Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

One of the major issues with technology, and any technocoligally advanced culture, is the production of energy to meet the needs of it's advancing technology.

 

I've been thinking on this and how it relates to various things, mostly dealing with future technology and SF settings.

 

Here's some of the things I've come up with, and I was hoping my peers here could check my logic and/or comment on it:

 

Up to now, the vast majority of the human race's energy needs have been met by combustion, I.E. burning things like wood, coal, oil, etc.

 

The thing is that combustion releases very, very little energy from the mass consumed. To realize how little, let's consider that it takes about 1 million tons of TNT, undergoing combustion, to release one megaton's worth of energy. Now, one ounce of mass contains about 1 megaton's worth of potential energy if you could convert the mass to energy at 100% efficiency.

 

So, it takes about 32,000,000,000 ounces of TNT to release 1 megaton of energy thru combustion. In other words, combustion releases 1/32,000,000,000 of the energy contained in a given mass, under the best conditions, and as for as combustion goes TNT is very efficient, that's why it makes such a good explosive.

 

1/32,000,000,000 equals 0.00000000003125%.

 

So when you use combustion as a power source, you only get about 0.00000000003125% of the potential energy a given mass contains, under the best conditions. (BTW, that figure equals 3.125^-11 if you want to use scientific notation)

 

Now, let's contrast the power of combustion as an energy source with the power of other energy sources.

 

I have been told by nuclear energy proponents that 1 pound of nuclear fuel, I.E. processed uranium or plutonium, provides as much power as 6,000 tons of coal. (And, of course, the coal also provides greenhouse gases, acid rain, etc.)

 

So, a pound of uranium releasing energy via nuclear fission produces 12,000,000 times more energy than a pound of coal releasing energy via combustion.

 

Next we have nuclear fusion, and the efficiency of nuclear fusion is even greater still. Whereas combustion has an energy release efficiency of 3.125^-11%, nuclear fusion, as in the H-bomb, releases 0.7% of the potential energy in a given mass.

 

So, we divide 0.7 by 0.00000000003125 and discover that nuclear fusion releases 22,400,000,000 times as much energy from a given mass than combustion does.

 

That means that one pound of hydrogen, deuterium, tritium, He3 or any other fusionable material releases about as much energy as 22 billion, 4 hundred million pounds of coal, oil, rocket fuel or any other energy source that operates by combustion.

 

A fusion powered spacecraft could take a crew of 3 men and their vehicle to the moon and back with an amount a fuel that would fit in a coffee can, given the relative efficiency rates of fusion power vs. chemical fuel combustion.

 

The increase in energy made available by fission, or even better, fusion, power sources is roughly comparable to the increase in mathmatical processing ability that the computer gave over a man using a pen and paper.

 

What this all boils down to is that once advanced energy sources, such as fusion, are made feasible, technology will have access to power levels we can only dream of today, and that will make a great many things, such as vehicular energy weapons, possible.

 

Just a few thoughts for SF gamers to consider. Some of my figures are rough estimates, but I think they convey the salient points well enough. I know all this has been done before, and better, in other sources, but still, it's nice to remind people of the implications of things like 'fusion power'.

[薔薇語]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

Wow. Nice to see it written out. But what I thought it would be fun to mention that NASA has put a commision together to explore the possible use of Anti-matter rockets as a form of fuel. IF it is possible and they find a way to market it as a viable sorce of power we could be looking at 100 percent efficency in transforming matter to energy. Now disregard the fact that it cost currently something like a couple hundred million to produce enough just to get a rocket to mars but we don't currently have a way of producing Anti-M. like a factory. We can produce it but it is more a by-product of something else.

 

With any luck*crosses fingers* I could be powering my house with energy from Anti-Matter in my lifetime.

 

Just as a though.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

Yes, combustion gives off all those nasty gases and byproducts. But, we currently have no good way to get rid of the highly toxic nuclear waste. My sincere thought on this is just shoot the stuff into the sun. Seriously, it ain't gonna hurt the sun. The only hard part is safely getting it into space. I very much hope that we can rely on space elevators to provide this service for us in the near future.

 

So, yeah, nuclear power is very cool. I hope we start using it more soon.

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

With any luck*crosses fingers* I could be powering my house with energy from Anti-Matter in my lifetime.

Antimatter is way too scary for me. I'd prefer to use it out in space, where an accident won't wipe out entire civilizations.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

Yes, combustion gives off all those nasty gases and byproducts. But, we currently have no good way to get rid of the highly toxic nuclear waste. My sincere thought on this is just shoot the stuff into the sun. Seriously, it ain't gonna hurt the sun. The only hard part is safely getting it into space. I very much hope that we can rely on space elevators to provide this service for us in the near future.

