Starfleet Jedi

It seems that both ST and SW are heavilly reliant on safe (and probably efficient) fusion power.

I've always wondered (if we disregard the ST/SW 'magic cooling' and 'near-zero-overhead-size for containers' stuff) just how much power you'd get out of a fusion reactor of a given size.

Ranging from the tiny (a couple of cubic centimeters for handheld devices) to the small (the one used to power a personal replicator station in STTNG -in the episode with the Husnock- was less than a cubic meter in total if we allow for any fuel to be stored) to the large (the ones used to power stuff like shipboard weapons or shield, which are probably quite big, say 1000m3+).

Anyone have any ideas?

I suppose, assuming perfect fusion reaction, that by looking at how much the reactor or fuel tank could contain, you could get an idea of the whole energy you can get our of a full tank, or through a reactor of a given volume.

We had overloading fusion reactors making explosions in the megaton range as well, so there's probably some basic stuff to look at.

A question of importance would be about the density of the fuel.
Perhaps ultra-dense deuterium?

I suppose that a lot of it would have to do with what the fusion reactor is expected to put in terms of power. A Mr. Fusion that provides power for your average household on Vulcan or Tatooine does not need necessarily be more than a few tens of kilowatts in total output. Runs your lights, your holographic entertainment, your droid maintance station and so on. In some of the EU literature, the infamous Tosche station was supposed to a power producer and distribution center for several local cities.

Oh the other hand, a defensive military outpost or modest scientific facility may need several of those, or one that can output well into the gigawatt range. For example, in TNG's "Who Watches the Watchers", it's remarked that a 4.2 gigawatt reactor is more than enough for a science outpost, except if it needs to run a large-scale holographic "duck blind". A defense outpost, may need one to power a small phaser bank, which is one of the other stated uses for a reactor of that size. In "ST:Generations", Solian Toran had few problems running a 50 gigawatt forcefield on a continous basis.

In TESB, Luke uses a portable "fusion furnace" to warm himself and possibly, as seen in the movies, to provide power to Artoo and some of the other activities he had underway.

With starships, it's a whole different matter. We have seen that fusion secondary power sources is enough to provide a large starship with shielding to fend off the increasing radiation of an unstable G-type star at close range for 3 hours as seen in TNG's "Relics". Of course it's already been brought up, but a single Constitution class starship's impulse is enough when when overloaded to produce a 98.835 megaton explosion. Since a starship has more than one impulse engine, it can be expected that 197 megatons is the minimum possible explosive yield. It is difficult to say what sort of power generation is possible with SW ships' fusion reactors as we have little to gauge their output on, assuming that the ships have a primary source.

In both universes, we have seen some impressive battery technology, the power storage on a phaser rifle is in at least the 50 megjoule range, and the battery sources that power lightsabers is said to be fairly impressive. Even science hardware, like the tricorders carried by Federation Starfleet personel, when overloaded back produce a mulit-megajoule range explosion as observed by Spock's tricorder explosion in "Arena".
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn wrote: A question of importance would be about the density of the fuel.
Perhaps ultra-dense deuterium?

That's an interesting find, Mr Oragahn. Assuming such a fuel can be produced cheaply, it would be an ideal fuel source for fusion power plants. I've often postulated that the fuel sources aboard Federation starships are not simple deuterium, but something highly-densified. Such a thing would be great for a stationary reactor, but would be terrible as human-portable device, if the densities the article are stating are correct. A starship would benefit the most and it would explain away the enourmous mass numbers given for the Constitution and Intrepid class. The added benefit is that such a fuel source can be used as reactant for the warp core, and an antimatter version also made and stored.
-Mike

Mr. Oragahn wrote:I suppose, assuming perfect fusion reaction, that by looking at how much the reactor or fuel tank could contain, you could get an idea of the whole energy you can get our of a full tank, or through a reactor of a given volume.

We had overloading fusion reactors making explosions in the megaton range as well, so there's probably some basic stuff to look at.

A question of importance would be about the density of the fuel.
Perhaps ultra-dense deuterium?

Yes. Completely throws off all the volume-based estimates of fusion fuel storage I came up with several years ago. I was assuming that metallic deuterium could go to around 2-3 g/cc if we hypothesized the stability issues went away. Just goes to show... real science sometimes turns in unexpected directions.

