I have a question, possibly a silly question, about the generation of energy in the world of Eclipse Phase. I imagine that it can come of multiple sources (solar in Mercury, nuclear in Pluton, wind power in Mars, etc...) but, what's with the orbitals/space stations? And with the tecnology advanced energy sources?
Thanks in advance and please forgive my poor english.
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Energy source in Eclipse Phase
Fri, 2010-07-02 04:48
#1
artemis2
Energy source in Eclipse Phase
Fri, 2010-07-02 07:26
#2
Arenamontanus
Re: Energy source in Eclipse Phase
Fusion seems to be popular in the outer system, while space habitats in the inner system probably make do with plentiful solar energy. Fission is less useful in the outer system due to the dearth of heavy elements to mine. In some locations such as near Jupiter and Saturn there are strong magnetic fields that can be used to induce currents in conducting loops.
Antimatter is used for a few special applications (emergency egocasters, some propulsion etc) but is not suited for continuous power. I think there is a mention that nuclear isomer batteries are used for energy or plasma weapons, but again this is mainly energy storage. Geothermal energy might be an option in a few places like Io and Mars, and even on a cold world like Titan temperature gradients can provide a lot of heat provided one go to the trouble of building low-temperature heat exchange systems.
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Thu, 2010-08-26 13:50
#3
Jaeger
Re: Energy source in Eclipse Phase
Helium 3 son, helium 3. Provides fusion power.
The moons and the gas giants. Tre recent movie called Moon, the guy was harvesting regolith which has helium 3 in it.
12.4 Recovering helium-3 from Jupiter
One of the discoveries made by Voyager 1 was that about 11% by volume of the atmosphere of Jupiter is helium [96, p.87]. This closely matches the percent of helium found on the sun, indicating that Jupiter is a good sample of the primordial nebula from which the solar system formed.
Between 1973 and 1978 some members of the British Interplanetary Society worked on a project called Daedalus. It was an interstellar spacecraft which was intended to run on deuterium and helium-3 [66, p.68]. Their intention was to "mine" the helium-3 from the atmosphere of Jupiter.
Even assuming a low concentration of helium-3, it is easily calculated that there is more helium-3 on Jupiter than there is water in all oceans of earth (roughly 100 times more). Although some recent papers such as "Helium-3 Mining of Uranus" by Dani Eder which appeared in volume 8 of "Space Manufacturing", prefer Uranus to Jupiter, we prefer Jupiter. After all, it is much closer and far more interesting than Uranus.
The Jovians are RICH.
Thu, 2018-05-03 04:00
#4
Shrekgrinch
Yes the Jovians and T-itanians are rich...
...but the PC does not like being dependent on either of them. Hence why they have developed a D-D reactor that somehow generates the Tritium + charged alpha particle reaction 75% of the time, instead the usual 50% of the time. Or at least I remember reading something about that...I think it was in the Panopticon book?
Fri, 2018-05-04 03:09
#5
Xagroth
Necro is necro! XD
Necro is necro! XD
The Jovians are rich because they charge for the use of Jupiter's gavitational mass for "catapult" aid (thus saving money on fuel and time). Then they can "mine" gases on the planet, same as the Titanians. They are, however, less energy-rich than anything closer than the asteroid belt to the Sun, where simple sunlight means tons of "free" power.
Fri, 2018-05-04 17:58
#6
nezumi.hebereke
Energy!
The slingshot helps the most when Jupiter is in a convenient location relative to everywhere else. I have to double check my maps, but I seem to recall it was. Still, this means in a year or two that income will dry up.
Hydrogen mining isn't a great deal in Jupiter, because the gravity makes getting that hydrogen back up more expensive than most anywhere else (and it's not a great refuel stop because ships that slow down enough to refuel wasted whatever delta-v they'd have gotten from a slingshot). Any Jovian work is also tough because of the radiation. If they used advanced technology maybe? But they don't, so most of their equipment just has tons and tons of heavy shielding--which again penalizes their escaping that gravity well.
There are ways for them to collect plenty of energy though. That radiation can be collected and directed, and someone somewhere talked about a gravity anchor or somesuch. The issue then becomes how to sell it. I get the impression that the Jovians aren't major participants in global trade, but instead most of that energy goes directly into feeding their military.
Wed, 2019-02-06 19:41
#7
Shrekgrinch
More...
Follow up: http://www.helionenergy.com/?page_id=199
Also, why can't the PC also use p-b11 reactors? They don't produce as much as He3 ones, but hydrogen and boron are plentiful elements in the Inner System, I believe.
Fri, 2020-02-07 08:29
#8
sysop
( ... it is slightly
( ... it is slightly disturbing to me how good some of these spammers are getting at faking genuine content.)
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