 

So, yeah, nuclear power is very cool. I hope we start using it more soon.

 

Actually you've been misonformed by the anti-nuclear crowd, which does a damn good job, regrettably, of misinforming people about the 'hazards' of nuclear power.

 

Disposing of nuclear waste is actually quite safe and easy if done properly. The first thing to do is use breeder reactors like the french and japanese do, as these in the end produce far, far less waste than american reactors which are forbidden from using breeder tech due to absursd and ignorant fears.

 

As to the waste that is produced, disposing of it is quite simple and safe: You take 1 pound of it, reduced to a powder, and mix it with 1 ton of sand. Heat the sand in a cubical mold until it's melted thru and thru, forming one solid block of glass.

 

Now, right off the waste is diluted by a factor of 2000-1, then it's fused into a soid block of glass so it's can't leak, seep or otherwise escape.

 

Store the glass blocks in deep mineshafts, like old oilwells. These oil desposits held oil for tens of millionf of years, they could hold these glass cubes for a long time.

 

You could also dump them in old, dry mines as well, there are plenty of old gold, silvr and coal mines that are way above the water table and safe to deposit the glass cubes into.

 

Lastly, realize that the half life of nuclear waste if quite short due to the fact it's been enriched so much it burns itself out quickly. Highly radioactive material has a shorter half life that natural radioactives. As such the diluted radioactive glass will drop to harmless levels in decades, not 'thousands of years' as the anti--nukers will tell you.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

Antimatter is way too scary for me. I'd prefer to use it out in space' date=' where an accident won't wipe out entire civilizations.[/quote']

Technically anti-matter isn't really an energy source in the strictest sense. Today anti-matter paritcles are produced in atomic colliders and doing so consumes more power than the nanti-matter would release.

 

Until/unless we discover a 'cheap' way to produce anti-matter or find a natural source of it (Unlikely!) anti-matter will basically be a way of storing energy, tremendous amounts of it, in a small mass.

 

Of course with AM you also have to have a lot on containment gear, and spend energy maintaining containment.

 

So really unless you need a lot of power in a small package, like, say, a weapon (Photon torpedoes, anyone?) I think fusion would be a better powersource in the forseeable future. Even onboard a spacecraft, I think that when you factor in containment equipment, fusion would be better than anti-matter as a powersource.

[Nyrath]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

But what I thought it would be fun to mention that NASA has put a commision together to explore the possible use of Anti-matter rockets as a form of fuel. IF it is possible and they find a way to market it as a viable sorce of power we could be looking at 100 percent efficency in transforming matter to energy.

Ah, alas you fell into the trap. This is the same problem encountered by proponents of the so-called "hydrogen economy".

 

The problem is that there are no hydrogen wells, and no antimatter mines. Both of them have to be manufactured. In other words, they are not fuels, they are energy transportation items.

 

You need coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear power, or whatever to generate the energy used to make single-hydrogen or antimatter.

[Cancer]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

The Nov-Dec 2004 American Scientist had an interesting article about a novel fission reactor technology, using molten lead as the coolant, operating at high temperature with fast neutrons. It's still behind their subscribers-only wall on their website, unfortunately.

 

I'm of two minds about fission energy. No matter what you say about disposal, anything that works by liberating lots of neutrons is gonna make for nasty hot waste/containment vessel/everything at the end of the reactor's lifecycle. Yes, it can be managed, but it's a big radioactive dangerous expensive mess. At the moment, I don't think any entity in America has the organizational ability and foresight to plan for managing a mess of that magnitude -- and more importantly, that time duration. Nevertheless, if you want the power badly enough, you can construct a reactor now (well, it takes ten years or so to build one) and get the power.

 

On the other hand, fusion power right now also depends on neutron-rich species (so it also is going to have the neutrons poisoning/hot waste problem that fission reactors have), so relief from the waste problem is not apparent. And the cynical part of me notes that fusion power has been just a decade or two away since I first heard of it when I was 11 or 12. Bluntly, I have reached the point where I don't think it's going to happen in my lifetime.

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

Ah, alas you fell into the trap. This is the same problem encountered by proponents of the so-called "hydrogen economy".

 

The problem is that there are no hydrogen wells, and no antimatter mines. Both of them have to be manufactured. In other words, they are not fuels, they are energy transportation items.

 

You need coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear power, or whatever to generate the energy used to make single-hydrogen or antimatter.

