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Tidal Energy Is Not Renewable
(cs.stanford.edu)
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The author is saying if we use tidal energy to cover 1% of our total energy usage AND if we assume our energy usage will increase exponentially year by year, after 1000 years we’ll stop the earth spinning.
No shit.
If we sap an exponentially growing amount of energy from the earth’s inertia, at some point in the future it will stop because the amount of energy feeding into the system (sun) is relatively fixed in value.
If I was to bet, this paper was tongue in cheek joke between the student and their instructor.
Its a pretty good joke though, you gotta admit. Nothing like someone with a phd and the knowledge to mess with people not literate in the subject matter. Kudos to dr liu.