system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If we can discharge excess voltage into the Earth whenever we need to, why can't we draw a steady supply of electricity from the Earth in a similar way?
gpt
For the same reason that you can take a very hot (or very cold) object and put it in a large bath of water to bring it to room temperature, but that you can't take a room-temperature bath and use it to make something hot. You can, of course, draw a steady supply of charge from the Earth, it just costs energy to do so, just like it costs energy to pump heat outside of your refrigerator.