Power of the Enterprise's Warp Core

[Mike DiCenso]

Rather the idea that the E-D warp core is generating 12.75 billion gigawatts per some other unit, such as reactants and efficiency makes much better sense. Anything else is convoluted and unnecessary.
-Mike

The thing being that this millions of gigawatts don't seem to fit well with all estimations I've heard about power generation and beam weapons in Trek.

What do you think of this btw: http://st-v-sw.net/STSWgigaper.html

Estimates? From who exactly? The majority of reliable canon power quotes from across Trek put the average Federation ship power generation in the thousands of terawatts. Ten terawatts at the very least from 22nd century impulse engines to provide an overload of power to the NX-01's phase canons, which normally have maximum output of 500 GJ.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Rather the idea that the E-D warp core is generating 12.75 billion gigawatts per some other unit, such as reactants and efficiency makes much better sense. Anything else is convoluted and unnecessary.
-Mike

The thing being that this millions of gigawatts don't seem to fit well with all estimations I've heard about power generation and beam weapons in Trek.

What do you think of this btw: http://st-v-sw.net/STSWgigaper.html

Estimates? From who exactly?

From the time spent reading SB.com. I've never heard of figures that could say a Trek ship could generate gigatons of energy, even for a brief period.
You can say SB.com already had some bias against Trek, or that Trekkies didn't push it hard enough, or were badly represented... or maybe I missed the relevant threads.

Besides, Robert had numbers which seemed correct and indicated minimal levels in the terawatt range, up to thousands of terawatts. The use of thousands of terawatts as an unit of power measurement largely shows that the terawatt range is the usual range, with petawatt range being when reactors are pushed to their limits.

The majority of reliable canon power quotes from across Trek put the average Federation ship power generation in the thousands of terawatts.

Really? More info please.
Robert found several of them which refer to terawatts (1, 2).

He also raises a good point about the amount of deuterium AND antideuterium you'd have to feed through that reactor per second.

"12.75 billion gigawatts per 140 kilograms of reactants"... is roughly seven seconds - more the time Data and the chick were in the tunnel - 1 ton of matter and 1 ton of antimatter would have been dumped into the core.



The Hathaway case is interesting.

They used that decomissioned 8 decades old ship for some battle simulation, but they had limited dilithium crystals (initially worth one minute only, but found chips of it to extend that period) and no anti-matter.

Wesley Crusher knew he had "some" he used for, if we believe him, some study to close his final degree in plasma physics.

Here's the antimatter, contained inside some transparent device, generating a magnetic field:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=116
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=117
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=118
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=120

That "block" of antimatter is of a generous eyeballed width of 15 cm. It appears to have a faceted spherical shape, and is a bit flattened in fact, thus it can only have, at best, a volume of 1,767.15 cm³, and that's if it really was a near perfect sphere.

As a liquid, deuterium has a density of 162.4 kg/m3.
That's 0.0001624 kg/cm³.

You have 0.28698516 kg of antimatter here.

More than 12.3 megatons of energy - total.

Say the anti-deuterium was ten times denser, you're still going with 2.8698516 kg of antimatter, for a total of 123 megatons here, for weapons, shields and warp drive (warp 1, less than just two seconds).

Bits of the script, from Trekcore:

GEORDI
(grinning)
The hard part's gonna be
calibrating the thermal curve
required to start a controlled
reaction.

RIKER
Assuming you can -- can you
regulate the reaction?

Wesley steps over to --

45 INSERT - DILITHIUM CRYSTAL CLAMPS

Just barely visible -- wedged into the fingers of the
clamps -- are MINUTE CHIPS of the valuable mineral.

WESLEY (O.S.)
There's just enough crystal to
do it.

So apparently, small new chips (shards?) of dilithium can be enough to handle the energies.

WORF
Counter with Talupian stratagem
on instrument sighting.

RIKER
Agreed. Three-quarters impulse,
full on my command. Ensign Nagel,
maximum shields.
(to Worf)
Mister Worf, prepare your little
surprise.

They were also enabled a simulation of maximum shielding, which is based on real parameters. All the battle simulation systems are, in fact. It's everything for real, computers and systems switching off as the ships are hit, but with no real damage. They're emulating real life conditions and effects.

