I said, if all the kinetic energy was absorbed by
the generation system, it would be at a stop when the gravitational
force was zero, at dead center. Of course, there would still be kinetic
energy left over so it would rise to a certain point and come back down
and rise up, generating yet another wave of energy till it came to
a final rest.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Thats the general idea, just wanted the energy generated, its a
huge amount! Like I said, if all the kinetic energy was absorbed by
the generation system, it would be at a stop when the gravitational
force was zero, at dead center. Of course, there would still be kinetic
energy left over so it would rise to a certain point and come back down
and rise up, generating yet another wave of energy till it came to
a final rest.

The energy is much less than if we find a way to make use the same mass via E=mc^2.

Your example is no different, there is no point in mice imagining the benefits of putting a bell on the cat if they cannot first manage to put it on.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
The energy is much less than if we find a way to make use the same mass via E=mc^2.

Your example is no different, there is no point in mice imagining the benefits of putting a bell on the cat if they cannot first manage to put it on.

Well duh, thanks for that flash. So far the only way E=mc^2 can be
used ATT is with weapons which give you a lot of energy all right.
I was just posing a hypothetical situation.
Not to step on the soap box but I think the whole friggin planet is
resting on its collective keester not putting bigtime money into
the various forms of fusion and safer fission reactors. Just shows
how commited these arseholes are to alternative energy sources.
By bigtime I don't mean the palty 5 bil going into ITER, I mean
BIG money, 100 bil $US or better. That would show some real
commitment.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well duh, thanks for that flash. So far the only way E=mc^2 can be
used ATT is with weapons which give you a lot of energy all right.
I was just posing a hypothetical situation.
Not to step on the soap box but I think the whole friggin planet is
resting on its collective keester not putting bigtime money into
the various forms of fusion and safer fissi ng into ITER, I mean
BIG money, 100 bil $US or better. That would show some real
commitment.

Fission reactors aren't weapons.

The energy you're talking about harnessing is the gravitational potential energy of the object relative to the center of the Earth. So, you need the mass, the distance to the center of the Earth and the equation that tells you what the force of gravity is at a particular depth below the surface. Because this last value is variable, you'll need to do a calculus integration from the surface to the core.

Xanthos, it's a simple physics problem. Why are you giving the guy a hard time about the practicality of it? He just wants a mathematical analysis and calculation.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Fission reactors aren't weapons.

The energy you're talking about harnessing is the gravitational potential energy of the object relative to the center of the Earth. So, you need the mass, the distance to the center of the Earth and the equation that tells you what the force of gravity is at a particular depth below the surface. Because this last va ...[text shortened]... rd time about the practicality of it? He just wants a mathematical analysis and calculation.

True enough! Funny, I was driving right past one yesterday, seeing
all the water evaporating, huge cloud, was wondering how much
water is lost to the air from one of those reactor towers.