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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 
OK, so we know that Star Trek ships use fusion reactors and matter/antimatter reactors. I've found from the TNGTM (page 57) that m/a has a 10^6 times greater energy output than that of standard fusion.

My questions are;

1) How much power does a fusion reactor generate?;
2) How much power does a m/a reactor generate (if not 10^6 greater than the answer to 1)?;
3) How powerful are plasma-based reactors - you know the ones that the Cardassians used to defend Chintoka with?
4) How much power do any other sources generate?

Let the debate/discussion begin!


 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
Lots.

Mark
 

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Posted by Harry (Member # 265) on :
 
Ask Nevod
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I strongly suspect that you won't get anything more than these responses. The output of any reactor depends on how much fuel you're putting into it, how you're gathering up that output to put it to work, and all sorts of other minor but important technical details that no one has ever bothered to make an episode about, and thus are simply unknowns.

Suffice it to say, as Mark said, a fusion reaction gives you lots of energy. An antimatter reaction gives you _lots_ of energy. Presumably the Cardassian reactors give you lots too.
 

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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 
Bloody hell.

Sigh.

I'm only looking for rough figures, you know - estimates.

Sigh.

OK, how's about this;

How much energy does a nuclear power station of today create?

[ February 23, 2002, 15:07: Message edited by: akb1979 ]
 

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Posted by Ultra Magnus (Member # 239) on :
 
Less than a M/A reactor. But still lots.
 

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Posted by EdipisReks (Member # 510) on :
 
i think most things in star trek give you lots.
 

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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Hear my roar and fear me!

Doesn't anyone have a useful answer or a link that does have and answer?
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 

"How much power does a m/a reactor generate...?"

mass * c² / time
 

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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 
OK . . .

Take a Galaxy-class ship for example;

Mass = 4,500,000 metric tonnes
Speed = Warp 1 (1c)
Time = 60 seconds

So (4,500,000 * 1)/60 = 750,000X per second. Now assuming this is all accurate and the formula is sound, what is X? KJ/KW/MW/GW?

Are there NO Star Trek sites (official or otherwise) that cover this topic?
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
No, that's not it at all. A ship's mass has nothing to do with it.

But here's one way you can approximate it: the TNG TM should give the total amount (in m^3) of antimatter a Galaxy class ship should carry. The book also says that this amount of fuel is enough to power the ship for five years. Assume that the antimatter is used *only* for warp propulsion, and assume an exact five year period. Look up some physics books and determine how much energy is contained in a single atom of deuterium (and thus, anti-deuterium). Also determine the density of slush deuterium at whatever cryogenic temperature the store it at on the Enterprise.

The rest figures itself out - you should be able to find the total amount of energy that would be released if you reacted ALL the antimatter on a GCS with the corresponding amount of matter. Divide this by all the seconds in five years, and you'll have the approximate amount of energy expended per unit time. In other words, the average power output of a GCS warp core cruising at its sustainable cruise velocity, assuming continuous operation. You could factor in a reasonable amount of time the ship would NOT be at warp for maintenance, etc. (say, 4-6 weeks per annum but this is off the top of my head) to gain a better approximation.

Do the math. There's lots of it.

Mark

[ February 23, 2002, 18:42: Message edited by: Mark Nguyen ]
 

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Posted by Antagonist (Member # 484) on :
 
Now that most of that is solved, what was all that business about a year ago with Frank telling everybody he believed fusion could produce more power per whatever unit of reactive material than a m/a annihilation process with the same amount of reactive material?
 

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Posted by Jack_Crusher (Member # 696) on :
 
Using info from Star Trek: The Magazine, I have calculated that at full capacity, DS9's four operable fusion reactors could produce 526.66664 terawatts (526,666,640,000,000 watts) of power in the form of plasma. I would guess that a starship's M/ARA could produce a few dozen petawatts (XXX,000,000,000,000,000 watts) of power in the form of plasma. And one would suppose that either shuttle craft are equipped with extremely low power M/ARAs or a medium output fusion reactor, and that is why shuttles can barely achieve warp or not maintain it for long (The only exception is the Delta Flyer that is really powerful).
 

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Posted by Masao (Member # 232) on :
 
I remember when David Schmidt first showed up here, we started a thread to figure out the energy from a kilogram of antimatter, for use either in warheads or reactors. Don't remember when that was, however. The efficiency of an antimatter reaction should be near 100%, but you can choose anything less than that for fusion.
 

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Posted by Nevod (Member # 738) on :
 
Fusion: 600 Terajoules/kg is you use Hydrogen fuel; but it also takes lots to contain all that fusion... max power would be some 500 gigawatts.

M/AM: It's too volatile to be practical... Better create small black holes, bump stuff into them and blast them. Same power, just far more safe.

Plasma: Inexistent in real life, so dunno. Bou they may be sucking out ZPE, so probably about equal to M/AM.

Too lazy to type more.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
I think it's been pretty much explained, but I'll summarize the clarification of my earlier answer.

Take the mass (in kilograms) of the fuel (matter + antimatter, or two times either one of them since they have to be equal), multiply it by the square of the speed of light (in meters per second) and divide that answer by the time for which the production of enegy is sustained (in seconds). This will give you the amount of power, which is measured in watts. If you skip dividing by the time, you'll get the amount of energy (in joules).
 

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Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
 
Um, can you explain why a little blackhole inside your ship would be safer than M/AM?