So you have it. That amount of energy was enough to have a 80 years old ship use shields at max, and apparently quite capable of seriously damaging the Enterprise, when her shields may have been at low or totally lowered (1, 2).
Considering that it was a simulation, it's hard to know if raising the shields for real was a necessity, especially since the Enterprise crew had shields raised to maximum when they thought they'd have to deal with a Romulan warbird.

In that instant, we hear the incessant SQUEAL of
electronic "hit" after electronic "hit."

59 EXT. SPACE (OPTICAL) - CONTINUOUS

The Hathaway (spatially "behind" Enterprise) is firing
beam after beam at the bigger ship.

60 INT. ENTERPRISE - MAIN BRIDGE - CONTINUOUS

Picard realizes he's been had! Picard presses a button
and Red Alert is cancelled.

PICARD
Warp three, evasive!
(the "scores" stop)
Disengage weapons, re-engage
modified beam.

KOLRAMI
He is quite good.

PICARD
He is the best!

DATA
Computer reports simulated damage
to several aft decks. Repair time
three-point-six days.

With repeated beam assaults in a short time, the Hathaway was capable of damaging several aft decks, up to the point it will require 3.6 days of repair.

Here's how long the thousands of terajoules have been used:
The whole simulated battle, plus the arrival of the Ferengi ship, plus the ten minutes ultimatum, and the remaining minutes, including the warp jump.
I don't have the episode at thand, but I suppose that's easily fifteen minutes, if not more.
Say 900 seconds.

With 123 megatons of total possible output, that's 32.664 terawatts. With 12.3 megatons, that's 3.2664 terawatts.

Enough for the Hathaway to get maximum shields on and dent the Enterprise, and allow a quick warp jump.
And the Hathaway doesn't seem particularily that small in comparison to a galaxy-class.

Ten terawatts at the very least from 22nd century impulse engines to provide an overload of power to the NX-01's phase canons, which normally have maximum output of 500 GJ.
-Mike

I'm not going to dispute the low terawatt range.

EDIT: added the missing dot in "More than 123 megatons of energy total."

[l33telboi]

Actually, here is the dialog from the as-filmed and aired episode transcript via Chakoteya's Transcripts Site:

Did you check the link i provided? The clip in question there was from the filmed episode and the vast majority clearly heard billion (including me), i'm afraid the transcript got it wrong. And no, those people are not hearing what they want to hear. Do you have any idea what would happen if someone would do something like that? You'd have every single wars-debator come down so hard on the thread that it isn't even funny.

No, it's quite clearly billion.

EDIT: And Oraghan, low terawatt range is not something i consider valid at all. We have two pieces of dialogue, both putting the reactor output at atleast a billion gigawatts. And i'm afraid that's very possible for any anti-matter reactor, just not for long-term use. I might also point out that it's 140kg total (both anti-matter and matter) not 140kg of each. This was corrected in the page itself.

Low terawatt range for even ENT-era ships is highly speculative. Their weapons draw at least a terawatt with continued use and they've even managed to create small-scale sensor equipment with a power output of 500 gigawatts.

[Jedi Master Spock]

The Hathaway had normal impulse power and presumed to have "charged" weapons and shields for the simulation.

The antimatter was there (and used) solely for the warp jump, AFAIK:

RIKER
(with pride)
We have a limited, two-second warp
capability.

Two seconds at warp 1.

[Mr. Oragahn]

EDIT: And Oraghan, low terawatt range is not something i consider valid at all.

I do. It's a recognized figure. I didn't word my thought correctly though. It does not mean that they can't do much more than that. But obviously, all references are mentionned in terawatts.
In science, it's meaningless to do so, especially since talking about petawatts is just as easy to say and perfectly understood by all scientists.
I gives a good idea of the usual outputs, probably when the ships are on cruise or something.

We have two pieces of dialogue, both putting the reactor output at at least a billion gigawatts.

Two? I only notice one. Besides, it's not at least. Nothing really proves it can go much higher. Safe maybe that special beam used against a Borg Cube, but I'd like to see a link to some calc about that event, if you have any. ;)


The other big one is from Revulsion (VOY):

Seven : "The optical assembly is properly aligned. I am ready to access the main power supply."
Kim : "After you."
(The pair climb down, and Seven begins to reach into a conduit)
Kim : "Wait! What are you doing, there are five million gigawatts running through there!"
Seven : "The exoskeleton on this limb can withstand it."


Only million of gigawatts.

All other figures are below the petawatt range.