If the manufacturing process requires less energy than the output, it becomes a fuel, right? Is there some reason to think antimatter production can't cross that threshhold?

[Nyrath]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

If the manufacturing process requires less energy than the output' date=' it becomes a fuel, right? Is there some reason to think antimatter production can't cross that threshhold?[/quote']

Unfortunately, yes. The law of baryon number conservation.

What it boils down to is that when you turn E=Mc^2 into M = E/c^2 in order to use energy to manufacture matter or antimatter, the law of baryon number conservation ensures that equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created.

 

So the highest efficiency an antimatter manufacturing machine could achieve is 50%.

 

For a hydrogen economy, it runs into our old nemesis the second law of thermodynamics. I won't go into details, but if it took less energy to crack water into oxygen and hydrogen than you got from burning the hydrogen, you'd have the makings of a perpetual motion machine.

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

Unfortunately, yes. The law of baryon number conservation.

What it boils down to is that when you turn E=Mc^2 into M = E/c^2 in order to use energy to manufacture matter or antimatter, the law of baryon number conservation ensures that equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created.

 

So the highest efficiency an antimatter manufacturing machine could achieve is 50%.

That makes sense. But are we confident that's the only way to manufacture antimatter?

[Zeropoint]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

A fusion powered spacecraft could take a crew of 3 men and their vehicle to the moon and back with an amount a fuel that would fit in a coffee can, given the relative efficiency rates of fusion power vs. chemical fuel combustion.

 

You still need to account for reaction mass. While fusion have a theoretical specific impulse (change in velocity per unit mass of reaction mass expelled; proportional to exhaust velocity) than chemical rockets, you'd still need much more than a pound.

 

If the manufacturing process requires less energy than the output, it becomes a fuel, right?

 

This is only possible if the substance in question has energy stored in it BEFORE the manufacturing process. Oil, for example, is ultimately stored solar energy, captured by plants and converted into high-energy substances, then converted into different high-energy substances by geological processes.

 

"The laws of physics are a harsh mistress." -- Bender

 

TNT, undergoing combustion

 

Nitpick: TNT, and other modern explosives, do not undergo "combustion", i.e. burning, i.e. oxidation, at all. They release energy by rapid chemical decomposition: the breakdown of a large/complex molecule into smaller/simpler molecules with less energy.

 

Black powder and fuel/air explosives are two notable exceptions to this.

 

Zeropoint

[Nyrath]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

That makes sense. But are we confident that's the only way to manufacture antimatter?

I'm afraid I did not make myself clear.

It does not matter how we manufacture antimatter. The law of baryon number conservation demands that equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created. Period.

 

It is like asking if there is some way to make one plus one equal three. The laws of addition will not allow it.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

Stupid physics limiting us at every turn!

 

OK, so I've never heard of the big glass cubes. That sounds pretty cool. Let's go for it!

[Curufea]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

There's been some interesting advances recently in geothermal here. Being ideally situated in the middle of a plate, with large amounts of granite.

 

On a side note of heat byproducts - I found it cute how the Pupeteer worlds were so easily detectable because of their large amounts of heat let off from all their power sources.

[薔薇語]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

I'm afraid I did not make myself clear.

It does not matter how we manufacture antimatter. The law of baryon number conservation demands that equal amounts of matter and antimatter are created. Period.

 

It is like asking if there is some way to make one plus one equal three. The laws of addition will not allow it.

 

 

I know that you can only get out what you put in *as a upper max.* But as per cost in human value. What i mean is if we can sacrafice two pounds of lead or two pounds of gold for something we would give up lead. Just because we can only get out a theretical max doesn't pervent us from reaching "economic equilibrium." where the cost of what we put in is equal to the value we get out. And under proper production methods we could fesably get MORE in a financial sense. Also antimater does occur naturally in space if I rember correctly *and please do let me know if I am wrong. So asumibly we could turn Anti-mater into a viable fuel just the way we turned Fission. Becuase just like fission cant produce more energy than it has as maximum potential, we have found a way to Decrease the Cost of production so the % it does put off is Viable.

 

la Rose.

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thoughts and implications.

 

Just because we can only get out a theretical max doesn't pervent us from reaching "economic equilibrium." where the cost of what we put in is equal to the value we get out. And under proper production methods we could fesably get MORE in a financial sense.

Right, this is what I meant. Thank you for being clearer than I.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

You still need to account for reaction mass. While fusion have a theoretical specific impulse (change in velocity per unit mass of reaction mass expelled; proportional to exhaust velocity) than chemical rockets, you'd still need much more than a pound.

