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Laugh if you want, but someone needs to figure out how to harness the energy in earthquakes

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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:35 PM
Original message
Laugh if you want, but someone needs to figure out how to harness the energy in earthquakes
Seriously. I'm no engineer so I can't even begin to think about this in real terms, but just imagine if that energy were somehow able to be captured and stored for use.

Then we'd be looking forward to earthquakes. Of course, then we'd also not have to have nuclear power plants around to worry about during quakes.

Nobel prize goes to the person who figures this one out. Ready, set, GO. Get on it.
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MadHound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:36 PM
Response to Original message
1. It's the same problem of trying to harness the energy in lighting
First, how to predict where such an event will happen. Second, it is a massive amount of energy, how are you going to store it?
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:39 PM
Response to Reply #1
2. The difference is that quakes strike on faults
those are known locations. As for storing it, as I said, I'm no engineer so I have no idea. But I do know that some engineers are incredibly creative.
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MadHound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:41 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. But where on those faults, that's the key.
Will it blow on offshore Oregon, or onshore LA:shrug:
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:43 PM
Response to Reply #3
6. Just start anywhere and expand
Once the technology is available, you just start implementing it in as many locations as possible.
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Ian David Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:41 PM
Response to Original message
4. Just throw a pile of these in the San Andreas fault...



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JVS Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:55 PM
Response to Reply #4
14. LOL
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pokerfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:50 PM
Response to Reply #4
25. Genius!
Be sure to tie monofilament to each one for retrieval purposes.
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:43 PM
Response to Original message
5. Let's start simply, try to capture the energy from a rock AFTER it is pushed off a cliff
That's basically the challenge, times a billion.

I think it would be easier to harness the Earth's rotational energy, which is also impossible.
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:44 PM
Response to Reply #5
9. Not really. It's not only motion, but friction.
I don't think it's impossible. It only seems so because nobody has done it yet.
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:52 PM
Response to Reply #9
13. The friction makes heat, and that heat can be used to drive turbines, but..
The power plant would also destroy itself whenever there's a quake.

We're already generating geothermal power on more stable crust.
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:56 PM
Response to Reply #13
15. If a quake would destroy it, it was not designed correctly
What I'm talking about is a paradigm shift, a whole new way of looking at problems like this. If I knew the answer or if it were based on existing concepts, it would already be done.

Scientific discovery sometimes occurs in quantum leaps and that's what would be required for this, imho.

It would take some major thinking-outside-the-box.
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
7. You could have energy capturer thingies sort of like flappers that
Edited on Sun Mar-13-11 02:45 PM by kestrel91316
could crank up a ratcheted spring thingie and put them where earthquakes commonly happen. Sort of like those inertial self-winding watch mechanisms.

I'm not a mechanical engineer so I don't know how to describe what I am picturing.

They would have to be able to capture multidirectional energy waves from quakes, so they could be arrayed in a circle.
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:46 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. But you know what I mean, I can tell.
Neither of us are engineers, maybe that's why it's easy for us to imagine? But then, some amazing discoveries are made by people who are uneducated just enough to not know that something is impossible.
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tridim Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:46 PM
Response to Reply #7
11. The problem is the energy is spread out as a wave over the entire Earth.
If all of the energy was concentrated in an acre it could probably be done.
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 03:29 PM
Response to Reply #11
18. If you put your quake energy capturers in the most seismically active zones you
will catch more fish.
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buddysmellgood Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:44 PM
Response to Original message
8. That's basically what geothermal plants do.
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kestrel91316 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:47 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. No, geothermal plants capture THERMAL energy to produce steam for turbines.
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pokerfan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #12
24. and the planet's thermal energy is what drives plate tectonics
so geothermal is essentially tapping the same source.
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upstatecajun Donating Member (511 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 02:57 PM
Response to Original message
16. And Hurricanes
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Duer 157099 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 03:07 PM
Response to Reply #16
17. Well we already have wind farms. Don't they capture hurricane energy?
Or maybe they're not located in those places? :shrug:
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Yo_Mama Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:55 PM
Response to Reply #17
26. Those stupid engineers
They apparently haven't even thought of capturing 100 mph winds.

If only we did not make them take Materials and Strengths courses.... First, we have to fix our education system!!

Then, we conquer the universe.
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KT2000 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
19. Look to Europe
especially Sweden. They think forward and out of the box when it comes to energy.
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L. Coyote Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:00 PM
Response to Original message
20. First place in the Ridiculous Ideas category. Maybe you could harvess the gravitation force
in rain next.
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Codeine Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:13 PM
Response to Original message
21. Are you for real?
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SidDithers Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:59 PM
Response to Reply #21
27. DU has been an especially interesting place this weekend...nt
Sid
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Jamastiene Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:19 PM
Response to Original message
22. I've been saying for years that we should find a way to tap into the energy
in violent storms with damaging winds and tornadoes and find a way to store that energy for later use.
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Kokonoe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Mar-13-11 04:24 PM
Response to Original message
23. You would have to store the energy in the ground and....
oh you got me. lol
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