And i'm afraid that's very possible for any anti-matter reactor, just not for long-term use.

Very short term then. If a Trek ship was to use its ressources that way, they'd get depleted pretty fast.

I might also point out that it's 140kg total (both anti-matter and matter) not 140kg of each. This was corrected in the page itself.

I don't see anywhere anyone saying 140 kg of antimatter only. The only mention you'll find in that thread is about 140 kg of reactants, as suggested by Mike.

Low terawatt range for even ENT-era ships is highly speculative. Their weapons draw at least a terawatt with continued use and they've even managed to create small-scale sensor equipment with a power output of 500 gigawatts.

It's an acceptable cruise consumption figure for a NX-01.
At that time, they barely had a sort of shield system to feed.

The Hathaway had normal impulse power and presumed to have "charged" weapons and shields for the simulation.

The antimatter was there (and used) solely for the warp jump, AFAIK:

RIKER
(with pride)
We have a limited, two-second warp
capability.

Two seconds at warp 1.

If correct, it would give us a power estimation for warp.
One second of warp 1 would require at least something like 1,469.9 terajoules. Maybe ten times that if you put deuterium density at ten times what it is as a liquid.

Now, nothing says if this can be applied to all ships. With machinery refinements, energy consumption for the same warp speed could have been reduced over the decades.

I'll retract my statements about the other elements.

I can't know if the Hathaway was supposed to represent some sort of Borg ship, where Borg level weapons would be simulated - which would have been a good training - or if the Federation thought that it would be better emulating the mismatch by pretending the Hathaway to be a modern Trek ship, and the galaxy-class a Borg vessel, which makes less sense.

Sure, they'd sort of emulate the void between both levels of technologies - which they don't know for sure in fact, since at that point the Borg are a big ? - but it's a pointless exercise.
They painfully know what their ships are capable of, and the galaxy-class emulating a Borg ship is stupid, because when fighting the Borg, the Federation won't send Hathaway type ships at the Borg, and the galaxy-class is still a galaxy-class. Unless, of course, they tried to emulate the Borg weapons with the fake beams on the Enterprise.

The Enterprise, whatever her role, was used in that exercise to fire torpedoes. I don't think it's a traditional Borg move. They seem to favour locking beams and phasers.

Anyway, depending on who emulated what, either the antimatter would be used for the warp drive only, or would at least be used for shields as well - Kolrami only said that weapons would be emulated, not shields.

[l33telboi]

I do. It's a recognized figure. I didn't word my thought correctly though. It does not mean that they can't do much more than that. But obviously, all references are mentionned in terawatts.

What sources are you refering too? The only one i can think of that talks about terawatts is the thing with the comm unit on the planet, and i very much doubt that the Galaxy-class is unable to produce as much power as the NX-01, if that's what you what you were refering to.

The two quotes talking about reactor output both talk about billions of gigawatts, it's not exactly something one can simply brush away.

Two? I only notice one.

Data talks about billions of gigawatts in referense to reactor core output and Harry Kim mentions billions of gigawatts running through one of the main conduits leading from the reactor. Both events were mentioned in the article you linked to, but 2047 got the billion part wrong when it comes to Harry Kim.

Besides, it's not at least. Nothing really proves it can go much higher. Safe maybe that special beam used against a Borg Cube, but I'd like to see a link to some calc about that event, if you have any. ;)

Vivftp actually did a calc, based directly on the statement made by Harry Kim and the billions of gigawatts. And yes, there's nothing saying that the billions of gigawatts is max reactor output, it was simply what the reactor was generating at the moment. However, it can be assumed to be a max since we don't know of any higher figures.

Well, i don't, in any case.

The other big one is from Revulsion (VOY):

Seven : "The optical assembly is properly aligned. I am ready to access the main power supply."
Kim : "After you."
(The pair climb down, and Seven begins to reach into a conduit)
Kim : "Wait! What are you doing, there are five million gigawatts running through there!"
Seven : "The exoskeleton on this limb can withstand it."


Only million of gigawatts.

Transcript is wrong on that part. Check the link i provided earlier. Viv ripped a clip from the episode where this was said and asked if it was billions or millions. It was billions. I was there and i clearly heard billions as well, so i suggest taking a look at the episode, if you don't trust me (or SB) on this point.

Very short term then. If a Trek ship was to use its ressources that way, they'd get depleted pretty fast.

