Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

VS debates involving other fictional universes than Star Trek or Star Wars go here, along with technical analysis, detailed discussion, crossover scenario descriptions, and similar related stuffs.
Post Reply
User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sat Oct 06, 2007 10:54 pm

A bit more stuff about the power of the portable naqahdah generators.

Stargate SG-1 - Scorched Earth (4.09)
O’NEILL
How do you make a naquada bomb?

CARTER
Well sir, the reactor was designed specifically to prevent exactly that kind of…

O’NEILL
Carter!

[Carter thinks for a moment, obviously not happy with the situation.]

CARTER
Theoretically if I created a feedback loop, the energy would build up instead of being released. There would be a big explosion sir.

O’NEILL
Big enough?

CARTER
I think so.

O’NEILL
Carter, I’m making a choice to help these people. But if you don’t make that bomb I’m out of options.

CARTER
(quietly)

I know.

O’NEILL
So I have to order you to do it.

CARTER
Yes, sir.

[She walks away to make the bomb. O'Neill looks at Daniel who obviously doesn’t agree with the situation.]

EXT—PLANET

[Carter is preparing the reactor. O'Neill is looking at the ship as it is slowly approaching. They are positioned near to a lake away from the village.]

O’NEILL
How controlled is this going to be?

CARTER
The focus of the blast will be aimed upwards. This ridge should protect the village but this is as close as I would put it. I’ve modified this remote to start the feedback loop. About a minute after you press this button the reactor should reach critical overload and blow.

O’NEILL
Ship's ETA?

CARTER
About five zero minutes sir. But we should detonate before the ship’s directly overhead. There’s no telling what that beam will do to the reactor.

O’NEILL
Okay.

CARTER
There’s one more thing sir.

[Carter stands to look at O'Neill.]

CARTER
Once you detonate the reactor there’s no turning back. The overload can’t be stopped.

O’NEILL
(quietly)
Alright.

[They walk to the edge of the water and get into the small speedboat there. They start it and head across the water to the village.]
The model they used is actually the protype Carter made tests on.

In all likelyness, if there was a different with a standard Mark I, it would be less powerful.

The blast would have been directed. How exactly? there's no hardware to deflect such a blast. Maybe there is a valve on the top of the generator, and channeling the plasma through that valve within a microsecond is enough to "direct" the blast, somehow.

Image

This one was calibrated to build energy over one minute. Apparently, the blast would be so powerful that it the ridge would be worth a protection here.








Stargate SG-1 - Allegiance (6.09)
Scene: The sun is setting (or rising) behind the trees surrounding the compound. Jack, Teal'c, Sam, and others are in a building on the compound, looking at a Naquadah reactor.

Sam: "At first, it seemed like a routing power fluctuation in the cycle output of the Naquadah reactor, but on closer inspection, I discovered that both the absorption port and it's redundancy had been tampered with..."

Jack (his hands both rubbing his face in frustration): "Carter! I haven't had coffee."

Sam: "Sir, no one would have noticed it, if they didn't know what to look for. The reactor would have overloaded."

Jack: "Any chance this was an accident?"

Sam: "Not a chance."

Teal'c: "Would not an explosion caused by such an overload destroy an area several miles in circumference?"

Sam: "Yeah, it would."

Jack: "Who knows about this?"

Sam: "Except for the guards I posted, just us."

Teal'c: "How long would it have taken for this overload to result in explosion?"

Sam: "An hour? Maybe less."

Jack (looks at his watch): "Ahhh..." (into his radio) "Pierce...O'Niell. No one goes within 20 yards of the 'gate till I get there."

Pierce: "Yes, sir."

Teal'c: "What are you considering, O'Neill?"

Jack: "Well, if you'd rigged a reactor to blow...wouldn't you want to get off world before it...blew?"