If we could only obtain more information about the size and type of machinery that allowed to compress the material to such a density. We could also cross fingers and hope to learn more about containment.

Regardless of the energy necessary to compress it, you don't want to spend more energy to contain this stuff. You're looking for hard materials to naturally maintain pressure on this material, perhaps helped by magnetic forces that would be produced through the shell of the container.

I wonder how fast that material expands. It's compressed to more than e6 its natural density, and already is heavy water. The momentum of that stuff!
I guess you wouldn't even need to ignite it per se to level an average city, but just release the containment all of sudden.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Regardless of the energy necessary to compress it, you don't want to spend more energy to contain this stuff.

Well, seeing how easy it is to create forcefields for any culture in ST (even from the minuscule battery packs of a combadge), I don't think that would be an issue...

Praeothmin wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Regardless of the energy necessary to compress it, you don't want to spend more energy to contain this stuff.

Well, seeing how easy it is to create forcefields for any culture in ST (even from the minuscule battery packs of a combadge), I don't think that would be an issue...

Do these forcefields actually happen to contain megadense fusion materials?
Do they happen to have to contain something that would require as much energy to maintain the shell or field than was required to compress the material?

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Do these forcefields actually happen to contain megadense fusion materials?
Do they happen to have to contain something that would require as much energy to maintain the shell or field than was required to compress the material?

I really don't see why not...
We've seen ST use things like the replicators and transporters, which by our understanding of science and of E = MC(square) would require a lot of energy, and yet are done using sometimes small power plants to run for months, if not years, the size of which we couldn't produce to day for the same power output...
So I have little trouble believing that forcefields on ST use so little power to operate, or they would not be used as much as they are now.
Even when a ship is on emergency power, automatic forcefields will turn on to seal hull breaches... Emergency power...
If forcefields were so power intensive as you seem to think, they would be the first thing to go under emergency power.
Stop using forcefields and start using more hatches or bulkheads...

As a neat example of something that would be utterly useless if it wasn't magically more efficient than it should be, we could name the forcefields occasionally used to protect the ship in case of a core breach.

(This happened both in ST:Nemesis and in ST:Voyager)

Those would be 100% useless if not magically more effective than the ammount of energy you put in. In fact, if they are operating within normal physics they are nothing more than a drain on resources - you could not possibly create a field that stops more energy than you put in, meaning that to shield yourself from a corebreach you'd have to put in more energy than is generated by the breach. Continously.

Talk about wastefull ;)

Roondar wrote:As a neat example of something that would be utterly useless if it wasn't magically more efficient than it should be, we could name the forcefields occasionally used to protect the ship in case of a core breach.

(This happened both in ST:Nemesis and in ST:Voyager)

Those would be 100% useless if not magically more effective than the ammount of energy you put in. In fact, if they are operating within normal physics they are nothing more than a drain on resources - you could not possibly create a field that stops more energy than you put in, meaning that to shield yourself from a corebreach you'd have to put in more energy than is generated by the breach. Continously.

Talk about wastefull ;)

Shields have a charge I suppose, so it takes time to drain them, perhaps enough time to kill the reaction in the core, or eject the core.

Plus, what in the two cases you mention, did the shields contain or protect? Were they raised in the core, or around it? Or over micro breaches? Or in the corridors or something.

@ Praethomin

If the shield covers a hull breach, you wouldn't need much energy, as the area would be small and the chances of being hit by a megaton wave rather small.
In any case, if such hit were to happen, we've seen that a damaged ships can't do much about.

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If the shield covers a hull breach, you wouldn't need much energy, as the area would be small and the chances of being hit by a megaton wave rather small.

I agree.
What I was pointing at is that Trek uses shields for everything, and even when they're down to emergency power, we've still seen forcefields being used, which, if they were such a drain on ressources, would be dropped real quick in favor of security doors or walls dropping into place...

Mr. Oragahn wrote:

Roondar wrote:As a neat example of something that would be utterly useless if it wasn't magically more efficient than it should be, we could name the forcefields occasionally used to protect the ship in case of a core breach.

(This happened both in ST:Nemesis and in ST:Voyager)

Those would be 100% useless if not magically more effective than the ammount of energy you put in. In fact, if they are operating within normal physics they are nothing more than a drain on resources - you could not possibly create a field that stops more energy than you put in, meaning that to shield yourself from a corebreach you'd have to put in more energy than is generated by the breach. Continously.

Talk about wastefull ;)

Shields have a charge I suppose, so it takes time to drain them, perhaps enough time to kill the reaction in the core, or eject the core.

Plus, what in the two cases you mention, did the shields contain or protect? Were they raised in the core, or around it? Or over micro breaches? Or in the corridors or something.

In both cases the forcefields where deployed around the core.

Anyway, I don't really agree. If they have to pump equal energy into the system as they have to shield from you are really wasting energy. I just don't see any residual shield charge being enough to block out a core breach.

And I really see no way a system which is basically shielding itself can possibly be energy positive. Surely if you have to contain a full breach you need to put in at least as much energy as is flowing through the core to be able to do so?

In my eyes that either means a second, equal-or-greater power source (which is nonsense) or your shields don't take as much damage from explosions as they should in the real world (which is also nonsense, but at least it fits with the standard trek style "here's a gadget that does stuff you wouldn't even be able to achieve if you anihilated the whole thing and used that energy to try and do the same thing")

Praeothmin wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:If the shield covers a hull breach, you wouldn't need much energy, as the area would be small and the chances of being hit by a megaton wave rather small.

I agree.
What I was pointing at is that Trek uses shields for everything, and even when they're down to emergency power, we've still seen forcefields being used, which, if they were such a drain on ressources, would be dropped real quick in favor of security doors or walls dropping into place...

They're surely reliable and efficient, since they even used them for the detention cells, with all the problems that ensue when power is cut (which, I'm sorry, but shows that I'd always go with an old fashioned door).
I guess they wouldn't be a drain on resources if not put under stress. I suppose they can emulate some kind of physical shell, holding particles in place with the same efficiency and precision as what is needed to create a complete and interactive holographic environment.

The point being that most seals won't have to deal with more than mere atmosphere pressure and perhaps internal fires. That's really peanuts considering the size of corridors and else.
But it's a whole different story when trying to maintain pressure on a lump of deuterium compressed to a million times its natural density at sea level, on Earth.

Roondar wrote:

Mr. Oragahn wrote:

Roondar wrote:As a neat example of something that would be utterly useless if it wasn't magically more efficient than it should be, we could name the forcefields occasionally used to protect the ship in case of a core breach.

(This happened both in ST:Nemesis and in ST:Voyager)

Those would be 100% useless if not magically more effective than the ammount of energy you put in. In fact, if they are operating within normal physics they are nothing more than a drain on resources - you could not possibly create a field that stops more energy than you put in, meaning that to shield yourself from a corebreach you'd have to put in more energy than is generated by the breach. Continously.

Talk about wastefull ;)

Shields have a charge I suppose, so it takes time to drain them, perhaps enough time to kill the reaction in the core, or eject the core.

Plus, what in the two cases you mention, did the shields contain or protect? Were they raised in the core, or around it? Or over micro breaches? Or in the corridors or something.

In both cases the forcefields where deployed around the core.

Anyway, I don't really agree. If they have to pump equal energy into the system as they have to shield from you are really wasting energy. I just don't see any residual shield charge being enough to block out a core breach.

It all depends on the size of the breach and the energies currently produced.

Since it takes time to recharge shields, we know that in theory, shield capacitors can contain the equivalent of, at the very least, a couple minutes worth of power production.
More than enough to deal with the surge, thanks to emergency systems and failsafes, or eject it if there's some kind feedloop that keeps increasing the reaction with no possibility to temper it.

And I really see no way a system which is basically shielding itself can possibly be energy positive. Surely if you have to contain a full breach you need to put in at least as much energy as is flowing through the core to be able to do so?

Which could actually help to bring back the reaction levels to normal, since you're actually finding a use for the energy you're producing. However, it probably means that the rest of the ship is suddenly on an energy diet, until the problem is corrected.

Having emergency forcefield precharged gives the failsafe system the necessary head start so it can actually have the upper hand on the breach, instead of trying to catch up with it and ultimately loose.
But as an emergency system, it is not supposed to be maintained on and on.

You do realize that, given some calcs done here, that this means you've just scaled ST forcefields (not shields mind you, the two are seperate things - one can be up while the other is down, etc) up into the gigaton range, right?