How to harness Jupiter's gravitational energy?
I am currently orbiting Jupiter, the rent is pretty cheap and the view is magnificent.
However, my former electricity provider refuses to connect me to earth's grid for petty reasons like "are you insane?" and "how did you get there anyway?" Still, my electricity requirements are pretty high as I wish to do heavy science stuff and watch cat videos in the winter.
Problem is, the sun is far away often hidden by Jupiter, there is no wind in space and mining does not seem like a good idea around here.
Now, I have a lot of potential energy, as Jupiter is massive. I know that tidal power uses the moon's mass to generate energy, and Jupiter is allegedly bigger than the moon. Thanks to a lot of money, planning and duct tape, I can build pretty much anything I want.
Here are now my actual questions:
- Can I convert Jupiter's gravitational pull to electricity?
- What is the best way to do it?
- Is it a good idea with respect to other potential power sources?
- How much energy can I provide? Enough for a house? A city?
My actual orbit is left as a choice to you, I'd rather it to be stable and with a nice view.
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/60239. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Direct gravitation energy is a lost cause in freefall. If you're close enough to get gravity, then you're no longer in orbit and will die soon.
There is a work around though, which does use gravity, indirectly at least.
By using an Electrodynamic Tether you can tap into all the kinetic energy you have and harvest all the electricity you want.
Electrodynamic tethers (EDTs) are long conducting wires, such as one deployed from a tether satellite, which can operate on electromagnetic principles as generators, by converting their kinetic energy to electrical energy, or as motors, converting electrical energy to kinetic energy. Electric potential is generated across a conductive tether by its motion through a planet's magnetic field.
And Jupiter has a massive magnetic field, which means lots and lots of energy!
This isn't going to solve the bandwidth problems for streaming youtube cat videos though.
EDIT: There is no such thing as a free lunch.
Interacting with Jupiters gravity in any way will cause the house to lose momentum, and eventually deorbit.
You could postpone this by passing the inertia debt off on something else, like a tidally locked ice chunk from Jupiter's rings or a moon.
You could attach the ED tether to it, and use either microwaves or lasers to send the energy to your house, then when they eventually lose enough momentum to deorbit you collect the tether and place it on a new rock.
Gravity isn't the best option
Jupiter is a giant ball of mostly hydrogen, and so is for all practical purposes an unlimited supply of fuel.
At the cost of having to import oxygen you could burn the hydrogen to get energy, and get drinking water as a byproduct.
You could also separate out the hydrogen 3 to use in a fusion reactor for energy, and sell the resulting helium to Earth to pay the high bandwidth bills.
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