Teal'c: "Indeed."
Circumference = Diameter x pi.
Diameter = Circumference / pi.
With a circumference of 2 miles at least (extremely minimal figure), we'd get a diameter of at least 1,024.54 meters (radius of 512.27 meters).

If we understand that by destroy, it means leveled, this would correspond to a yield of 1 kiloton, more or less.
If it's about the fireball radius on ground contact, that's nearly 470 kilotons.
Of course, remember that both figures are based on the smallest circumference possible.








Stargate Atlantis - Hide & Seek (1.03)
SCENE: Control room

Peters at computer, others round him.

PETER: The self destruct system requires two separate codes. Now each code is unique. And everyone here will be required to memorize their code.

MCKAY: well don't bother giving me one. Sorry.

WEIR: As far as we know, this gate is the only Stargate in the Pegasus galaxy that is capable of dialing earth, which would make it the last line of defense against the wraith. If they're going to attack which we must consider a very real threat. We simply cannot let them gain control of this complex.

PETER: If both codes are properly entered the naquada generator will overload. It will take 30 seconds.

FORD: You sure it will do enough damage.

MCKAY: Ever seen a 20 kiloton nuclear explosion?
The overload will reach a yield of 20 kilotons. It will take 30 seconds to build up that amount of power.
Unless I miss something, it gives a power of 2.789 terawatts (1 TJ = e12 J; 1 W = 1 J/s).

This is not necessarily peak power.

Obviously, a portable generator comes with a buffer, where energy is dumped before being output.

Actually, this does not prove that 20 kilotons is all of what you can get out of a naqahdah generator mk I: It's only the buffer's energy threshold before overload.

Besides, naqahdah generators can last for quite some time, so we'd need references that would provide combined information about power output and duration. Therefore, we'd know how much energy such a generator can provide, at least. This figure would be based upon the power output calculated above, which we have no way to be sure it's the maximum one.







Stargate Atlantis - Siege Part II (1.20)
EVERETT: We do now. We brought a Mark II naqahdah generator.

MARINE: We found a way to increase the power output by six hundred percent. It won't last nearly as long, but should be able to power the chair for as long as we need it to.
INT. Chair room. SHEPPARD runs in.

SHEPPARD: McKay, fire it up!

McKAY: It'll take a minute.

SHEPPARD: We don't have a minute

McKAY: Look, this generator can only power the chair because it operates in a state of barely controlled overload.
Basically, a Mk II has 6 times the power of a Mk I.

McKay is preparing the generator. Considering that there's no evidence that anything else besides the power output has been increased, we'll consider that this element is the only part that's been altered between the two generations.

Otherwise, if, for example, the buffer capacity was also increased, the power figures would become greater.

A barely controlled overload would make the power output be near 20 kilotons per second, or slightly less than 83.68 terawatts. Say 83.6 terawatts.

That would mean that the power output of a Mark I is actually six times inferior to that, and equal to 3.33 kilotons per second, or 13.946 terawatts. Say 13.9 terawatts.

This would reveal that Peter didn't push the Mark I at its max output, back in Hide & Seek.

Next step is to know how long these generators can keep going on at such rates.

We know that activating the chair and firing the drones in Siege Part II almost entirely depleted the Mark II, so much that when they switched it on again, one second later, the power levels were sudenly plummeting.

Timing the sequence from the moment the chair was activated and drones fired, until the last one got destroyed, will be a good indicator of how long the Mark II can stay on.

EDIT: I initially thought, since season 1 aired, that a Mark I could only output a total of 20 kilotons.
Mind you, if the overload actually triggers a quick chain reaction that leads to a yield of 20 kilotons, it would mean that the power figures are considerably lower to those I presented above. Please keep that in mind. ;)
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:55 am, edited 4 times in total.

User avatar
l33telboi
Starship Captain
Posts: 910
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:15 am
Location: Finland

Re: Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by l33telboi » Sun Oct 07, 2007 5:35 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:The blast would have been directed. How exactly?


