• Question: Pretend you are on a brand new planet just like earth but without anything, just trees, plants & animals. How could you create electricity or make a energy source? (I was curious because earth was like this aswell and somebody made electricity and evolved the earth around technology)

    Asked by humzaa to Daniel, Jon, Louise, Sharon, Zoe on 16 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Louise Dash

      Louise Dash answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      Would I have my computer? I’m not sure I could cope without it! 😀

      Well if you didn’t have any electrical devices to power, you wouldn’t really need to worry about generating electricity as you wouldn’t have anything to plug in. If you did have some kind of communication device to power, so you could contact your home planet, for example, then I think the easiest way would be to use wind or water to power a home-made dynamo – much like the dynamos used to power bicycle lights from rotating bike wheels.

      A dynamo works by moving a coil of wires through a magnetic field – so hopefully I’d have a stash of copper wire and some magnets along with my communication device! Then I’d rig up a windmill (or watermill if there’s a handy stream) from wood from the trees and connect it to my wire coil to make it rotate through the magnetic field and generate some electricity!

    • Photo: Zoe Duck

      Zoe Duck answered on 15 Jun 2010:

      There are many natural energy sources on the earth and these may well be on this new planet too. You could use the sun to gain solar power, waterfalls to turn turbines that could generate electricity or wind power. There also other natural sources such as uranium or plutonium that can be used for nuclear power, oil and coal and natural gas and also the heat generated in the earth’s core. In fact in Iceland most of their energy comes from the earth as it is home to lots of volcanic activity

    • Photo: Jon Copley

      Jon Copley answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Dynamos, either driven by wind, water or even pedal power, would be a good way to go, if you have the magnets and copper wire with you that you’d need.

      Otherwise, you could actually use some fruit and vegetables to make batteries. How about a potato battery:

      http://www.kidzworld.com/article/4726-how-potato-batteries-work

      The same thing works for some citrus fruit as well!

    • Photo: Sharon Sneddon

      Sharon Sneddon answered on 16 Jun 2010:

      Well as long as you have plants trees and animals, you would be absolutely fine! You would have food for energy (plants and animals) you can create fire using wood as as long as you have water, you would be able to use that to harness energy, as well as energy from the sun, solar energy!

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