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Q&A

Posts tagged power-sources

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Q&A Cons of Antimatter Weaponry

In the story I'm creating, a major weapon type of humanity will be Antimatter based weaponry. This is a fairly new technology, as antimatter production facilities have just reached the size and cap...

6 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Dawnfire‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Dawnfire‭

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Q&A Harnessing energy directly from the sun via quantum tunneling

In the universe of my story, the Earth is ridden with metahumans with uncanny powers that do all sorts of different things. Of course, to do all this, they would require a tremendous amount of ener...

2 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Strivs‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Strivs‭

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Q&A 1 Light Year Diameter Planet

Suppose a species has limitless resources and the ability to construct megastructures of an astronomical scale. Would it be possible, given antigravitational technology (hypothetical), to create a...

14 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Kcronix‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Kcronix‭

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Q&A Capital ship reactor power

I'm trying to not delve too into the sciences so as to keep things fairly suitable for a space opera setting, but I'm trying to figure a few things to a reasonable degree of detail. My question he...

5 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by Amon‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Amon‭

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Rigorous Science How can spacecraft manufactured on the moon be powered?

Background: The moon has been selected as the base for human space exploration. Rather than ship tonnes of material out of earth's gravity well, interplanetary spacecraft and space stations will be...

12 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A Unpredictable reactors which like to explode by default

In my world, alien 'reactors' are discovered that are very efficient at creating power (around 1000x better than fission), as well as requiring little fuel, making them the perfect power source. H...

3 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by mono‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by mono‭

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Q&A Metallic hydrogen powered vehicles

Let's say metallic hydrogen becomes an economically viable resource that we are able to either make ourselves or mine from a gas giant, how would we use it as a power source for vehicles both plane...

1 answer  ·  posted 4y ago by Bradley Knauer‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by Bradley Knauer‭

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Q&A Adapting to a sonic world

A planet much like Earth orbits a star much like the Sun, but with one difference: the energy from the star is magically transformed into sound within the planet's atmosphere. There is no longer st...

5 answers  ·  posted 4y ago by System‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

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Q&A What are the power options for intelligent humanoid robots?

In my future setting on Earth (or an Earth-like planet; haven't decided), the fields of robotics and AI have taken off and we have intelligent, ambulatory robots. (They were initially thought of a...

10 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Monica Cellio‭

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Q&A How could indestructible materials be used in power generation?

Background: In this scenario assume technology is initially equal to our own, but a method is discovered to render material indestructible. The affected material is treated as requiring infinite o...

17 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Vakus Drake‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Vakus Drake‭

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Q&A Will unattended nuclear power plants actually cause damage to their surroundings?

Scenario: Deadly virus wiped out 80 - 90% world population and it did it pretty quickly (in 2 months) Although it is plausible that among these 10 - 20% of survivors will be people who actually kn...

10 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by PavelBot‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by PavelBot‭

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Q&A Regenerating Fuel Cell

I'm working on a powered exoskeleton design for my universe and I had an idea about how to power it. It works in this cycle: Water enters an electrolyzer powered by a massive betavoltaic batter...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Efialtes‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Efialtes‭

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Q&A Is broadcast power suitable for recharging robots?

The last time I checked ASIMO's battery pack only had enough juice for something like 30 minutes of continuous operation & then it has to plug in & recharge which isn't really that useful. ...

7 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Pelinore‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Pelinore‭

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Q&A Batteries and resource restrictions

I've prefigured a specific setting as being middling in technological progress when compared with its neighbors. This setting does not have access to hydrocarbons, has severe cultural and politica...

2 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by user49466‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by user49466‭

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Q&A Could charged plasma be used as a working fluid to spin a magnetic turbine to generate electricity?

As the title suggests, this is a conceptual physics kinda question. What is the feasibility of using an electrically charged (as in not neutral) plasma as the working fluid in a turbine where the...

4 answers  ·  posted 5y ago by Malcolm‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by Malcolm‭

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Q&A How much power can you send via a laser through the atmosphere without catastrophic effects?

Assuming that you had: some sort of amazing power plant on the moon that can create an unlimited amount of power a similarly amazing solar panel on earth that can receive an unlimited amount of p...

2 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by user2813274‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by user2813274‭

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Q&A Electrical grid based on devices in series using constant currents, not devices in parallel using constant voltages

Mains power electrical systems on Earth supply a fixed standardized voltage to a number of devices, which are all wired in parallel with each other. However, on the planet I'm writng about, they d...

5 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by AJMansfield‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by AJMansfield‭

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Q&A Sky Train Blimp Plane?

Can using blimps to hold power lines and implement laser filamentation of ablout 7 meter span from the source of power for a contact free power supply to power an electric engine (designed to run o...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Muze the good Troll.‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Muze the good Troll.‭

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Q&A How to produce enough power to create a pair of proton-antiproton?

I've recently discovered something great: the Schwinger effect. It says that if you concentrate enough power thanks to laser into a single point in space, it will spawn a pair of proton and antipro...

4 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by Mathis‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by Mathis‭

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Q&A How efficient can my neutrino detector be?

In a class discussion last week, someone pointed out that a typical core collapse supernova releases $\sim10^{46}\text{ J}$ of energy in the form of (anti-)neutrinos while only radiating $\sim10^{4...

3 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by HDE 226868‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by HDE 226868‭

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Q&A Off-planet energy production - what would be best way to supply this energy planetside?

What would be the best way to send energy that is generated outside the Earth's atmosphere, possibly in the asteroid belt (nevermind the means), so that it can be used on the surface of the planet?...