I believe she was talking in broader terms. She didn't mean directed as in a shaped charge or anything like that, but more that the mountain ridge itself will funnel the blast upwards and so on.
Actually, this does not prove that 20 kilotons is all of what you can get out of a naqahdah generator mk I: It's only the buffer's energy threshold before overload.
How much total energy the Naquadah Generator has would no doubt be directly related to how much Naquadah it has to work with. A fully stuffed generator might be able to create a bigger explosion. Likewise, a nearly empty generator would create a smaller explosion.

EDIT: Approximately how long do you think it took for the generator to drain in "The Siege"?

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Oct 07, 2007 6:55 pm

OUTDATED !!

l33telboi wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:The blast would have been directed. How exactly?


I believe she was talking in broader terms. She didn't mean directed as in a shaped charge or anything like that, but more that the mountain ridge itself will funnel the blast upwards and so on.
Yes, that's a good possibility. I first considered that the ground would deflect the burst, but not by that much. However, I didn't think about the ridge itself. However, looking at caps of the episode show that the ridge is not that high. Enough to protect the village on the surface, but highly enough to deflect a portion of the blast upwards. With a ship floating a mile above the surface, they're still going to need a pretty hefty initial punch from that ground explosion.

For the 20 psi air blast to reach the spaceship that is flying at 1.06 miles above the surface (+ 1700 m), according to Wong's calculator and assuming it's correct, it would require a little bit more than 220 kilotons.
If you actually hope for the fireball to toast the vessel, even partially, then you'd be looking for an initial 18 megatons blast.
Actually, this does not prove that 20 kilotons is all of what you can get out of a naqahdah generator mk I: It's only the buffer's energy threshold before overload.
How much total energy the Naquadah Generator has would no doubt be directly related to how much Naquadah it has to work with. A fully stuffed generator might be able to create a bigger explosion. Likewise, a nearly empty generator would create a smaller explosion.
Indeed, and that's the trouble here. Is the explosion figure the yield of the energy gathered inside the buffer, or the final yield including amplification by naqahdah?

Naqahdah has funky effects, and different chain reaction thresholds.
In Chain Reaction, detonating a nuke on an ex-Goa'uld planet where there were traces of naqahdah in the soil, likely old veins, dust or the raw material and likely remnants of the processed material as well (refined material), the detonation of a nuke completely turned the planet into a fireball.
On the other hand, in Fallout, detonating a nuke right inside a vein of naqahdah before it would turn to naqahdria, didn't trigger a chain reaction.
Equally, stargates, essentially made of naqahdah, can take on a lot of energy, but once you go above a certain threshold, it goes boom.

The main difference between Chain Reaction and Fallout, imho, is that one had minor pockets and traces of naqahdah, which since not beign directly in contact with each other, could not act as a super capacitor. However, it's not the same when you try to dump to energy into a huge vain that crosses a significant distance through the crust of Langara.
But, well...
EDIT: Approximately how long do you think it took for the generator to drain in "The Siege"?
:) I was getting there.

From the moment the chair lights up (0:20:53.378), to the moment the last drone is seen destroying a Wraith dart (0:22:18.130), there's roughly 1:25 minutes. 85 seconds.

The episode has an abrupt cut. We see the drone chasing the Wraith dart, and we can see that all gun positions are firing all around the city, at unseen targets. Yet, when the dart is destroyed, we immediately cut to Everett and Weir looking down on the damaged piers and burning wrecks, and all guns are dead.
So this timeframe is possibly condensed.

20 to 30 darts were estimated shot down in the process, not counting those which crashed. That's a lot for a bit more than one minute of shooting.

With the rate from the first post, that would be a total energy of 7,106 terajoules, or roughly 1.698 megaton.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Mon Nov 29, 2010 3:38 pm, edited 4 times in total.

