Asimov power generation: The Stars, Like Dust.

[Murazor]

Found this interesting note in Asimov's novel: The Stars, Like Dust.

"Well, on the liners they have the gravitation in all parts of the ship directed toward the outer hull, so that the long axis of the ship is always 'up,' no matter where you are. That's why the motors of one of those big babies are always lined up in a cylinder running right along the long axis. No gravity there."

"It must take an awful lot of power to keep an artificial gravity going."

"Enough to power a small town."

"There isn't any danger of our running short of fuel, is there?"

"Don't worry about that. Ships are fueled by the total conversion of mass to energy. Fuel is the last thing we'll run out of. The outer hull will wear away first."

Emphasis mine.

[Patrick Degan]

Total conversion drive. Yes, nice and vague. Sounds plausibly scientific without tying you to actually meaning anything, which Asimov was rather good at.

[Junghalli]

Enough to power a small town is really very little. ISD's supposedly generate power in the EW range at least (granted that's pretty wanky). Even relatively hard science settings which restrict themselves to fusion have power generation in the TW range (comparable to that of an entire industrialized nation today). A small town consumes power in the KW range, they consider that a HIGH output ? What the hell are they doing cruising around the galaxy with power generation that pathetic when they supposedly can turn matter straight to energy ?

[Shinova]

Enough to power a small town is really very little. ISD's supposedly generate power in the EW range at least (granted that's pretty wanky). Even relatively hard science settings which restrict themselves to fusion have power generation in the TW range (comparable to that of an entire industrialized nation today). A small town consumes power in the KW range, they consider that a HIGH output ? What the hell are they doing cruising around the galaxy with power generation that pathetic when they supposedly can turn matter straight to energy ?

Hmmm, it could be a small town by THEIR standards.

[Junghalli]

That's a nice thought but based on what I've read of the Foundation universe the average planet doesn't seem to have a much bigger population than Earth. The majority if anything seem to have smaller populations. In Pebble in the Sky a planet only needs half a billion people to be officially considered a developed world (provincial status) and Earth itself only has twenty million people (although it was an exceptional shithole by this time period, due to having been nuked with some funky radiation weapon before the founding of the Galactic Empire). In Second Foundation Rissom has a population of 100,000 on the whole planet. All told the Galactic Empire seems to have a lot of shithole planets with rather small populations.
Also in one of the Foundation books it was stated that no other world had a tenth the population of Trantor, and Trantor had forty billion people.

[Batman]

What pray tell has population density to do with the power consumption of a Federationverse small town?
And btw small towns being KW level is bogus. A single household already is.

[Junghalli]

What pray tell has population density to do with the power consumption of a Federationverse small town?
And btw small towns being KW level is bogus. A single household already is.

OK, so a small town consumes... something in the MW range maybe? Saying a starship generates as much power as a small town still just isn't very impressive, unless your idea of a small town is a huge megaplex, which I just refuted.
Also, if you're proposing that a municipality with 30,000 people or less (about meets the definition of small town, I think) is going to be consuming fuckloads of power I think you'd better tell us just exactly what they're using all that energy for. The quote didn't sound as if the guy was talking about some major industrial center, and I don't see how you're going to need than kind of energy to keep people's heaters and appliances running.

[RedImperator]

Enough to power a small town is really very little. ISD's supposedly generate power in the EW range at least (granted that's pretty wanky). Even relatively hard science settings which restrict themselves to fusion have power generation in the TW range (comparable to that of an entire industrialized nation today). A small town consumes power in the KW range, they consider that a HIGH output ? What the hell are they doing cruising around the galaxy with power generation that pathetic when they supposedly can turn matter straight to energy ?

Please quantify the energy consumed by a small town in the Foundation universe. Then explain what an ISD has to do with anything, besides you spamming up a thread.

[Junghalli]

Please quantify the energy consumed by a small town in the Foundation universe. Then explain what an ISD has to do with anything, besides you spamming up a thread.

Using Destructionator's estimate a modern town uses 2.5 MW at least. We'll say 50 MW, be generous. Assuming that a typical town in the Foundation universe uses twenty times as much power as typical town on present-day Earth that would come out to a GW.
According to the quote the Foundation universe has access to direct matter/energy conversion technology. Fusion power can produce 260 TW per kilogram of reactant, and converts matter to energy at an efficiency of less than 10%. So if you had some kind of direct matter/energy conversion tech you could get over 2.6 PW by burning a kilogram of matter. My point was that it would be ridiculous for a GW to be considered a lot of power in a universe that access to such technology.
BTW in several Foundation novels power generation in the Foundation universe is said to be fusion, which is much more consistant with a GW being considered a lot of power.

[Batman]

Please quantify the energy consumed by a small town in the Foundation universe. Then explain what an ISD has to do with anything, besides you spamming up a thread.

