Comment by keepamovin
3 months ago
Really hoping for some better, first-principles or technically comprehensive answers here from the HN hive-mega-mind....sigh. And I wasn't the only one... I reckon nobody gives out expertise for free these days, myself included, so I understand y’all’s reluctance. Double heavy sigh.
The trivial amount of power you can generate is great for nerd sniping[1] , but won't even light a flashlight.
I wouldn't expect a lot of discussion about it.
[1] https://xkcd.com/356/
Hmm, I'm not sure that's true. The 30cm Zn-something tube generates mcirovolts (1e-6), but you can imagine longer, and more, such tubes. With volume (width x depth x height) you can quickly scale up to 1000s of volts or more.
THat's just 1 experiment!
On the other hand, there is thermal heat radiating up from the ground, and during daytime, up to a full kilowatt per square meter of solar illumination. Both of which dwarf this effect.
We've been nerd sniped ;-)
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