User avatar
l33telboi
Starship Captain
Posts: 910
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2006 7:15 am
Location: Finland

Re: Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by l33telboi » Sun Oct 07, 2007 8:01 pm

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Indeed, and that's the trouble here. Is the explosion figure the yield of the energy gathered inside the buffer, or the final yield including amplification by naqahdah?
Well, i guess it could go both ways. But something tells me reactor-grade Naquadah would be one of the more voletile versions of the stuff. For all we know reactor-grade and weapons-grade are the same stuff.

IMO, you could assume it's all the Naquadah going boom.

But on an interesting side-note. You probably know how dense and therefore heavy Naquadah is. Yet we see people carrying these reactors around with no trouble. They've bound to have nothing miniscule amouts of Naquadah in them.
20 to 30 darts were estimated shot down in the process, not counting those which crashed. That's a lot for a bit more than one minute of shooting.
But we're still talking about minutes, right? So you could assume something like 15 minutes to be on the safe side?

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Oct 07, 2007 11:46 pm

l33telboi wrote:
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Indeed, and that's the trouble here. Is the explosion figure the yield of the energy gathered inside the buffer, or the final yield including amplification by naqahdah?
Well, i guess it could go both ways. But something tells me reactor-grade Naquadah would be one of the more voletile versions of the stuff. For all we know reactor-grade and weapons-grade are the same stuff.

IMO, you could assume it's all the Naquadah going boom.

But on an interesting side-note. You probably know how dense and therefore heavy Naquadah is. Yet we see people carrying these reactors around with no trouble. They've bound to have nothing miniscule amouts of Naquadah in them.
If we consider that the 20 kiloton blast was the result of everything in the reactor fueling the explosion, first triggered by an overload of an inferior magnitude, this would provide lower power figures, but would also pose a problem, since it'd be hard to measure it.
We don't know how mucn naqahdah there is in a Mark I.
It's correct that those things are light.
Naqahdah's funkyness in terms of energy vs mass makes it even harder to estimate.
And if that wasn't all, there's the problem that fusion is much more efficient with light elements than heavy ones. Smashing heavy elements into "fusion friendly atomic range" requires so much energy that it costs more than what you'll get. Which is why heavier elements are best used with fission reactions.

The naqahdah generators, apparently running on cold fusion, would be a new kind of nuclear physics, where even such a heavy element as naqahdah apparently isn't a problem. Considering, in the end, the absurd amounts of energy you get out this crystaline material, even if it was expensive, in terms of energy, to fuse naqahdah particles to start a reaction, in the end you'd still get a bigger bang for the buck.

Thinking about it, since the problem is to get the chain reaction started, it's possible that naqahdah reactors start with a basic potassium + naqahdah first stage "ignition", considering how this couple is really sensible.

Back on the power estimations;

There is a thing to know about the generator that was going to be used to make a 20 KT explosion: it was relatively new, since the reference is from the episode Hide & Seek, just after the pilot.

So basically, what is sure is that if we assume, among the various options, that the 20 KT yield is the fruit of all the naqahdah going off, we could eventually obtain rough estimations of how much energy you can get out of naqahdah, by gauging the size of a Mark I, and then working from the basis that, say, 2/3 of the device's volume is made of naqahdah.

Therefore, we'd get a sort of ratio between energy and volume of naqahdah. There'd be also the possibility, in terms of energy generation, that a sudden reaction may not be as efficient as a steady exploitation of naqahdah. Sure, the power will be several orders of magnitude higher, but in terms of total energy, slowly exploiting the naqahdah stock inside the generator may be more efficient.

That would mean that even if the 20 KT yield corresponds to the reaction of all of what's left of reactive naqahdah, it may be inferior - by an unknown margin - to the complete amount of energy you can get out of the generator under normal and controlled use.
20 to 30 darts were estimated shot down in the process, not counting those which crashed. That's a lot for a bit more than one minute of shooting.
But we're still talking about minutes, right? So you could assume something like 15 minutes to be on the safe side?
They say that using the chair and powering drones drained the Mark II. On screen, this didn't last more than 85 seconds.