Using Destructionator's estimate a modern town uses 2.5 MW at least. We'll say 50 MW, be generous. Assuming that a typical town in the Foundation universe uses twenty times as much power as typical town on present-day Earth that would come out to a GW.
According to the quote the Foundation universe has access to direct matter/energy conversion technology. Fusion power can produce 260 TW per kilogram of reactant,

No it wouldn't. It would produce 260TJ.

and converts matter to energy at an efficiency of less than 10%. So if you had some kind of direct matter/energy conversion tech you could get over 2.6 PW by burning a kilogram of matter.

2.6PJ. And no. 90PJ, assuming total conversion. 9E16 J per kilogram.

My point was that it would be ridiculous for a GW to be considered a lot of power in a universe that access to such technology.

Why? That question is obviously asked by a layman. Why in blazes should the guy know about Foundationverse power generation?
And, as Destructionator XIII pointed out, that just the artificial gravity...

BTW in several Foundation novels power generation in the Foundation universe is said to be fusion, which is much more consistant with a GW being considered a lot of power.

Too bad those same Foundation novels also attribute asinine firepowers to Fed warship weapons...

[Batman]

Foundation warship weapons. Foundation warship weapons.*curses*

[Keevan_Colton]

It's just the artificial gravity that consumes the power of a small town. That means the ship as a whole uses a shitload more.

[Junghalli]

No it wouldn't. It would produce 260TJ.

OK, terajoules, sorry.

Why? That question is obviously asked by a layman. Why in blazes should the guy know about Foundationverse power generation?

OK, granted since he wasn't speaking to a trained scientist or engineer it shouldn't be treated as a scientific statement. It just seemed odd that a GW would be considered a lot of energy in a society that had access to direct matter/energy conversion technology.

Too bad those same Foundation novels also attribute asinine firepowers to Fed warship weapons...

The Tilling Project. A Tiller Probe used some kind of giant energy projector to rework the entire surface of a planet from orbit. Although that was Spacer tech, not Galactic Empire tech, and I got the impression there was a significant backslide in tech between the Spacer era and the Galactic Empire era (probably as a result of the wrecking of both Terran and Spacer civilization at the begining of human expansion into the galaxy). Aside from the Tillers I can't remember any concrete examples of Foundationverse firepower offhand, aside from the fact that they had the ability to devestate planets (which isn't saying much seeing as we could do that with our present day nuclear arsenal). Does anyone remember any examples of Foundationverse firepower?

[Murazor]

That's a nice thought but based on what I've read of the Foundation universe the average planet doesn't seem to have a much bigger population than Earth. The majority if anything seem to have smaller populations. In Pebble in the Sky a planet only needs half a billion people to be officially considered a developed world (provincial status) and Earth itself only has twenty million people (although it was an exceptional shithole by this time period, due to having been nuked with some funky radiation weapon before the founding of the Galactic Empire).

Actually in the Peeble in the Sky era, the galactic population was of 500 quadrillion and there were two hundred million planets in the Empire. 2.5 billion per planet in average, but you must realize that some of those 200 million are probably just research stations and the like, as the five hundred million figure is the least that a planet needs to be considered Imperial territory (and thus not dependant of whatever planet colonized it first). And you are right about Earth being a exceptional shithole in the period.

In Second Foundation Rissom has a population of 100,000 on the whole planet. All told the Galactic Empire seems to have a lot of shithole planets with rather small populations.

Nice. That's probably the most backwater planet that can be found in the whole trilogy. An ice ball with only a few goat herders whose ancestors were a bunch of exiles and political prisoners thrown at the most unpleasant planet that the Emperors could find in the galaxy. That without mentioning the inmense impact that the Fall had in galactic population.

Also in one of the Foundation books it was stated that no other world had a tenth the population of Trantor, and Trantor had forty billion people.

You know, in Second Foundation it is mentioned that Trantor had a population of four hundred billions. And considering that it is the galactic capital and is said to be like a "crowded building", we might be talking without a problem of a floating population of trillions.

[Murazor]

Why? That question is obviously asked by a layman. Why in blazes should the guy know about Foundationverse power generation?

This isn't actually even Imperial power generation. It is pre-imperial power generation. The action in the novel takes place over 15,000 years before Seldon.

And the guy who speaks here is a trained pilot who is explaining the facts to a laywoman who had never used an spaceship before. I think that we can safely conclude that he isn't talking out of his ass. I can't explain exactly how a car engine works, but I know that it uses petrol by-products as fuel. The same logic works here: even if he can't explain how the ship works exactly, he knows what the heck it uses as fuel.

[Murazor]

OK, granted since he wasn't speaking to a trained scientist or engineer it shouldn't be treated as a scientific statement. It just seemed odd that a GW would be considered a lot of energy in a society that had access to direct matter/energy conversion technology.

