system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
What is the rate of energy transfer through tidal friction?

The Moon 'drags' the oceans around the Earth which transfers kinetic energy from the moon to the earth in the form of heat through the friction. What is the power (energy per unit time) associated with this effect?
gpt
>The Moon 'drags' the oceans around the Earth which transfers kinetic energy from the moon to the earth

Actually, it's the other way. Because of tidal forces energy is effectively transferred from the Earth's rotational energy into the moon's kinetic energy. It is for this reason that the moon is slowly drifting away from the Earth. However only a fraction of the energy lost by the Earth through tidal effects is transferred to the moon. Most of the rotational energy is simply lost as heat (~3TW) and "only" (~0.1TW) goes to the moon.

I should point out that these numbers are not small, at least not on a human scale. For example, 3TW is about a sixth of the total power consumption on Earth (~18TW) and even the 0.1TW transferred to the moon would be enough to satisfy the electricity demand of a country like France. But still on astronomical scales these numbers are rather puny. When you consider that the moon has a whopping mass of 7\*10^(22) kg, it's easy to see why even with all the power it draws from the Earth it is barely able to inch away from us at a rate of 40mm per year.