These power and energy calculations are rather quite relevant when you remember that the lantian satellite gun was powered by a Mark I, and that McKay, basing his claim on *some* data, said that the capacitor gathered enough energy to destroy three Wraith hiveships... while at this time, they had near to zero military intelligence from experience regarding what is necessary to seriously damage or destroy a hiveship. Which led me to think that this data came from the satellite computer, and thus... 10,000 years ago, the cannon was already that tough / or the hiveships were already that weak.

The real point, is that it didn't add up. One Mark I powering a weapon that could literally reap a hiveship in two, while those ships' armour could withstand point blank detonations of nukes which, for all intents and purposes, would be quite powerful since the Tau'ri had only one chance to destroy the hiveships - they'd surely use their best assets here, and likely use nukes in the several megatons, if not up to a few gigatons.
After all, in Siege Part II, they were already thinking that nukes at 1.2 GT each would be the bare minimum to surely get rid of hiveships - which was never proven, btw. But it shows that this is the yield they estimated necessary when dealing with such aliens.
This is the exact same reasoning they had, ten years ago, when Apophis came to Earth. Earth forces didn't take a chance at firing anything less than 1 GT per missile.

So I hardly see the Daedalus firing puny nukes at two hiveships with upgraded hyperdrives which were bound to turn come to Earth and have a massive feast there.

The point would be to show that the satellite weapon used an exotic mechanism to deal more damage, or that the naqahdah generator only powered something. I don't know, but it really doesn't make sense in terms of sheer DET.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sat Nov 01, 2008 4:02 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Estrecca
Padawan
Posts: 34
Joined: Fri May 18, 2007 9:48 am

Post by Estrecca » Mon Oct 08, 2007 4:29 pm

Withthis pic, I have calculated a generous upper limit for the size of the naquadah reactor. Supposing that Carter's head is thirty centimeters high, then the naquadah reactor is at most thirty five centimeters tall and slightly over a meter in width. Does anyone know a pic that could be used to calculate the thickness of this device?

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Tue Oct 09, 2007 2:57 am

Estrecca wrote:Withthis pic, I have calculated a generous upper limit for the size of the naquadah reactor. Supposing that Carter's head is thirty centimeters high, then the naquadah reactor is at most thirty five centimeters tall and slightly over a meter in width. Does anyone know a pic that could be used to calculate the thickness of this device?
Hey! You new?
I think you'd be more succesful by looking at the Atlantis section of the site. The spin off features the Mark Is much more than SG-1 did.

The advantage is that the device can be summed up to something like two spheres plus a cylinder, with eventually the small cone on top of the cylinder section.

Funnily, the Mark II is very blocky, and encased within a sort of plasticky grey casing.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Jun 15, 2008 3:06 pm

OUTDATED !!

For newer and correct numbers about the power output of portable naqahdah reactors, click on the following link (Gateworld thread), thank you.



-----[old version below]-----

To come back to this topic, if we go by the safe measure of the MkII powering the chair for, say, ten minutes (instead of 85 seconds), we'd get this:

Working at 600%, barely controlled overload, the generator was depleted within 10 minutes.

We know that a Mark II is basically a better design of the Mark I, in that it has a greater power output, but the same energy capacity.

Working from the 20 kilotons figure, we know that there has to be enough reactants in the Mk II to provide that much energy.

Earlier, the problem was that it was impossible to know if the yield was obtained from the sheer energetic build up, until the buffer or reactor would be full of energy, or if it was more like all the remaining naqahdah amplifying a smaller explosion triggered by the overload.

But this issue doesn't apply with the Mark II, since it was depleted (all possible energy obtainable from reactants was used).

