Posted on 06/18/2010 7:01:52 AM PDT by blam
China's Monster Three Gorges Dam Is About To Slow The Rotation Of The Earth
Cutler Cleveland, The Energy Watch
Jun. 18, 2010, 9:23 AM
The Myth: The filling of the reservoir behind Three Gorges Dam in China changed the rotation of the Earth.
The Evidence: Three Gorges Dam, China crosses the Yangtze River in Hubei province, China. It the world’s largest hydroelectric power station by total capacity, which will be 22,500 MW when completed. When the water level is maximum at 175 meters (574 ft) over sea level (91 meters (299 ft) above river level), the reservoir created by the dam is about 660 kilometers (410 mi) in length and 1.12 kilometers (0.70 mi) in width on average. The total surface area of the reservoir is 1045 square kilometers, and it will will flood a total area of 632 square kilometers, of land. The reservoir will contain about 39.3 cu km (9.43 cubic miles) of water. That water will weigh more than 39 trillion kilograms (42 billion tons).
A shift in a mass of that size would affect the rotation of the Earth due to a phenomena known as the moment of inertia, which is the inertia of a rigid rotating body with respect to its rotation. The moment of inertia of an object about a given axis describes how difficult it is to change its angular motion about that axis. The longer the distance of a mass to its axis of rotation, the slower it will spin. You may not know it, but you see examples of this in everyday life. For example, a figure skater attempting to spin faster will draw her arms tight to her bodies
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The Verdict: True.
This is a guest post from The Energy Watch.
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(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
We would need a leap second every 45.45 years..........
I trust you’ll find a way to put it to good use!
I also recommend “Under the Grandstand” by Seymour Butts.
http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast161/Unit4/tides.html - (see Tidal Braking)
So in some billions of years (about the time the Sun is slated to go nova), the Moon will be about half again as far away from us as it is now (no more total Solar eclipses!), the Earth's rotation will be exactly the same as the Moon's orbital period (around 47 of our current days by then). You'll be in daylight for around 23 days, then in darkness for about 23 more, and the Moon will appear to hang over one spot on the Earth all the time.
So damn dam may hasten that moment by...what...a few years?...big deal.
I tend to say it might increase the precession of the rotation of the Earth thereby altering our orbit around the Sun a little quicker resulting in the expediting of the next ice age.
“I believe the moon/earth/tide action is slowing the earth down and sending the moon further away.”
That’s correct. The Moon moves away from the Earth about 2 inches annually.
It does to Brat, the assault kitten, too, when it comes to tuna.
Technical details depend on the application and requirements, of course.
see the table on the right near the top of the page.
Correct. For all their effort, this level of engineering often seems ultimately beyond them. The endemic corruption, cutting corners, etc. all end up going badly in the end.
From their past actions, it's pretty obvious that the Chinese government could care less if millions of their own citizens get obliterated if this monstrosity fails. The "international community" would show more sympathy than the bastards in Bejing. As much as I don't like to admit it, I wouldn't be shedding any tears. The Chinese are not our friends.
Kennebunk;
Showing your age with that one...
That would be pretty cool to see the world’s largest civil engineering project be destroyed by an EQ (not for the deaths it would cause).
I am going to a beef fest this weekend. How much should I consume to compensate for this dam thing.
Stop Global Wobbling! Within 100 years the wobble will reach a tipping point and Earth will flip on her side causing the polar ice cap to shake off.
In 60 nanoseconds a normal desktop computer can perform at least 720 instructions.
That’s almost as fast as I can type!............
I wonder how many brain cells might fire during that time in a normal brain. A million?
This does bring up a concern. Quality control is not one of Chinese products strong points.
Pure sillyness... slowing the rotation of the earth... duuuuuugh...
Ooops! Correct that:
"Long before this has changed the day's length by as little as one second, we are all going to die from that invariably fatal disease called, 'LIFE'"...!
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