Posts tagged energy
Have a creature that doesn't really need vitamins or minerals, it only requires energy which goes through a energy-matter conversion to build what it needs. Radioactive materials would be great sou...
The Wikipedia page on sewer gas states that Sewer gas can be used as a power source, thus reducing the consumption of fossil fuels. However, no references or further details are provided. So, s...
Strange title I know, but you'll understand why quickly. I wanted to use a black hole to create absurd amounts of power for hopefully obvious reasons (kind of useful). The problem with natural lar...
Imagine the other dimension is much much colder. Very little light/heat/etc. Suppose the portal only allows energy transfer, so matter can't pass through. What would the consequences be? Would it...
I've been reading some of the excellent answers on this question about galactic empires and it led me to imagine a reasonably realistic multi-system 'empire' might keep most or all of its populatio...
Setting Overview My world suffers from an abundance of a particular type of energy. This energy can be safely absorbed and utilized by living cells, enabling, for example, a dragon's flight and fi...
I'm trying to find a plausible way to reduce global warming in a world past the tipping point. I recently read this article : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127173225.htm. It su...
In my story, an advanced alien civilization that can travel to other universes has created an infinite energy source, named "an amvelian core". This core resembles a small sphere in appearance (abo...
Obviously, if available, atmospheric oxygen is a great source of energy. However, I'm surely not the first worldbuilder who wants an alien species which doesn't depend on it (whether due to having ...
I have a potential sub-plot in a story that takes place in the not too distant future where most of the world's fossil fuels are exhausted or contaminated (war reasons more than environmental) and ...
I'm creating a near future world where one faction is using high energy density batteries that enable their vehicles to outperform gasoline based technology. Like cold and silent aircraft and helic...
Imagine when a jet fighter swoops in to drop a 400 pounds giant chainsaw to you just so that you can use it to grind down one problematic enemy into a pulp then discard it a foot away from you. Wha...
In my late-Victorian world there are independently moving automata that may act as pets or servants to those that can afford them. They require a fair amount of energy to run at full capacity, eno...
In the far future the posthuman successors of mankind have disassembled the stars and live on ultra slow and ultra efficient solar system sized computers, Matrioshka Brains. The last enemy of intel...
What would be the best configuration of solar panels on a rotating wheel space station? I am thinking about Space Station V design and dimensions. Space Station V comes from 2001: A Space Odyssey...
An engineer goes back in time to attempt to rewrite history: since global warming has wiped out all but a few living species at his home timeline, he wants to prevent it without preventing an indu...
After nearly a decade of development and public prototypes, the Mizaru company is ready to unveil the cybereye. A fully cybernetic eye that provides its user/host with high definition vision, enhan...
The idea is to build a cybernetic body for a human. Only the brain and a few glands related to emotions, like adrenal glands, will be kept. The brain and the glands will be in a closed, plug-and-p...
This question is about a fictional scenario where an evil suicidal scientist has built a high-energy weapon somewhere on earth. His intention is to shoot a beam of some form of energy (or high-ener...
Please assume the following: A spaceship in the far future. Output: The ships systems have a high base demand of energy and sometimes you need extreme amounts of Energy in a very short period of ...
You are the leader of a far-future civilization - human or otherwise - that has endured for trillions of years doing whatever far-future civilizations do. You've surrounded stars with Matrioshka br...
Imagine a device implanted inside the body which can detect when your heart has stopped and, in such a case, burns fat rapidly to generate enough energy to shock your heart into restarting, in a si...
A type 1 civilization is defined as a civilization that can utilize the maximum amount of energy equal available to its entire planet, roughly 1017 watts for Earth. This is equal to the amount of ...
In 2051 a Neo-Luddite movement known as "Amos"/"The Adherents of Amos" detonated some sort of weapon in LEO (low earth orbit) causing a global black out shutting down technology and to a extent mod...
While recently reading a physics textbook and thinking about magic systems, I tried to perform a thought experiment I had problems with concluding, so I thought of asking for help. Here I explain t...
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...
I'm currently contemplating ways to make dragons have a sustainable energy source in a medieval world, while still acting like the traditional soaring, adventurer grabbing, gold hoarding dragons (n...
In an earth-like world, what can I provide as examples of areas where high energy is generated naturally? I'm looking for sources of energy other than heat, for e.g, volcanoes and geothermic vents.
This character is an elf-human hybrid, who can travel long distances at high speeds with little rest. She can run at top speed (what we call sprinting) without stopping to rest, sleep or eat for th...
There are many questions on Worldbuilding about what item(s) a time traveller should take back in time in order to alter past events or even simply to survive. There has never as far as I know bee...
To be more specific, I mean what if every wire, every power cable and transformer on the connected grids to the nuclear power plants all ruptured at once. The transformers literally exploding, the ...
For reference, I'm going with the accepted answer given here: How would technology adoption of Lithium Air battery work?. In my world, it makes sense that governments would be very interested in ge...
I want to have a world when humans got serious about global warming and succeeded in making Lithium Air battery work. Since the lithium air has same potential energy density as gas, and electric en...
How would one go about repurposing a small cargo ship, no more than 50,000 tons, to run on an alternative fuel source/propulsion other than oil? And what alternative source would work best for prop...
Spiritual energy, or jing, is a powerful substance that forms the essence of who and what we are. It is the primal energy of our life. Jing is the deep foundational energy reserves of the body and ...
According to Natural nuclear explosions natural nuclear fission reactors could occur. Could it happen that a primitive alien civilization has its social, economical and technology evolution trigg...
I'm designing an alien race that hasn't developed electricity yet. Now, one thing about their species is that they haven't discovered fossil fuels on their planet to use, like coal, oil, etc. (The ...
Lets say for arguments sake, that a world, with maximum population of 5 billion, the common Joe gets reincarnated a few hundred times since the creation of humankind. This type of reincarnation is ...
I spent my life, my fortune, my family connections... I sold my children into slavery and my soul to Ilnarren... Wanted posters hang from from the Abyss of Shrondir to the expanse of d'o (most bea...
I was in the shower the other day thinking about the sun going Nova, you know...like you do, and a thought occurred to me: Could you turn the sun into a stable, mostly closed system? Some detai...
[Edit: I'm not looking for 100% realism. I'm looking for an explanation as realistic as possible, possible with just few exceptions to physics.] [Edit 2: In my imagination these worlds are differe...
EDIT Why this is a world-building query. If I had framed this as, "In my world where magic requires the expenditure of energy, a powerful wizard decides to open a path through a large lake,etc. Th...
Working on a future history setting; the question arises, since the world cannot run on fossil fuels forever, one way or another, something must end up replacing them; what will that something be? ...
The eventual heat death of the universe is an awful time to be alive considering you wouldn't have long left after the last star finally fades away. In this scenario there is a small group of about...
This is not a question on whether or not floating, balloon-like organisms are biomechanically viable - I already know the answer to that, which is yes. This instead deals with the plausibility of s...
For my Science fiction and Fantasy genre book, I need an energy source whose energy output should be much more than even a fully functional Dyson sphere. Can you please suggest some hypothetical co...
I have created a species that is basically a sort of land coral covered in a thick carapace made of rock. They live on an Earth-like planet (Class M as they say in Star Trek) and behave like cora...
Suppose that there is a moon, orbiting a gas giant, and that gas giant is a rogue planet - it moves freely through the universe, unbound by the gravity of a star. This means that one, the moon will...
First question: Would this simplex ternary system be stable? If that question turns out to be yes, how would an organism based on carbon tetrachloride use the energy types below to provide enough ...
A rotating object, especially something as large as a planet or a star, has kinetic energy. However, my question is how would you go about harvesting the energy the object has from rotation to go t...