We know that the reactor could generate a total of at least 83.68 terajoules from its reactants.
At least because we don't the efficiency of the explosion reaction, nor how much naqahdah was already used beforehand.
This amount of energy would have been generated in ten minutes, which gives us a power of 140 gigawatts.
Considering the mid gigajoule yields calculated for drones fired from puddle jumpers in "Adrift", and the fact that the sole chair fired many of them, and was also probably feeding other systems like sensors for this short battle, this power figure seems correct.

Now, with that power figure, let's see if it fits with "Hide and Seek".

If a Mark II, pushed at max, can deliver 600% of the maximum power of a Mark I, then a Mark I can deliver 23.3 gigawatts.

We've been told that it would take exactly 30 second for the naqahdah generator Mark I to reach overload (again, "Hide and Seek").
So we would know from that moment that the buffer threshold of a Mark I is 23.3 x 30, therefore 700 gigajoules (based on a ten minutes long powering).

Which means that the remaining 19,300 gigajoules are provided by the naqahdah reactants, fueled a probably fission or fusion chain reaction, which is not much of a problem because even raw naqahdah has a volatile status worth of weapon grade plutonium or uranium, since even raw naqahdah can generate cataclysmic chain reactions.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sun Nov 10, 2013 9:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Thu Feb 26, 2009 7:08 pm

Yo!
I've updated the thread by putting up a new figure about the beam event in Lost City Part II, here.
Don't hesitate to comment on them and tell if you see an error.

User avatar
Mr. Oragahn
Admiral
Posts: 6865
Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 11:58 am
Location: Paradise Mountain

Re: Stargate: Power and lifespan of naqahdah generators

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:11 pm

I've been thinking about trying to get an estimation of the power requirements for hyperspace travel since that thread, and there's something to do about that here.
First, for the power output figures for Mk-I generators, look above. Let's remember that such a reactor was also used to power the shields of the Seberus.
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/displa ... 48&pos=133
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/displa ... 48&pos=160
http://www.gateworld.net/gallery/displa ... 48&pos=238
When the circuits linking the reactor to the ship's power grid blew up, the shields went down and the ship's hull was directly exposed.
With a star like ours, the mean intensity would be around 63.18 MW/m² at the photosphere.
Depending on if the ship was one or two star radii from the surface, the intensity would be a quarter (15.795 MW/m²) or a ninth (7.02 MW/m²) of that value.
The Seberus easily is 20 meters long. There are better dimensions here. The shields are semi-hull-hugging, so the surface area of the exposed shield would easily bring the total power ratio up two or three orders of magnitude.
On the quick side of things, a sphere that's 10 meters wide has a surface area of 314.16 m².
If we say that half of that area is exposed, we get 157.08 m². With the lower intensity figure from above, we get a total of 1,102.7 megawatts.
But we can get a better measurement of the area. It's 22.3 m long, and 12 meters wide. It's easy to treat its shield volume this way: it looks like a rhombus (a diamond) when seen from above, and comes with a thickness of 4 meters when seen in 3D.
We'll say that we only need half the total surface area of that prism.
First, we get the area of the top face of the prism. That's the length multiplied by the width and all divided by two (or the product of the two diagonals divided by two).
We obtain 133.8 m².
Now we need two of the four sides of that prism. They're rectangles with a length of 12.66 meters and a width of 4 meters, and have a SA of 50.64 m² each. That's 101.28 m² for two upright sides of the prism.
So those two rectangular sides, plus the top face, we get a total of 235.08 m².
So, with the following distances from the photosphere, we have (with r the radius of the star):

2r : 3,713.0886 MW.
3r : 1,650.2616 MW.

This supports the gigawatt capacity of such reactors, running at a decent rate.
The reactor would have also been powering other systems, and most likely played a part in the Seberus' propulsion (they couldn't fly without it and engines came back online when the naqahdah reactor's output was rerouted)

So back to our hyperdrives.
It is said that the Goa'uld never managed to get Death Gliders to fly into hyperspace because their power cores never proved powerful enough.
Although one could argue that it's the Goa'uld being Goa'uld, ergo capping the tech of their slaves and warriors for their petty games, the Tau'ri are much more reliable since they're looking for efficiency, and they met the same problem.

