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The voltage wouldn't change, but the energy would decrease. The energy stored in a capacitor is a potential energy, which means that the energy depends on the orientation of the capacitor's plates. The decrease in energy is equal to the work required to pull the plates apart.



Intuitively it seems like the energy would increase because you're putting in work to pull them apart, no?

And you'd still have opposite charges on the two plates so there would always be some energy from that?




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