So, I’m aware that tides are caused by the Moon’s gravity acting on the surface of the earth. That said, tidal forces move an obscene amount of matter from point A to point B and back to point A again. Where does that energy come from that doesn’t break the first law of thermodynamics? Followup question: If we harvest energy from the system using turbines or something similar, what effect does that have on the system?
In: Physics
The moon exerts a gravitational force as you’ve noted, and the tides move as a result of (rotational) kinetic energy, kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy are direct equivalents, so the potential energy of Earth’s total ocean mass under a gravitational influence is equal to its maximum kinetic energy, energy is entirely conserved in this system, in other words the amount of kinetic energy a body can experience is entirely dependent on the force of gravity acting on it, as for harvesting energy, only a very small fraction of a fraction of that kinetic energy is transformed into electricity, so the energy loss in the entire system is negligible
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