11 answers  ·  posted 6y ago by AcePL‭  ·  last activity 6y ago by AcePL‭

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Q&A Powerfish - how to use fish movements to power tech

Powerfish - on! I'm thinking about writing about a world where fish are used like lab rats, to power technologies. But I'm thinking about worldwide use. I placed my TV on my fish tank yesterday. T...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Nahshon paz‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Nahshon paz‭

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Q&A How could a mammalian body provide substantial electrical power through non-harmful, "passive" means?

I've seen some articles about biologically powering devices through a glucose fuel cell, but from what I can tell this would only provide power on the order of a few tenths of a watt. While it's d...

4 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Shard Wolf‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Shard Wolf‭

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Q&A What kind of VTOL engine could eject steam?

Here's the setup. You have a gigantic mildly futuristic city, where construction is vertical rather than horizontal. Need a new city block? Add another few floors. Disregard for the moment any phys...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Thomas Myron‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Thomas Myron‭

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Q&A Could an entire continent runs on a single fusion reactor plant by 2100?

Affected continent is Asia, the world is running out of coal and natural gas. A major mega structure project is underway, its goal is to provide electricity across the continent with a single fusio...

2 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by user6760‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by user6760‭

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Q&A How do you power a cyborg?

In this answer about how to design the ideal cyborg, I said: ... Use electric tissue to power the machines. Cyborgs need some way to generate electricity when mechanical parts are invol...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Zxyrra‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Zxyrra‭

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Q&A Renewable energy in space

I'm working on a story set in a generation ship traveling through the stars. Its propulsion is a solar sail, which will accelerate it over many decades to a substantial fraction of the speed of lig...

12 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by HDE 226868‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by HDE 226868‭

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Q&A How long can a power plant continue to generate electricity without maintenance by people?

The situation is as follows: there is a city with different districts, each provided with electric power from a different power plant: Thermal power plant nuclear power plant Hydroelectric power ...

5 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Exerion‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Exerion‭

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Q&A Wireless power generation in a fleet of spaceships

Okay, so while I'm fairly certain this is possible to do, I wanna know if it actually makes sense to do so. Imagine you have a fleet of ships, each of them so large it takes megatons of antimatter ...

3 answers  ·  posted 7y ago by Z.Schroeder‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Z.Schroeder‭

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Q&A Fission vs. fusion as a heavily-restricted sci-fi power source

In a sci-fi setting I'm working on, the power dynamics between two civilizations are maintained by one civilization ("captives") being completely dependent on the other civilization ("captors") for...

7 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Adam R. Nelson‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Adam R. Nelson‭

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Q&A Harnessing energy from the moon like from the sun

So we harness energy from the sun using beams, right? Well what if we were to harness energy coming off the moon the same way? For those long winter months when the sun is rare we could use this to...

3 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by Brynna Nelson‭  ·  last activity 7y ago by Brynna Nelson‭

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Q&A Using lasers to transmit solar energy

As we know, solar power is the ultimate source of energy for mankind, and it's the most abundant(I have read that we receive more than 1000 times the energy we currently use, if we were to have a w...

5 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by cst1992‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by cst1992‭

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Q&A How can I make a Nuclear Powered VTOL Safe?

Here's the set up. In my slightly-futuristic mildly-sci-fi novel, I have a need for an aerial transport vehicle (I have been informed what I need is closer to a VTOl than a hovercraft). These craft...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Thomas Myron‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Thomas Myron‭

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Q&A The possibilities of infinite energy?

So the idea is that the world has been destroyed, and an emergency plan to put the rest of humanity on floating cities/islands has been put in place. These islands subsist off of some sort of gener...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by AlterionX‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by AlterionX‭

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Q&A Underground Solar Interaction

In my WIP (webcomic in progress) mentioned in my other posts, there is an earth-originated colony based on an alien planet in a semi-post-apocalyptic society with limited technology and resources. ...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by XenoDwarf‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by XenoDwarf‭

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Q&A Beyond Electricity

Our modern systems are predicated on the existence of electricity, which is a phenomenal discovery that helped propel the human race into our current civilization. However, electricity can be highl...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Frostfyre‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Frostfyre‭

Question power-sources
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Q&A How realistic is the power generation depicted in The Legend of Korra?

Early on in the cartoon The Legend of Korra, we're shown one of the main characters working at his job. He works in a power plant, where he and his coworkers spend all day using Bending (essentiall...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Mason Wheeler‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Mason Wheeler‭

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Q&A Fusion Power and Plasma Propulsion

In the classic idea of a Tokamak Fusion Reactor, plasma races around an electromagnetic track. Is it plausible to "spin" off some of this rapidly moving plasma and direct it to nozzles for use in...

2 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Danny Reagan‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Danny Reagan‭

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Q&A What would be the effects of safe lightweight nuclear power?

Upon asking this question, I have learned why we can have nuclear powered ships, but not aircraft. The reason is because the shielding needed for the nuclear reactor is simply too heavy for the pow...

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by Thomas Myron‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by Thomas Myron‭

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Q&A Is there an energy resource with such attributes?

Is there an energy substance, element, material, natural or artificial resource with attributes such that: When its moved it loses energy. When its intact, untouched and unmoved it contains energy.

3 answers  ·  posted 8y ago by undulationer‭  ·  last activity 8y ago by undulationer‭

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Rigorous Science What power generation method is the best to sustain a hovering city?

The Technology We're in the year 2250 on an Earth-like planet. All the space on the earth's surface has been used up by the population of 15 billion, so we're moving into the air. Cities, along wi...

13 answers  ·  posted 9y ago by ArtOfCode‭  ·  last activity 9y ago by ArtOfCode‭