[sandworm101]

The amount of energy released in such events boggles the mind. Shifting cubic-kilometers of rock, in this case several hundred or even thousands of cubic-kilometers, even a few inches requires more energy than all the worlds nukes many times over. We live atop an immense heat engine, every little vibration of which could power our entire civilization for years.

[IKantRead]

I've always found it fascinating that geophysicist and earlier advocate for Bayesian methods, Sir Harold Jeffreys, didn't believe in continental drift and plate tectonics because he felt there was no known source of energy on the Earth massive enough to explain this movement. [0]

He remained an opponent until death (at which point continental drift was widely accepted) which is both a testament to the literally unbelievable energy behind seismic activity and the importance of updating your Bayesian priors as you gain new information.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Jeffreys#Opposition_to_...

[throwup238]

Another great illustration of Planck’s law:

> Max Planck, surveying his own career in his Scientific Autobiography, sadly remarked that “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.“ -The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

[blackbear_]

This is actually such a great insight. That's why we also need new generations of politicians and management every so often to keep the wheel of progress rolling. And, incidentally, why I think that developing anti-aging technology is not a good idea.

[hackerlight]

I wonder if there's something physical to do with aging that makes people cognitively inflexible. Anti-aging tech would be great if you could prevent that negative aspect of aging too.

[thehours]

Actually the lesson I take away is the importance of not having a 0% (or 100%) prior, since it leaves no room to update with new information.

[roenxi]

It is also suspicious because it means someone has assigned a 0% prior to their being insane or in some sort of Plato's-cave scenario - which is hard to justify.

The minimum possible Baysian prior is a base rate of "my senses are just not picking up reality and/or my memory is catastrophically compromised and/or I cannot process logic right now due to some reason" which while low is never going to be 0%. There are too many known ways for human brains to fall over. 0% priors are unjustifiable.

[cozzyd]

I've always found it fascinating that the guy who came up with the theory (Wegener) died in on the ice sheet in Greenland while attempting to resupply a research station. Having spent some time on the Greenland Ice Sheet at Summit Station, life on the Greenland ice sheet is much more cushy nowadays...

[barbariangrunge]

I think we sort of have the tech to use geological energy, but I imagine the hardest part is not having your equipment destroyed all the time by quakes? You'd probably want to put your collectors deep underground where there's more activity

[sandworm101]

At a theoretical level, it could be done with ropes. You don't need to wait for earthquakes. Setup two anchors on either side of a fault. String ropes between them. As the two plates slowly more, the stretching ropes can be tied to generators. Totally theoretical but, no new physics is required to extract energy from two slowly moving things.

[cm2187]

It's even harder than harvesting lightnings.

[barbariangrunge]

A friend, back when he was a physics student, looked into harvesting lightning.

He calculated that it wasn't economically viable: tons of wattage, but for such brief timespans, that it doesn't actually amount to that much on a comparative scale. The cost of building the collectors and transporting the electricity (from ocean platforms) was much higher than the cost of using other energy sources. Iirc. It wasn't exactly a serious investigation by a team of engineers, but I basically trust his conclusion.

Maybe it will be more attractive in the future after we stop using hydrocarbons?

[kulahan]

I know embarrassingly little about electricity, but wouldn't this also likely require significant advances in semiconductors to even be feasible?

[sandworm101]

I'm not sure about that. Drill some holes, pump some water, and geothermal power straight to the grid can be done. Harvesting lighting would require innumerable towers and even would require some trickery to get it hooked up to our power grids.

[borgunit2]

That’s not kinetic earthquake energy, though.

I think in an apples-to-apples comparison, you would need to attach some kind of device to absorb the kinetic energy from the fault.

[rzzzt]

A building-sized piezo crystal?

[lawlessone]

Country sized.

[squirtle24]

Or one clock tower and a flux capacitor...

[cm2187]

...and wait for the next major earthquake to even test it.

[manarth]

For starters, the scythe keeps melting