Would depend entierly on the amount of anti-matter on-board. But yes, short-term output, not long-term output.

I don't see anywhere anyone saying 140 kg of antimatter only. The only mention you'll find in that thread is about 140 kg of reactants, as suggested by Mike.

The article you linked too makes the mistake. Thought you didn't notice it at first. My bad.

It's an acceptable cruise consumption figure for a NX-01.
At that time, they barely had a sort of shield system to feed.

I'm not sure what you mean by cruise consumption, standard FTL travel? We don't know anything about the power requirements of FTL travel in ENT-era, so best not to make any assumptions. All we know is that they can pump terawatts to the phase-cannons while maintaining ship-board duties and polarizing the hull-plating etc etc etc.

If you're talking about standard sub-light travel, without hull-plating polarized and whatnot, we could be talking about low gigawatts.

[Mr. Oragahn]

The two quotes talking about reactor output both talk about billions of gigawatts, it's not exactly something one can simply brush away.

Robert has this one:

Geordi comments in "The Masterpiece Society" that the reactor "kicks plasma up into the terawatt range"...

Is that, again, a typo, a misunderstanding of dialogue, or a quote taken out of context?

Besides, it's not at least. Nothing really proves it can go much higher. Safe maybe that special beam used against a Borg Cube, but I'd like to see a link to some calc about that event, if you have any. ;)

Vivftp actually did a calc, based directly on the statement made by Harry Kim and the billions of gigawatts.

I'll have to check that one.

Transcript is wrong on that part. Check the link i provided earlier. Viv ripped a clip from the episode where this was said and asked if it was billions or millions. It was billions. I was there and i clearly heard billions as well, so i suggest taking a look at the episode, if you don't trust me (or SB) on this point.

I don't think it has anything to do with trust. I went to SB.com before, but didn't find any video clip to check. The link didn't work, and the thread was a bit old.
Thus far, it's only hearsay.
It will still be hearsay, but as I have to make a judgement, I am the only one who can listen to the dialogue directly. I must make an opinion on what I hear, not on what other people have heard.

It's an acceptable cruise consumption figure for a NX-01.
At that time, they barely had a sort of shield system to feed.

I'm not sure what you mean by cruise consumption, standard FTL travel?

Yes, globally, with all system online, but not pushed at max. Weapons not armed. Shields raised, but not on full.
A couple of very few hundreds of gees on impulse.

We don't know anything about the power requirements of FTL travel in ENT-era, so best not to make any assumptions.

We can approximatively bracket it. In First Contact, they reached warp threshold with the Phoenix, for a few seconds, with either a fission or fusion reactor.
In Peak Performance, that gop of blue mud could provide warp 1 for less than two seconds.

I assumed that it was anti-deuterium, but it was just Wes' pet project, and there's no proof at all that he would use anti-deuterium for his own little experiment. So what I considered to be acceptable low ends might just be middle ends as well.

Memory Alpha says this about warp 1:

Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual and The Making of Star Trek, the speed of light is equivalent to the speed of warp 1 on the scales used by Starfleet in the 23rd and 24th centuries.

It's not canon, but then I suppose that there should be some solid data about warp scales anyway.

Even with two different scales, the different functions, with 1 being input, shouldn't provide considerably different numbers.

All we know is that they can pump terawatts to the phase-cannons while maintaining ship-board duties and polarizing the hull-plating etc etc etc.

Yes, when beyond The Expanse and that period.

If you're talking about standard sub-light travel, without hull-plating polarized and whatnot, we could be talking about low gigawatts.

Yes.

[Mike DiCenso]

Mr. Oragahn wrote:

From the time spent reading SB.com. I've never heard of figures that could say a Trek ship could generate gigatons of energy, even for a brief period.
You can say SB.com already had some bias against Trek, or that Trekkies didn't push it hard enough, or were badly represented... or maybe I missed the relevant threads.

That's silly. If the ship has, say, a mere 3,000 metric tonnes of anti-deuterium. That's 3 million kilograms. Let us say that it takes 140 kilograms of anti-deuterium (taking into account for significant inefficiencies in the reaction process) to produce with deuterium the 3 gigatons worth of energy a second. This means that 3,000,000 divided by 140 = 21,428 seconds worth of power generation at that level. Divide by 60 seconds, then by 60 again and you get 5.95 hours of continuous power generation at 12.75 million terawatts before total fuel exaustion.

