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Can someone with more experience in the field comment on whether this paper is well founded or off base?

The abstract sounds... lets go with "not completely implausible" but the assertion that extracting 1% of the Earth's energy from the tidal sloshing would slow the earth and tidally lock it in 1000 years feels extreme. Of the extreme assertions require extreme evidence variety.

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The post assumes a 2% annual rate of growth in energy consumption. So, due to the nature of exponential functions, most of the energy loss would concentrated towards the end of the 1000 years, as the energy consumption approaches 400 million times present day energy usage. The first two centuries of use would not have a noticeable impact.

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