Hence their X-302 prototype was equipped with a naqahdria reactor. Much more powerful.

Then I look at the numbers above for the portable naqahdah reactors and I wonder what kind of crazy numbers we can get here.

There are a few things we know about the first generation of portable generators: they're small, and they're easy to carry around and ready to use. We see Sheppard lift them like if they weighed 10 kg a piece.

That's the crazy part now. See, in Redemption, by trimming the F-302 of all sort of useless stuff for its special mission, they managed to lighten it enough so it could carry a 29 tons stargate.
Now, it proved incapable of ever reaching orbit.
But let's say that the craft can easily lift 20 tons. The amount of material that was removed didn't change the outer appearance of the craft safe for the weapon systems, and inside they removed some safeties and little things, hardly enough to weigh more than one tonne really, so I could be "conservative" here with those 20 tons.

How many Mk-I generators does that make?
Let's say they weigh 20 kg each.
Right. That means a F-302 could carry a thousand of them. In theory. But that's silly. The volume taken for that would be beyond impractical. It wouldn't be very agile either.
However, nothing really precludes the F-302 from having some of them mounted within casings on either side of its main fuselage, or underneath its belly or even under the wings. And that's quite a lot which can be put there!
After all, when an aircraft needs more autonomy, it's loaded with some extra fuel tanks. The same could easily apply here.
Look at it. The amount of naqahdah generators you could cram on that kind of craft is quite large.
And it's quite a fair assessment considering the ingenuity of the Tau'ri.

The next step would probably be to look at how many "fuel tanks" could be crammed on a F-302, by knowing the size of a Mk-I generator.
Here's an example with the F-22. It's expected to carry up to four tanks. You have another example here. Such a fuel tank could easily contain three Mark-Is (compare the size of the tank to the size of the pilot).

Still, on a very conservative side, there's little reason for them not to have tried packing more than half a dozen generators to allow for long range FTL flights.
A Mk-I running at a near max output of +23 GW can run for 3600 seconds. That's an hour, more than enough for a FTL flight for such a craft (a couple seconds meant a trip over millions of miles).
Six times this would bring us back to the output of the Mk-II, about 140 GW (that's the figure based on a constant output for ten minutes, which was a conservative estimate of the battle's duration).

It seems clear to me that the naqahdria reactor present on the X-302 would provide several hundreds of gigawatts.
With four "fuel tanks", the F-302 could carry the equivalent of two dozens of Mk-Is. That would be 240 GW, and the logic would want us to consider this not enough for the hyperdrive requirements.

This is not exactly surprising either. Nukes of the same size and nearly same model have seen their yields jump from 1~1.2 GT when using weapon grade naqahdah, to +/- 812 GT when using naqahdria, and we know that weapon grade naqahdah is the enriched version of the element that's used to power reactors.

EDIT: The calculation for the beam in "Lost City" may be the less reliable of all, since it's based on the premise that the beam was a form of DET, which isn't necessarily totally true (there's obviously a large amount of steam produced, but not as much as we should see). Although the figure corresponds to what would be needed if you actually vaporized said ice, the actual amount of ice that's removed per second is important enough to warrant greater plumes of steam than what we saw when the process started. Such little steam could easily be explained as the beam would go deeper, but not when it started hitting the surface. There still were thermal effects nonetheless.
Besides, it's hard to tell how much the ship was providing to the beam itself. The addition of a naqahdah generator would seem to suggest that the ship's systems aren't built to channel more energy than what is required for a transfer, or simply channel that much energy for a use of the rings not planned in the ship's design.
Still, transporting the energized mass of people up to orbital positions would still requires several gigajoules, so I'd rather say that the ring platform was simply not going to work well with the ship's actual power grid. Hence why a reactor had to be directly jury rigged into the rings.

Post Reply