Everything We Need is On the Ground: Earthquake-Generated Electricity?

by Pamela Eyre Victoria R Lira

The massive scale of supertyphoons, violent volcanic eruptions or mega earthquakes are a slap to the face that much of the world is beyond humanity’s control. So, to even imagine these threatening natural phenomena be the one to power our communities? Talk about a force of nature.

Years ago, this might have been the stuff of science fiction, but from a recent paper published just this year by the E3S Web of Conferences entitled “Energy harvesting from seismic waves for electricity production”, Felipe Díaz-Mora and Andrés González-Fallas of the Universidad Latina de Costa Rica School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering were able to design a generator capable of harvesting energy from an earthquakes’ seismic waves to produce electricity.

They based it on the idea of seismic waves creating telluric movements, or electric currents which move underground. The base mechanism is made up of a pair of springs located in parallel, wherein the displacement and compression of the springs, depending on the magnitude, is converted to work. With a couple of plates, magnets, screws, and coil, Faraday’s Law did the trick for the assembled generator by converting the kinetic energy of earthquakes to electromotive force, and eventually to electrical energy.

And the results will wow you! The simulations from their prototype indicate that 87.5 MW of electricity was generated according to the frequency of earthquakes in Costa Rica. This number is capable of powering a whole town with thousands of homes … per year!

Though a lot of scientists have tried to pose other ideas of harnessing tectonic energy such as by stringing quartz crystals for piezoelectricity, the unpredictability of earthquakes and the depth of fault lines make it hardly practical. Furthermore, energy released by earthquakes can reach energy levels released by Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs. Nevertheless, this study is another touchstone that unconventional, yet natural alternative energy sources are possible, and it is guaranteed to pave the way for more developments to address our need for clean energy.

Maybe the answer we are looking for has been lying beneath us after all.

Access the full article here: https://doi.org/10.1051/e3sconf/202233600035