Friday, March 15, 2019

orbital motion - Are tidal power plants slowing down Earth's rotation?


Are tidal power plants slowing down Earth's rotation to the speed of the orbiting moon? (1 rotation per 28 cca days)


Are they vice versa increasing the speed of moon orbiting by generating some waves in gravitation field?


If yes, can you calculate how much energy must be produced by how many tidal power plants (compare it to average nuclear plant please) to slow down the Earth's rotation to 25 hours / day?



Answer



In principle, yes, the ultimate source of energy for a tidal power plant is Earth's rotational energy, so these plants are slowing down the Earth's rotation. By conservation of angular momentum, that means they are pushing the Moon further away as well, although I wouldn't phrase it as being due to "waves in the gravitational field," as that expression suggests a different phenomenon.



The Earth's rotational kinetic energy is about $10^{29}$ J, and the world uses something like $10^{22}$ J/year, so you could power the entire world for millions of years before you'd run out of rotational energy.


To answer your numerical question, you should work out the rotational kinetic energy of the Earth now, and also when the day is 25 hours long. The difference between those is the total energy required. The way to figure out the rotational kinetic energy is ${1\over 2}I\omega^2$. Here $I$ is the Earth's moment of inertia, which is about $0.4MR^2$ where $M$ and $R$ are Earth's mass and radius. $\omega$ is the Earth's rotation rate in radians per second -- that is, $2\pi$ over the time for one rotation.


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