Harvesting Solar Energy As Quickly As Possible

You're the head engineer for an advanced civilization. Humanity has long since spanned the stars, as as vast as her civilization has become her need for power has increased exponentially. To feed this hunger the people of the Milky Way have set aside a few thousand stars of 'exhausted' systems (once inhabited, but drained of resources) to draw power from.

Assuming the following conditions, restrictions, and points of consideration:

• You are seeking to draw power from the stars as effectively and quickly as possible
• You do not care about being 'resource-efficient' or 'green.' Power throughput bests efficiency.
• You must abide by the laws of physics (troublesome, ain't it?)
• You have plentiful access to workers, materials, and have several decades of engineering and construction time to build the first functioning proof of concept.
• You have access to Alloy X, an alloy with a melting point of 6,000 K, the hardness of tungsten, various strengths (yield, compression, tensile, and impact) of a tungsten/steel alloy, and possesses the trait that its hardness and strength remain consistent up until the substance begins to melt. The alloy conducts heat and electricity similar to copper.
• After retrieving the energy you must also store it and transport it (you don't have to worry about end consumption, just packaging it up and sending it on the way)

...What solution would be the ideal proposition?

posted over 8 years ago

Ranger‭

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