Can gravity be used as an infinite energy source? What if you throw objects down, say a hill, and had a panel on the bottom that would use the force of the fall and convert it to energy? Would this violate the law of conservation of energy?
Answer
Gravity could be used as an energy source in the way you describe, but like all other energy sources, it comes at a cost. In order to roll something down a hill you have to get it to the top of the hill first, and moving something to the top of a hill requires energy. Of course, you could just roll things down the hill that are already at the tops of hills (because of some natural process), but that practice is not sustainable ( and not, I would guess, efficient). This is basically like burning fossil fuels: we are burning chemicals which are naturally at the top of the chemical energy hill and moving them to tower energy states, and using the results to run our cars and heat our homes.
Using gravity to generate usable energy does not violate conservation of energy because it is simply the conversion of potential energy (at the top of the hill) to kinetic energy (at the bottom) to electrical energy, or whatever other kind of energy you panel delivers.
No comments:
Post a Comment