 

 

 

 

A fusion powerplant could use air as a reaction mass. Suck it in with a turbofan, force it thru the heat of the reactor and expell the superheated air as reaction mass.

 

They actually designed a system like that in the 50's, using fission produced heat to power it. Thank god some engineer finally hit someone over the head and a wrench and explained it might work but would produce incredible radioactive pollution.

[David Johnston]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

know that you can only get out what you put in *as a upper max.* But as per cost in human value. What i mean is if we can sacrafice two pounds of lead or two pounds of gold for something we would give up lead. Just because we can only get out a theretical max doesn't pervent us from reaching "economic equilibrium." where the cost of what we put in is equal to the value we get out

 

Which of course would make antimatter not a power generation technology, but a power storage technology.

 

And under proper production methods we could fesably get MORE in a financial sense. Also antimater does occur naturally in space if I rember correctly *and please do let me know if I am wrong.

Consider this your notification. The primary problem with antimatter on the macrocosmic scale is that the vacuum of space isn't...quite. At least inside a galaxy there's enough hydrogen in space that people seriously suggested a fusion powered ramjet as a method of interstellar travel. Now that's still very sparse, but it's more than enough to ensure that say, an antimatter asteroid would find itself quickly eroded by the regular detonation of the equivalent of a small nuke when a stray hydrogen atom drifted into contact. It seems unlikely that antimatter planets and suns could ever form because the explosions would disrupt them. In a space opera context you might get some laughs out of harvesting an antimatter nebula or something, but there's no indication that any large amounts of antimatter could exist in our galaxy by this time unless you postulate some unimagined source for fresh antimatter.

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

Which of course would make antimatter not a power generation technology' date=' but a power storage technology.[/quote']

Coal and oil would be considered "power storage" if we had to create them from scratch. Hydroelectric power requires water to be elevated, but we don't elevate the water ourselves. The real question is, can we obtain antimatter in some way that requires less generated energy than we get out of it? Which precludes brute-force converting energy into matter, obviously.

 

In a space opera context you might get some laughs out of harvesting an antimatter nebula or something, but there's no indication that any large amounts of antimatter could exist in our galaxy by this time unless you postulate some unimagined source for fresh antimatter.

Cosmic rays, quantum vacuum, etc. We can't harvest antimatter from such phenomena at present, but even if harvesting is never possible, they suggest possible means of production in some future technological era.

[Cancer]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

There does not seem to be any nearby source of bulk antimatter, which I think is what it would take to fulfill what you guys are asking about with the question of economic viability.

 

Getting to it if there was such a source would be ... interesting ... considering that you get a pair of gamma ray photons for each stray electron that blunders into it. The solar wind has a density of 1 to 10 electrons per cm^3, moving at a couple of hundred km/sec in this part of the Solar system. So unless it's contained in some very nice way, it's going to be quite hot.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

energy storage becomes feasible if it is a more convient way to transport energy, think about a ringworld-like structure which harvests solar energy then uses it to charge batteries or something

[Zeropoint]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

A fusion powerplant could use air as a reaction mass. Suck it in with a turbofan, force it thru the heat of the reactor and expell the superheated air as reaction mass.

 

Quite true. However, I understood the context of the discussion to be space flight ("to the moon and back"), and there isn't a whole lot of air in space.

[Roy_The_Ruthles]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

as far as spaceflight goes, i once planned out a "hard Sci-fi" game, with no faster than light travel, just bending the laws of relativity a bit (one of the themes was to see how society changes over many years as technology is developed).

 

I used breeder ships powerd by nuclear fusion, here's one of my main sources http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/D/Daedalus.html

[austenandrews]

Re: Advanced energy sources: Some thought and pretty big numbers.

 

There does not seem to be any nearby source of bulk antimatter, which I think is what it would take to fulfill what you guys are asking about with the question of economic viability.

 

Getting to it if there was such a source would be ... interesting ... considering that you get a pair of gamma ray photons for each stray electron that blunders into it. The solar wind has a density of 1 to 10 electrons per cm^3, moving at a couple of hundred km/sec in this part of the Solar system. So unless it's contained in some very nice way, it's going to be quite hot.

Of course "feasible" is extremely relative here, but I think we'd be feasibly looking at a source that normally produces very short-lived antimatter (given the odds of rapid annihilation in any space that man is likely to go). Insert technology that isolates the antimatter before it would normally be annihilated. If the frequency of antimatter were small, heat from ambient annihilation wouldn't necessarily be great. Of course I can't imagine a source of short-lived antimatter that wouldn't be inherently high-energy to begin with (unless we get into virtual particles in a vacuum or somesuch).