Flare Sci-Fi Forums: ZPE reactor power musings

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Posted by Shik, God of Caffeine on :

So I'm thinking to myself about a zero-point-energy reactor for powering a warp core....& along the way, I thought about just how damn long it seems to produce the particles for the quantorp, so I can only imagine what a reactor would need. One wonders if the core would need to time to recharge before they could go to warp again ala Babylon 5's jump engines or if they could just use whatever few oparticles they have left to pop out slower & shorter...

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs., THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..."

Posted by Alpha Centauri (Member # 338) on :

In the first place, I don't know whether the extraction of energy from the quantum vacuum is useful for a warp drive. We don't know enough of warp field mechanics to tell if ZPE can be used for the creation of a propulsive warp field.

I also don't know anything on Babylon 5 warp drive, but it seems you're suggesting it extracts energy from the quantum vacuum in the form of particles.
However, vacuum energy release experiments in our time (2000 A.D.) produce energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation, and not in the form of particles.... and that also clashes with the ideas on quantum torpedos.

Hey, I got an idea! Warp drive also generates electromagnetic radiation, which is converted to a plasma of particles on the surface of the dilithium crystal, and then subsequently forms a warp field when it interacts with the warp core materials. I wonder if the photons released from ZPE extractions carry enough energy to make it work.
So technically speaking, it might be an option to power warp cores with quantum vacuum energy, but as you pointed out, the whole extraction process might be too slow, so Starfleet might have abandoned the idea.

Interesting point, though.

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"Alpha Centauri is a beautiful place to visit, you ought to see it" - Kirk to 1969 USAF officer Fellini, "Tomorrow is Yesterday" (TOS)

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

"Babylon 5 warp drive"

That's quite an oxymoron.

BTW, welcome to Flare, Shik.

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June is National Accordion Awareness Month.
"Trekkies like to claim that Star Trek is 'hard science fiction'...in some extreme cases, they even go so far as to claim that it's all technologically feasible! Do they say this because they've analyzed the events of Star Trek for scientific accuracy? Not a chance - most of them don't know a coulomb from a joule, or the difference between Young's Modulus and Dave's burger special." - Mike Wong

Posted by Shik, God of Caffeine on :

Heh...thank,s Frank. Nice t'be back. I was here for about a month in 97...& then forgot. Oh, well....only 198 more posts until status line edit!

Alph: B5 uses hyperspace as accessed via jumpgates (or on larger vessels, jump engines). The relation that I was making was that in B5, the engines on said larger vessels need to recharge for like 5 minutes or something before the ship can open another jump point. With the fact that ZPE particles are seemingly so difficult to produce, I'm wondering if any warp reactor using them would need that recharge time to build up the requisite number of particles to go the distance of X at Y speed. At leats it's not like in "renegade legion" with the "shimmer heat" & the need to spend the same amoutn of time in real space after a jump that you did in hyperspace (15 days in, 15 days out)....and a max of 30 days in hyperspace, or else the ship--& crew--liquifies. Ouchie.

Also makes me wonder if they'd be able to manuever, or--to conserve energy--the ship would be set along a straight course & any manuevering would be done STL.

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

1997? That was the very beginning of the forums!

Do you remember what username you had?

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June is National Accordion Awareness Month.
"And as we all know, 454 Okudagrams equals an Okudapound." - Rick Sternbach

Posted by Shik, God of Caffeine on :

I didn't register at the time...just lurked & read when I was supposed to be working on a campaign database. But NOW...WELL!!

BTW, Frank...sI see you're in New Britain. At least you've got stuff t'do at night. There ain't NOTHIN' t'do here in Danbury....

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel

[This message has been edited by Shik, God of Caffeine (edited June 12, 2000).]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

We have stuff to do at night? Like, wish we were in another state?

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June is National Accordion Awareness Month.
"And as we all know, 454 Okudagrams equals an Okudapound." - Rick Sternbach

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Alpha: I think you may have started to realize this by the end of your post, but... You said in your first paragraph that we don't know if ZPE is good for warp. It doesn't really matter what the energy is, though. The energy is only needed to heat matter into a plasma, which is what interacts w/ the warp coils to make the warp field.

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"Are you alright? You sure? 'Cause you just went through a wall."
-Detective Drycoff, Gone in 60 Seconds

Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

Heh...y'know, the thought I had about recharging & "warp jumps" makes me think of Bernd & Masao's "Minotaur" fighters from the Earth-Romulan War.

BTW, note the new ID. I quickly tired of typing out the old one. I was originally gonna go with this one, but...well...DAMN my ego! Still.."same bat time, same bat channel"...

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel

Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :

Warp plasma, though, does have a few unique properties not found in what we normally refer to as plasma.

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Really deep. We won't blink
Your eyes are burning holes through me.
I'm not scared I'm outta here.
I'm not scared. I'm outta here.
--
R.E.M.
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Read chapter one of "Dirk Tungsten in...The Disappearing Planet"! Please?

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Sol: Really? It's been a while since I've seen a TNGTM, so I don't remember. I thought it was just ionized deuterium gas...

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Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :

**coughcoughwarpparticlescoughcough**

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"Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel