Power Plants

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NoXion
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Power Plants

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Power Plants

Power to the people

Energy has come a long way over the millennia. In ancient times, we dug up the remains of creatures eons past and burnt their hydrocarbon corpses for fuel. This is a far cry from today when we can tap into the energy that drives the expansion of the universe itself. There are many other ways of getting energy of course, and below are listed the most notable.


Solar Farm

A solar farm is a vast collection of programmable matter panels that absorb photons from the local star and turn them into electrons. These are then beamed to recieving stations that supply energy to local civilisation, or the energy is used to power a large, energy-hungry machine such as a propulsion laser or particle accelerator.


Thermodifferential

These plants generate power by exploiting temperature differentials, and most often take the form of a geothermal well dug deep into a planet, where temperatures and pressures are higher.


Pulsar Dynamo

A shell constructed around a pulsar that derives energy from it's spinning magnetic field. Like the solar farm, the energy can then be beamed to where it's need or used on-site to power something.


Stellar Needle

A cylinder stretching from the core of a star to a recieving station in synchronised orbit with the star's core. The Stellar Needle takes advantage of the higher energy density of a star's core in comparison with the energy given out and collected on solar farms.


Substellar Shell

A shell built around the core of a star in order to capture all the energy from it. Due to being able to extract vastly more energy than a Stellar Needle, the Substellar Shell can reduce the star's lifetime, but it can be throttled if necessary.


PicoPlasma Fission

A nuclear fission reactor where the reactor fuel is kept in a plasma state to extract the maximum energy without the risk of "meltdown" experienced by more primitive fission reactors. The fissionable plasma fuel is also saturated with picotechnology that aids the fission process and increases it's efficiency.


Protonium Fusion

A fusion reactor that uses energy dense protonium fuel which is kept at a sub-critical density before being fed into a reaction chamber lined with electronium, which compresses the protonium fuel to commence fusion. Such reactors are sometimes known as "mini star" reactors due to their similar fuel chain.


Matter / Antimatter Annihilation

Antimatter produced by solar-farm fed factories is annihilated with matter in a reaction chamber. The simplest designs react iron and antiiron, while more advanced use a dense fuel of protons and antiprotons.


Matter-Energy Conversion

The energy potential of matter is released by this plant, resulting in M/AM levels of energy generation without the risks of storing antimatter. As with M/AM reactors, the denser the fuel the greater the energy available.


SingStar Reactor

The Singularity Star Reactor consists of a black hole of small mass surrounded by a swarm of miniature Inertia Drives. The black hole is kept at a point just below evaporation and therefore producing large amounts of Hawking Radiation.
When the SingStar is in "hold" mode, the inertial drives redirect the flow of radiation back into the hole, thus maintaining it's mass. Obviously in this state energy cannot be extracted but the hole can be kept stable more or less indefinately.
When the SingStar is in "active" mode, the inertial field is tuned to seperate particle and antiparticles and channel them to reciever/storage units. To prevent the black hole from evaporating in this mode it is fed a constant stream of particles. The overall result is that the SingStar turns quantities of matter into roughly equal quantities of matter and antimatter.
SingStars are very easy to maintain despite the highly advanced technology required to build them in the first place. As long as a constant stream of matter into the black hole is maintained, a SingStar will give millennia of continual operation.
If the stream of matter is cut off, however, there will be disasterous consequences. The amounts of Hawking Radiation will rise steeply as the black hole nears evaporation point, and when it does evaporate (in a burst of gamma rays) you'll probably want to be on the next continent.


Quagma Reactor

This reactor uses a dense soup of quarks (quagma) as fuel. A stream of quagma is fed into a reaction chamber where it undergoes decompression, releasing large amount of energy in the process. The products of this reaction are often fusionable elements and protons, which are often seperated and directed to a fusion reactor.


GUT Reactor

Matter is compressed until it reaches a condition similar to that of the early universe, where the GUTforce seperated from the superforce before itself seperating into the forces we recognise today. The massive energy potential (outweighing antimatter and quagma combined) of the GUTforce is then harnessed.


Hyperspace Grid

A Hyperspace Grid is a superconducting three-dimensional lattice located in Hyperspace, which gathers the ambient energies of hyperspace for use in Hyperspace or normal space. A specialised Hypergate usually connects a Hyperspace Grid with powered units in normal space.


Powercaster

A Powercaster generates power by creating ripples in the Aether. Because the Aether is dimensionless, but at the same time permeating the entire universe, the ripples are non-localised and thus it is possible for ships, vehicles, machinery etc to "tune in" to a specified Powercaster and recieve energy from it, no matter the distance. Combined with Aetheric Signallers, it is considered a universe-wide version of an Electrosphere.


Dark Energy Plant

The ultimate in energy generation, this utilises the force that is driving the accelerating expansion of the universe itself. With Dark Energy comprising 73% of the total content of the universe, it is no surprise that this is the most powerful form of energy generation known to humanity.
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