Of course, all this assumes that there is only about 3k metric tons of anti-deuterium on-board the E-D, but it still is enough to allow up to a couple hours worth of power generation at the stated level, and still leaves plenty of fuel margins left once the ship power downs.

If on the other hand, the ship can store much more antimatter reactant, say on the order of 1 million metric tons, then you up the time to 82 days of continuous 12.75 million terawatt power production until fuel exaustion.

Besides, Robert had numbers which seemed correct and indicated minimal levels in the terawatt range, up to thousands of terawatts. The use of thousands of terawatts as an unit of power measurement largely shows that the terawatt range is the usual range, with petawatt range being when reactors are pushed to their limits.

The majority of reliable canon power quotes from across Trek put the average Federation ship power generation in the thousands of terawatts.

Really? More info please.
Robert found several of them which refer to terawatts (1, 2).

For example, in addition to the TNG "True Q" quote, and the VOY "Revulsion" power conduit quote we also have "Riddles" [VOY6] with the following on the power of a Ba'Neth cloak:

KIM: Here we go, Captain. A nine million terawatt cloaking field in grid two one six.
CHAKOTAY: Nine million terawatt. Whatever they're hiding, it's huge.
JANEWAY: Alter course, Mister Paris.
PARIS: Yes, ma'am.

Voyager is able to hold it's own against the Ba'neth ship, and uses a device to overcome the cloak. Another interesting encouter comes from VOY's "Fair Haven", where the ship is riding through a neutronic wavefront, but the wavefront begins increasing in energy gradient until it becomes a serious threat:

KIM: The neutronic gradient's rising. Thirty million terajoules. Forty million.
JANEWAY: Shields?
TUVOK: Holding.
KIM: Sixty million.
TORRES [OC]: Torres to Bridge. The inverse warp field is destabilising. We're losing our anchor.
JANEWAY: Acknowledged. How long before we're clear?
PARIS: At least another five minutes.
KIM: That's about four minutes too long. The gradient's rising fast. Ninety million.

Then there is this rather interestingly routine power statement from Lt. Torres from "Good Shepherd" [VOY6]:

TORRES: What's our Borg Queen want now? We need to route at least another five terawatts to the sensor array.

Another 5 terawatts (implying at least 10 total terawatts so far), and done so very routinely for a ship that, according to you, would be limited to around 140 or so terawatts.

He also raises a good point about the amount of deuterium AND antideuterium you'd have to feed through that reactor per second.

"12.75 billion gigawatts per 140 kilograms of reactants"... is roughly seven seconds - more the time Data and the chick were in the tunnel - 1 ton of matter and 1 ton of antimatter would have been dumped into the core.

But as I've shown previously, this is hardly that serious an issue.

The Hathaway case is interesting.

They used that decomissioned 8 decades old ship for some battle simulation, but they had limited dilithium crystals (initially worth one minute only, but found chips of it to extend that period) and no anti-matter.

Wesley Crusher knew he had "some" he used for, if we believe him, some study to close his final degree in plasma physics.

Here's the antimatter, contained inside some transparent device, generating a magnetic field:

http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=116
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=117
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=118
http://tng.trekcore.com/gallery/display ... 46&pos=120

That "block" of antimatter is of a generous eyeballed width of 15 cm. It appears to have a faceted spherical shape, and is a bit flattened in fact, thus it can only have, at best, a volume of 1,767.15 cm³, and that's if it really was a near perfect sphere.

As a liquid, deuterium has a density of 162.4 kg/m3.
That's 0.0001624 kg/cm³.

You have 0.28698516 kg of antimatter here.

More than 123 megatons of energy - total.

Say the anti-deuterium was ten times denser, you're still going with 2.8698516 kg of antimatter, for a total of 123 megatons here, for weapons, shields and warp drive (warp 1, less than just two seconds).

<<rest snipped>>

So you have it. That amount of energy was enough to have a 80 years old ship use shields at max, and apparently quite capable of seriously damaging the Enterprise, when her shields may have been at low or totally lowered

As JMS pointed out. The antimatter was only good for a 2-second warp speed (Warp 1?) jump so the Hathaway example actually would point towards higher warp core power generation, not lower.

Ten terawatts at the very least from 22nd century impulse engines to provide an overload of power to the NX-01's phase canons, which normally have maximum output of 500 GJ.
-Mike

I'm not going to dispute the low terawatt range.

