Can Earth’s Rotation Generate Electricity? Physicists Divided over Controversial Idea
Experiments suggest an unusual magnetic material could help harness energy from Earth’s rotation. But not everyone is convinced
A device can supposedly create a tiny current by manipulating Earth’s magnetic field as the planet rotates.
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Electricity can be generated from the energy of Earth rotating through its own magnetic field—according to a provocative claim put forward by physicists this week.
The findings are controversial but intriguing, researchers told Nature. The effect was identified only in a carefully crafted device and generated just 17 microvolts—a fraction of the voltage released when a single neuron fires—making it hard to verify that some other effect isn’t causing the observations.
If the phenomenon is real and the device could be scaled up, it could generate emission-free power while remaining static, which could be useful in remote locations or for medical applications. The authors published their findings in Physical Review Research and presented them at a meeting of the American Physical Society in Anaheim, California.
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“The idea is somewhat counter-intuitive and has been argued since Faraday,” says Paul Thomas, an emeritus physicist at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire. But the experiments, led by Christopher Chyba, a physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey, are very carefully done, he adds. “I find it very convincing and remarkable.”
Others agree that the results are striking, but remain sceptical. Rinke Wijngaarden, a retired physicist previously at the Free University of Amsterdam, has followed the authors’ assertions since 2016 and failed to find the effect in his own experiments in 2018. He finds the work very interesting, but is “still convinced that the theory of Chyba et al. cannot be correct.”
Planet power
In theory, the device would work in a similar fashion to an electrical power station, in which passing a conductor through a magnetic field causes electrons to move, creating a current. As Earth rotates and part of its magnetic field remains static (at least according to a 1912 proof), a conductor on its surface would move through some components of the field.
Normally, this would not create a current, because in a uniform field such as Earth’s, electrons feeling this push would rearrange themselves to create an opposing electric force, ultimately leaving charges static (this does not apply in places where the force a conductor feels is constantly changing, as in a generator).
But Chyba and his colleagues say that they have found a loophole. Using a complex calculation, they showed that certain materials—with unusual properties and when shaped into cylindrical tube—could channel Earth’s magnetic field into a strange configuration. This, they argue, would create a magnetic push that the electrostatic force inside the device could not cancel out, generating a current.
To demonstrate their theory, the researchers crafted a hollow cylinder made of a soft magnetic material containing manganese, zinc and iron. While controlling for other effects, they looked for any voltage and current running through the device. The result verified their predictions: they observed a tiny 17-μV voltage that depended on the set-up’s orientation with respect to Earth’s magnetic field. The voltage was zero when they used a solid chunk of the conductor, rather than a hollow tube.
“The observed voltages are so small that there are many potential spurious causes available,” says Wijngaarden, but he points out that Chyba’s team has “gone to great lengths to try and avoid” other effects that could mimic their predicted phenomenon, such as temperature variations.
Verification needed
More evidence is needed before anyone can conclude that the voltage truly results from Earth’s rotation, says Wijngaarden. Physicists could test whether the experiment gives different results at different latitudes, as predictions suggest. These comparisons would not be easy, but are “really needed” in view of the surprising result, he says.
If another group can verify the results, Chyba says that the next step will be to try and scale up the device enough to generate a useful amount of energy. “Our equations show how such scaling might be done, but that is very different from a demonstration that it is actually possible,” he says.
Even if it works, the method will not generate energy from thin air. It would tap Earth’s kinetic energy and, in doing so, cause the planet’s spinning to slow over time — although only slightly. If the technique provided all of Earth’s electricity needs, which was around 11 trillion watts in 2022, this would slow the planet’s spin by 7 milliseconds over the next century, the authors calculate. This is similar to the change in speed caused by natural phenomena such as the Moon’s pull and changing dynamics inside the planet’s core.
This article is reproduced with permission and was first published on March 19, 2025.
