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Tapping Solar Wind's Renewable Energy
A few folks noted a story making the rounds about the huge energy potential just blowing past the planet in the form of solar wind. This research involves putting a satellite into orbit with a thousand-meter cable and a 5,000-mile sail to generate more power than the earth currently uses.
A happy face
just how much extra radiation from the sun can we survive?
That realization does nothing to assuage my small but persistent fears.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
You understand that the Earth is already out in the solar wind, right? With a surface area vastly larger than the proposed sail? If we were going to blow away, it'd have already happened.
Both you and GP are nearly right.
The earth is (near enough) a rotating sphere in the solar wind. As any aerodynamicist can show, a rotating sphere in a fluid flow generates a force (lift) perpendicular to the flow. Since the solar wind flows from the sun past the earth, the resultant force causes the earth to orbit around the sun.
Also, as any sailor can show, if you throw a sail connected to your ship into he sea, it will act as a sea anchor. Sea anchors are used as a type of break to counteract the forces of high winds.
So, if we have this rather large energy-collecting sail in the solar wind tethered to the earth, it will tend to inhibit the motion of the earth relative to the solar wind. This will slow down and eventually stop the earth's rotation. Once the earth stops rotating, the perpendicular lift force will stop, and the earth will stop orbiting the sun.
So, eventually we'll have the earth sitting motionless with one side in perpetual daylight and the other in permanent darkness.
But we can use the energy from the sail to power the lightbulbs for the darkside, so we've nothing to worry about!!