Please bear in mind that this was from the impulse engines of a relatively primitive 22nd century starship. The NX-01's impulse engines were obviously also producing an excess above the 10 terawatt range, and this does not account for any other possible power from the warp reactor itself.
-Mike

[Mike DiCenso]

l33telboi wrote:

All we know is that they can pump terawatts to the phase-cannons while maintaining ship-board duties and polarizing the hull-plating etc etc etc.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:

Yes, when beyond The Expanse and that period.

Actually, no. What he is refering to occurs fairly early on in the NX-01's voyages; season one's "Silent Enemy".
-Mike

[Roondar]

I think the real problem here will always be one of fuel consumption.

Suppose that like suggested in this thread 123 megatons is enough for two seconds warp 1 (which is about 2KG of reactants). If we take the very liberal assumption that power requirements per warp factor scale linearly (which is most likely false - it probably scales worse than that) then a two second jump at warp 9 would take 18KG of reactants (1107 megatons worth of 'boom').

One second warp 9 = 9KG of reactants in this model. The Enterprise-D regularly flies about for hours on end at these speeds. One hour = 32400KG of antimatter, four hours = 129600, etc.

If the warp power requirements scale more like the TM suggests (i.e. just about exponential) the warp 9 reactant requirements would be insane: 512 KG of reactants per second (31488 megatons of 'boom'). An hour flying would take 1843200 KG of reactants. Four hours 7372800 KG's. 7.3 million KG's of antimatter.

Suppose they can keep this up for a significant period of time, say a day or two (the episode in which they met the Borg for the first time suggested they could keep up Warp 9+ for at least that long IIRC) then we're allready at a cool 44 million KG's of antimatter.

Just where are they storing it? The Enterprise-D seems to have tons of space allocated (in fact, as far as we see the vast majority of the ship is not fuel-space) for non-fuel purposes.

Even in the 1KG per warp-factor per second model would cause troubles (A warp 6 trip for a week, which is not an unusual length in TNG times -nor something which would require a refuel after-, would take a cool 3.6 million KG's of antimatter in this model. In the exponential model it would take the downright silly amount of 38 billion KG's).

Heck, shuttles can fly at warp six for days on end. Now I suppose that fuel usage is less for a shuttle than for a cap-ship, but there is no way that a shuttle can store even a fraction of what they'd need in antimatter.

And even if the original guess of only a tenth of the anti-matter density is correct we've still not solved anything, we're still talking about insane amounts of anti-matter for a trip of any length.

(I note four hours here because I remember something about the Enterprise-D flying at least that at long at or above warp 9)

[Mr. Oragahn]

I think the real problem here will always be one of fuel consumption.

Suppose that like suggested in this thread 123 megatons is enough for two seconds warp 1 (which is about 2KG of reactants). If we take the very liberal assumption that power requirements per warp factor scale linearly (which is most likely false - it probably scales worse than that) then a two second jump at warp 9 would take 18KG of reactants (1107 megatons worth of 'boom').

One second warp 9 = 9KG of reactants in this model. The Enterprise-D regularly flies about for hours on end at these speeds. One hour = 32400KG of antimatter, four hours = 129600, etc.

If the warp power requirements scale more like the TM suggests (i.e. just about exponential) the warp 9 reactant requirements would be insane: 512 KG of reactants per second (31488 megatons of 'boom'). An hour flying would take 1843200 KG of reactants. Four hours 7372800 KG's. 7.3 million KG's of antimatter.

Suppose they can keep this up for a significant period of time, say a day or two (the episode in which they met the Borg for the first time suggested they could keep up Warp 9+ for at least that long IIRC) then we're allready at a cool 44 million KG's of antimatter.

Just where are they storing it? The Enterprise-D seems to have tons of space allocated (in fact, as far as we see the vast majority of the ship is not fuel-space) for non-fuel purposes.

Even in the 1KG per warp-factor per second model would cause troubles (A warp 6 trip for a week, which is not an unusual length in TNG times -nor something which would require a refuel after-, would take a cool 3.6 million KG's of antimatter in this model. In the exponential model it would take the downright silly amount of 38 billion KG's).

Heck, shuttles can fly at warp six for days on end. Now I suppose that fuel usage is less for a shuttle than for a cap-ship, but there is no way that a shuttle can store even a fraction of what they'd need in antimatter.

And even if the original guess of only a tenth of the anti-matter density is correct we've still not solved anything, we're still talking about insane amounts of anti-matter for a trip of any length.

(I note four hours here because I remember something about the Enterprise-D flying at least that at long at or above warp 9)

And there was that episode with the half klingon, half human female emissary, stuck inside a probe flying at warp.

She's been in that thing for quite some time, and it was not at warp 1 you know.

In fact, everything suggests that this probe was moving at warp 9.

Script.

[Mr. Oragahn]

When taking each example on its own, here are the comments I can make:

For example, in addition to the TNG "True Q" quote, and the VOY "Revulsion" power conduit quote we also have "Riddles" [VOY6] with the following on the power of a Ba'Neth cloak:

KIM: Here we go, Captain. A nine million terawatt cloaking field in grid two one six.
CHAKOTAY: Nine million terawatt. Whatever they're hiding, it's huge.
JANEWAY: Alter course, Mister Paris.
PARIS: Yes, ma'am.

Voyager is able to hold it's own against the Ba'neth ship, and uses a device to overcome the cloak.

We don't know how much energy the Ba'neth ship can channel into its weapons. Did it have torpedoes? Of what yield?
We don't know what's necessary to overcome the cloak.
So nothing says that the Voyager would have to match that power.

Another interesting encouter comes from VOY's "Fair Haven", where the ship is riding through a neutronic wavefront, but the wavefront begins increasing in energy gradient until it becomes a serious threat:

KIM: The neutronic gradient's rising. Thirty million terajoules. Forty million.
JANEWAY: Shields?
TUVOK: Holding.
KIM: Sixty million.
TORRES [OC]: Torres to Bridge. The inverse warp field is destabilising. We're losing our anchor.
JANEWAY: Acknowledged. How long before we're clear?
PARIS: At least another five minutes.
KIM: That's about four minutes too long. The gradient's rising fast. Ninety million.

Does it prove that's precisely what the warp field or shields had to cope with?

Then there is this rather interestingly routine power statement from Lt. Torres from "Good Shepherd" [VOY6]:

TORRES: What's our Borg Queen want now? We need to route at least another five terawatts to the sensor array.

Another 5 terawatts (implying at least 10 total terawatts so far), and done so very routinely for a ship that, according to you, would be limited to around 140 or so terawatts.

I didn't claim it would be limited to 140 terawatts. I even acknowledged the much higher peaks.

As JMS pointed out. The antimatter was only good for a 2-second warp speed (Warp 1?) jump so the Hathaway example actually would point towards higher warp core power generation, not lower.

With all the problems that it poses regarding fuel storage.

That's why I said that the density of antimatter Wes was using for his project might have been extremely low. Enough for his test that he was running.

Besides, it's quite possible that the bigger a warp field needs to be, the more power it draws, which would explain how shuttles or even probes are capable of high warp speeds, for long periods, with little room to store antimatter.

[Roondar]

<offtopic>

One thing is for sure, the Federation sure is positive their anti-matter contaiment systems are just about fool proof. Just think about it, Wesely was using a considerable amount of anti-matter for his scienceproject (that is, if you consider what it'd do to him and the people around him if the containment failed).

Which is akin to buying the stuff in a home chemisty set.

</offtopic>

[Mike DiCenso]

Mike DiCenso wrote:

For example, in addition to the TNG "True Q" quote, and the VOY "Revulsion" power conduit quote we also have "Riddles" [VOY6] with the following on the power of a Ba'Neth cloak:

KIM: Here we go, Captain. A nine million terawatt cloaking field in grid two one six.
CHAKOTAY: Nine million terawatt. Whatever they're hiding, it's huge.
JANEWAY: Alter course, Mister Paris.
PARIS: Yes, ma'am.

Voyager is able to hold it's own against the Ba'neth ship, and uses a device to overcome the cloak.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:

We don't know how much energy the Ba'neth ship can channel into its weapons. Did it have torpedoes? Of what yield?
We don't know what's necessary to overcome the cloak.
So nothing says that the Voyager would have to match that power.

Huh? So what if the Ba'Neth ship had photon torpedoes? That would not be any different than Voyager having them since the torpedoes effectively carry an independent loadout of antimatter on them as part of the warhead. That would only tell us about the yeild of the torps themselves, most in particular if they are used against something we can readily quantify the effects on such as asteroids or a planet's surface.