Fusion generates more power than M/AM? Sounds like typical Star Wars nonsense.
 

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Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
 
I'm more than a little disturbed to learn that plasma no longer exists. I thought it got dark rather early tonight...
 

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Posted by StyroFoam Man (Member # 706) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Nevod:

Plasma: Inexistent in real life, so dunno. Bou they may be sucking out ZPE, so probably about equal to M/AM.

.

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So, I assume the sun is nothing more than a huge buring pile of tires left over from the Tkon Empire?

Plasma exists, and it is used in in many industral processes and scientists play with it in the lab all the time.
 

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Posted by Nevod (Member # 738) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by StyroFoam Man:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nevod:

Plasma: Inexistent in real life, so dunno. Bou they may be sucking out ZPE, so probably about equal to M/AM.

.

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So, I assume the sun is nothing more than a huge buring pile of tires left over from the Tkon Empire?

Plasma exists, and it is used in in many industral processes and scientists play with it in the lab all the time.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Nevod:
Fusion is plasma

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Let's just get things straight, for anyone who didn't take a fifth-grade science class. Plasma is ionized gas. That's it. It's what you get when you get gas hot enough. It's the fourth* state of matter; in order of increasing temperature, you have solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

Plasma is very real. In the sun, it is the result of the intense heat and pressure all that hydrogen is under. It is found in fusion reactors, for the few minutes we can keep them running. Plasma torches are used in some industrial applications. Boeing (I think) is even working on a plane-mounted plasma cannon for military use.

* Recently, physicists have identified a fifth state of matter, the poetically named Bose-Einstein condensate. It's colder than solid, and what they used to make light slow to a crawl. So depending on how you're numbering the states, plasma could be the fifth: Bose-Einstein condensate, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

[ February 24, 2002, 09:02: Message edited by: Ryan McReynolds ]
 

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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 
TNGTM page 68: 1 pod = 100m^3 of antimatter. States Enterprise has 30 pods = 3,000m^3 of antimatter for a normal mission period of 3 years.

Page 69: deuterium tank holds 63,200m^3.

OK, mass*speed (c) divided by time

For Warp 7;

M/A ratio of 10:1 = 11 units of mass, 11^3 = 1,331 cubic metre units in total.

So 1331*656c / 60 seconds = 14,552 watts/sec, but if we multiply the seconds to make a full minute (3,600 secs) then that power output goes down to 243 watts/sec. Is that right?
 

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Posted by David Templar (Member # 580) on :
 
Nevod: I'll be damned if I ever step inside a spacebattle forum again. Those guys are monsters.

akb1979: I think you're using the wrong unit. It's suppose to be kg (mass), not m^3 (volume). That should account for the difference. How much hydrogen can you pack into 1 m^3 area of space, if the hydrogen is in a "slush" state?
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
And aside form that, your answer will be in joules/second, which is the same as watts. Watts/second would indicate that the rate of energy production is accelerating.

And it doesn't matter how much deuterium there is, since there's more deuterium than antideuterium. You can only count the stuff that actually annihilates, which will be an equal amount of matter and antimatter.

So, given the numbers we already have...

3000 m³ of antimatter
an equal mass of matter
5 years (157 784 760 seconds) of power generation
c² = 89 875 517 873 681 764

...we find that the necessary equation is...

2 * 3000 * D * 89 875 517 873 681 764 / 157 784 760

...which reduces to approximately...

3 417 650 140 876 * D

...where D is the density of the stored antimatter (in kg/m³).

[ February 24, 2002, 16:03: Message edited by: TSN ]
 

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Posted by akb1979 (Member # 557) on :
 
That's great TSN!

Now all we need is the desity of the elements involved (anyone know the answer?) and have the equation modified to account for those figures and that the supply is for 3 years, not 5. The latter is easy: 157,784,760/5*3=94,670,856 seconds.


 

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Posted by Woodside Kid (Member # 699) on :
 
Just a few ballpark figures to help keep the discussion going. The maximum yield for a fusion bomb is approximately 0.5% of the energy stored in a given mass M, so your basic M/AM reaction is roughly 200 times as efficient as a fusion reaction.

As for the power output, the total annihilation of 1 kilogram of matter and 1 kilogram of antimatter releases the energy equivalent of exploding 43 one megaton H-bombs. This is approximately 4.3 x 10^24 ergs (4.3 septillion ergs).
 

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Posted by Mark Nguyen (Member # 469) on :
 
And to dispose of stupid-sounding units, there are ten million ergs in a joule.

Mark
 

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Posted by Nevod (Member # 738) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Ryan McReynolds:

quote:

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Originally posted by Nevod:
Fusion is plasma

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Let's just get things straight, for anyone who didn't take a fifth-grade science class. Plasma is ionized gas. That's it. It's what you get when you get gas hot enough. It's the fourth* state of matter; in order of increasing temperature, you have solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

Plasma is very real. In the sun, it is the result of the intense heat and pressure all that hydrogen is under. It is found in fusion reactors, for the few minutes we can keep them running. Plasma torches are used in some industrial applications. Boeing (I think) is even working on a plane-mounted plasma cannon for military use.

* Recently, physicists have identified a fifth state of matter, the poetically named Bose-Einstein condensate. It's colder than solid, and what they used to make light slow to a crawl. So depending on how you're numbering the states, plasma could be the fifth: Bose-Einstein condensate, solid, liquid, gas, and plasma.

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