Posts tagged energy
Can electricity be generated directly from nuclear decay? It occurred to me that in alpha decay two protons fly off rapidly, leaving their associated electrons behind. If the alpha particle was ca...
Could nuclear energy be a basis for energy storage with foreseeable technology? One approach would be to use excited nuclear states, but I suspect they would be too unstable to ever be useful. Al...
I am looking for some guidance in creating a chemical element. I want to know if it is scientifically plausible for a single fictional element to do all the things I need it to, even if at a stretc...
The shell variant of a Dyson sphere consists of an artificially-made shell of material about 1 AU in radius encircling a star. The sphere captures most of the star's energy and stores it for future...
First of all, in no way do I have advanced knowledge of particle physics, quantum mechanics, or any other necessary scientific concept for a full understanding of this question. Secondly, this is p...
I have some plasma life forms that have evolved within the photosphere of a star and also capable of existing on a neutron star and the ergoshpere or accretion disk of a blackhole. This lifeform c...
So I'm pretty new to chemistry and all this, but my world involves superpowers, which of course involves immense energy to have the characters use these powers. However, I want to stay consistent w...
This rogue planet is a cold rocky world where liquid methane replaces water, hydrogen is used in place of oxygen, and a large moon. I was thinking the large moon would have a large tidal pull that...
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...
Humanity discovered a new energy source, virtually infinite, that can produce gigawatts of electric power using devices of few kilograms. Land and sea transport obviously will switch to electric m...
Antimatter gets used a lot in SciFi due to it's mind-bending energy density. If you can store it in a form that requires no power and is at least mildly idiot-proof then you've just solved half of ...
On Venus the surface is around 467 degrees Celsius. At the top of the atmosphere it is much cooler, and at around 60 km above the surface the temperature is around 40 to 50 degrees Celsius. This is...
I've got my wizards, who operate by vanilla human biological laws and metabolism. They've got an organ in the pelvis which has its own mechanism - not breaking the laws of physics - which stores en...
My antagonist is going to cause a widespread blackout to flex on the protagonist, but the unexpected consequence is that some folks are going to die as a result. This will cause the protagonist to ...
I was thinking about the progress that has been made in terms of energy usage for e.g. transport purposes and noticed how the prominent source of energy had changed over time: first muscle power, t...
Consider a magic system that follows the Eragon model; "doing it by magic takes just as much (biological) energy as doing it the mundane way". In Eragon, magical energy can be drawn from other liv...
A super-reactor was created by SRE, Inc (Super Reactor Energy), and it can provide as much clean energy as needed. There's no way to copy it or make another. It operates without problem or fuel - t...
I have heard people (quite possibly on this site) say that by the time a civilization is able to make Dyson sphere it will be useless to build one for power and energy needs. So, would a civilizati...
The Dyson Swarm is common in sci fi as an energy source, and sometimes also as a powerful weapon. As it is commonly understood, it harnesses the energy of the sun, which stores a vast amount of ene...
Is possible to have a geothermal plant (not necessary a very powerful one) to work for several millennia without the place where it is built over running out of heat? I found a page (don't remembe...
I'd love some science advice and facts for this question: If they use wind power to bring up water from the ocean in the day time and spray it on prevailing winds going into land (i.e. 10-15 km fr...
In Scifi there is often the issue that all the fancy technology like Mechas and Lasguns need a lot of energy. Chemical sources are limited by volumetric and regular power density. Batteries and cap...
Suppose an extra-solar object the size and mass of the Earth, travelling at a speed of $26\ \mathrm{km/s}$, the same of ʻOumuamua (the first known interstellar object crossing our solar system), h...
Set in the distant future, human is transitioning to a type 3 advanced civilization on a Kardashev scale in about a hundred years or two. We have nearly exhausted the energy from our Sun and severa...
As a follow-up to this question, what would be the effect(s) of a high-speed of super-heated plasma entering and impacting on a planet? The planet is about the size of 1.2x Earth(s), with a simila...
Since gamma radiation consists of photons, just like visible light does, albeit on a different frequency, isn't there a plausible way that in, say, 200 years into the future, we could harness the p...
Gods occasionally visit the mortal realm for particular reasons, such as certain festivals or to do battle against demonic forces in an invasion. In the case of the latter, a god has to be careful ...
My story has a few androids and some beings that can manipulate electricity with their bio battery electric organs and I want these characters to have the ability to shoot powerful lasers, plasma p...
The main source of free energy that allowed life on Earth to develop was our sun. It bombards the planet's surface with photons of high energy, which provide activation energy for reactions necessa...
Silicon is the main material used in both computers and solar panels. Sand is silicon. Deserts have a lot of sand and sun. This may be an oversimplified way of looking at things, but could we cr...
Thermal energy is everywhere on earth. If it could be transferred into electrical energy it could serve as a great energy source. This idea is violating the laws of thermodynamics. But it's not ...
Part of the Anatomically Correct series of questions. Due to the nature of Superman having so many different powers, I wanted to focus specifically on one aspect of his character: the ability to...
In a near-future world we have stopped directly fueling private, public, and mass transit and we have migrated to a hydrogen economy as the standard energy carrier. Consider the following factors:...
How could a generation ship "steal" energy or resources from star systems which it passed without changing velocity?
In the year 2099 A.D, humans made a major discovery. There is a rich source of fossil fuel buried beneath layers of Martian soil. It is estimated that the coal deposit that was discovered could fil...
I've been thinking of the idea of creating and adding an alien species that's antimatter-based (being from a universe where antimatter became the majority instead of "normal matter"). However, I'm...
In Larry Niven's Ringworld, the Outsiders lie with one half of their body in the shade and one half of their body in direct sunlight and use the temperature difference to generate energy. Would thi...
I have an idea for an energy source for a colony on a cold world with not enough solar power. Is my idea workable, or is it debunked as perpetual motion machine? Here is the set-up and my plan: Sc...
I have been playing with the ideas of electricity generating/attacks for my characters using either electric organs similar to electric eels or some sort of bio battery using bacteria that produce ...
I want to make a superhero that can control all forms of energy. From what I've heard you can do a lot like, manipulate time and space, open blackholes, teleport, shape shift, and manipulate matter...
I wanted to have characters that can control energy and matter, so Dr Manhattan came to mind as a great example of a character that does that. Information on him says that he has complete awarenes...
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...
Chainsaws in games and films are an epitome of gruesome dismemberment. In Zombie attacks they are used to cut through cloth and flesh while in games they can dismember if not cut from skull to groi...
Imagine we have a sufficiently tall space fountain positioned at either of the Earth's poles, such that the upper station is permanently within view of the sun. A large array of solar panels could ...
This is a question for an alien species. Is there anyway to scientifically justify having two separate beings/creatures that depend on each other for life? In other words, two separate bodies tha...
Warning lots of text ahead. The fluff: The story uses a Catastrophe Inhibitor (CatIn) to stop nukes, orbital bombardment and other such weapons from being the go-to method of defeating everything...
I've quite a few alien species that utilize a non-food-based metabolism (one of them being nuclear power). Does a species that has a metabolism not based-on plants or meat (such as using nuclear ...
Laws that must not be broken and/or worked around: Conservation of energy Conservation of mass Square cube law Thermodynamics No FTL Essentially, I'm trying to make a character with similar abilit...
Finally, I have done it. I have bought a large and beautiful four bladed windmill. A smock mill to be precise, really high and all functional. There is the whole ancient machinery in it, completely...
To be able to colonize another world, there are some requirements; the harvesting of energy, enough recourses, handling of the environment (pressure, temperature and gravity and so on) and availabi...