What it does tell us is that the Ba'Neth ship was generating a cloaking field at nearly the same level of power as the E-D's core in "True Q", which also happens to fit in well with the VOY "Revulsion" quote for the amount of power flowing through a single conduit. Voyager's deflector dish was modified so that it could be used to illuminate the Ba'neth cloak, which suggests that Voyager can generate power on a comparable level. Janeway showed little hesitation in engaging the Ba'neth ships, also suggesting that Voyager is at least able to survive the Ba'neath weapons, and indeed does so through at least one volley. Bear in mind again, that Voyager is a medium sized vessel by the 24th century Federation's standards. So a medium sized Starfleet vessel can at least disrupt/illuminate a 9 million terawatt cloak, and hold it's own against the ship/outpost that generated it.

Another interesting encouter comes from VOY's "Fair Haven", where the ship is riding through a neutronic wavefront, but the wavefront begins increasing in energy gradient until it becomes a serious threat:

KIM: The neutronic gradient's rising. Thirty million terajoules. Forty million.
JANEWAY: Shields?
TUVOK: Holding.
KIM: Sixty million.
TORRES [OC]: Torres to Bridge. The inverse warp field is destabilising. We're losing our anchor.
JANEWAY: Acknowledged. How long before we're clear?
PARIS: At least another five minutes.
KIM: That's about four minutes too long. The gradient's rising fast. Ninety million.

Does it prove that's precisely what the warp field or shields had to cope with?

Even if it were coping with a fraction of the 90 million terajoules (approximately 21 gigatons) of energy, say only 1/1000th, that is still 90,000 terajoules. Also note in the dialog that the field's energy gradient was still on the rise, but they stopped bothering to call that out as survival and escape became their primary concern. Ninety million terajoules was is simply the lower limit here. All this from a ship whose main power was disrupted by the storm's other effects.

And it's really gets interesting if you really do go with the assumption that the field was very dense, and Voyager's shields really did have to deal with that much energy over some four minutes (excluding the 30 seconds or so during Kim's calling out the rising energy levels and the other crew members' discussion).

Then there is this rather interestingly routine power statement from Lt. Torres from "Good Shepherd" [VOY6]:

TORRES: What's our Borg Queen want now? We need to route at least another five terawatts to the sensor array.

Another 5 terawatts (implying at least 10 total terawatts so far), and done so very routinely for a ship that, according to you, would be limited to around 140 or so terawatts.

I didn't claim it would be limited to 140 terawatts. I even acknowledged the much higher peaks.

I wouldn't call anything that you can routinely run for what essentially amounts to an indefinite time as a peak. A peak power generation would imply that they reached an upper threshold of some sort and could not go any higher. At any rate, we know that 140 terawatts (average estimate for the E-D) is a bit too low, if a middle-sized ship like Voyager can so routinely pump at least 10 TW to the sensors like that.

As JMS pointed out. The antimatter was only good for a 2-second warp speed (Warp 1?) jump so the Hathaway example actually would point towards higher warp core power generation, not lower.

With all the problems that it poses regarding fuel storage.

That's why I said that the density of antimatter Wes was using for his project might have been extremely low. Enough for his test that he was running.

Besides, it's quite possible that the bigger a warp field needs to be, the more power it draws, which would explain how shuttles or even probes are capable of high warp speeds, for long periods, with little room to store antimatter.

We don't know anything about the antimatter sample that Wesley was using for his experiment. If it takes 100 megatons or so (assuming Wes was using anti-deuterium) just to do a couple seconds of low warp speed, then the lower limits on Federation starship power estimates only go up, not down. Your original assumptions were faulty in that the antimatter was to be used by the Hathaway as power for the whole entire wargames, when it was not, and therefore the power estimate you derived is far too low.
-Mike

[Mr. Oragahn]

Please bear in mind that this was from the impulse engines of a relatively primitive 22nd century starship. The NX-01's impulse engines were obviously also producing an excess above the 10 terawatt range, and this does not account for any other possible power from the warp reactor itself.
-Mike

Huh, they didn't get their terawatts from am/m?

What about the weapons? I've recently read (here) that the terawatt yeild, instead of 500 GJ, was the result of some alien device being present their in the shuttle bay, and that the weapons burned, and everytime they tried to reproduce the yield, it destroy their weapons and maybe more stuff.

Why should we consider that they can handle superior power output, if their technology can't even let them harness terawatts of energy in cannons?