Hello!
Okay, a little bit of backstory. My uncle was arguing that you could siphon water from one part of the sea to another part to generate electricity if they fell on turbines on the other end. He used a siphoning example , as in siphoning gas from a car on anything else really, on how it would work. He also mentioned that because of earth curvature that it would have about a 10m fall.
I immediately saw some faulty things but don’t really have the background to be so sure about it. What I mostly opposed was the fact that it wouldn’t be a fall if the pipe followed the earths curvature . The sea to pipe height would be the same at both ends and therefore not work because there is no fall in height. Even though one end would be 10m lower but that’s only relative to each other not an actual different height.
So who is actually right here?
In: Physics
The sea actually *does* bulge out at the equator due to the spin of the planet. However, this wouldn’t get you power because the water wouldn’t “fall”. If you go at it from another perspective, you could say that the effective force of gravity is lower at the equator (add the two force vectors together, they are parallel but opposite), so the two water masses are essentially at the same potential energy level. Which means you won’t be able to extract potential energy out of it by letting it flow through your pipe.
Also said pipe would have to be stupid long.
If he bases it on just the curvature of the planet, make him consider how the vector of the gravitational pull also follows the curve of the planet. Basically, if you try to use a straight pipe, the end spout of it is pointing upwards and the gravity there is pointing backwards along the length of the pipe, pulling the water back *in*.
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