Read my post above for an explanation of this.

Too bad those same Foundation novels also attribute asinine firepowers to Fed warship weapons...

The Tilling Project. A Tiller Probe used some kind of giant energy projector to rework the entire surface of a planet from orbit. Although that was Spacer tech, not Galactic Empire tech, and I got the impression there was a significant backslide in tech between the Spacer era and the Galactic Empire era (probably as a result of the wrecking of both Terran and Spacer civilization at the begining of human expansion into the galaxy). Aside from the Tillers I can't remember any concrete examples of Foundationverse firepower offhand, aside from the fact that they had the ability to devestate planets (which isn't saying much seeing as we could do that with our present day nuclear arsenal). Does anyone remember any examples of Foundationverse firepower?

Too bad that when he saw the terraformers, Seldon considered them to be impressive in size but extremely primitive (they were said to dwarf the biggest Imperial warships, which means "fucking huge" considering the size of the Wienis).

About Foundationverse firepower... let me see.

Verisof stating that an Imperial battlecruiser has "atom blasts that can blow a planet"
Riose congratulating Devers for his choice to surrender instead of being "blown to electron-dust".
Imperial ships doing this to Foundation trader ships:

There were two noiseless flares that pinpointed space as two of the tiny gnats shriveled in atomic disintegration, and the rest were gone.

The Kalgan warlord making public threats:

"The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan's warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up."

Hyperbole is almost out of the question, as this message was meant to be a credible threat and nobody states that it is impossible or incredible to do such a thing.

Just out of the top of my head, although in all likelyhood there are more. The Tazenda attack can be rationalized.

[Junghalli]

Actually in the Peeble in the Sky era, the galactic population was of 500 quadrillion and there were two hundred million planets in the Empire. 2.5 billion per planet in average, but you must realize that some of those 200 million are probably just research stations and the like, as the five hundred million figure is the least that a planet needs to be considered Imperial territory (and thus not dependant of whatever planet colonized it first).

My impression is the average population of a planet in the Galactic Empire is a couple of billion. 2.5 billion seems about right to me.

Nice. That's probably the most backwater planet that can be found in the whole trilogy.

Agree. I didn't get the impression it was particularly noteable in its shithole-ness, but you're right; it was a backwater by any definion of the word. Hell, there was a period of at least decades when it had no CONTACT with the rest of the galaxy. And as I recall the Fall cut the population of most planets in half (at least on the Periphery; the Kingdom of Anacreon had 9 billion in the early Foundation era and supposedly 18 billion in the Galactic Empire era).

You know, in Second Foundation it is mentioned that Trantor had a population of four hundred billions. And considering that it is the galactic capital and is said to be like a "crowded building", we might be talking without a problem of a floating population of trillions.

There are conflicting estimates for the population of Trantor. Fine, we'll go with four hundred billion. That would mean that there are planets in the galaxy that have populations of close to forty billion. I think they're mostly rich core systems and probably exceptional cases. Average population for a Foundationverse planet doesn't seem to be terribly huge.

[Junghalli]

Too bad that when he saw the terraformers, Seldon considered them to be impressive in size but extremely primitive (they were said to dwarf the biggest Imperial warships, which means "fucking huge" considering the size of the Wienis).

As I remember he observed that the engines were bulkier and there were more motivator sections (part of the hyperdrive?) than Imperial vessels. Other parts of the same book they were impressed by Spacer data storage tech (it was said to be very dense-which is something when you consider how fast computers are advancing today and that those data storage modules were 20,000+ years old), and the Ktlinians thought the Spacer archive would contain a lot of useful new tech. That certainly SEEMS to suggest there was a tech loss between Spacer era and late Imperial era. Not surprising, I imagine a lot of stuff would have been lost when Earth got nuked and the Fifty Worlds collapsed.
BTW how big was the Weinis? As I remember Galactic Empire vessels were about the size of an Acclamator (900 meters).

Verisof stating that an Imperial battlecruiser has "atom blasts that can blow a planet"

Wow! That puts an Imperial battlecruiser on a par with the Death Star! And that's an AVERAGE ship!

Riose congratulating Devers for his choice to surrender instead of being "blown to electron-dust".

Not quite as impressive as the first observation, but suggests a pretty powerful beam if it can disassociate matter at the atomic level.

There were two noiseless flares that pinpointed space as two of the tiny gnats shriveled in atomic disintegration, and the rest were gone.

Doesn't say much about power level, all it says is that they can destroy another ship with one shot (a modern H-bomb does that fairly effectively).

"The Mule! His men, at least. He took it last month, and without a battle, though Kalgan's warlord broadcast a threat to blow the planet to ionic dust before giving it up."

Hyperbole is almost out of the question, as this message was meant to be a credible threat and nobody states that it is impossible or incredible to do such a thing.

I wouldn't rule out hyperbole there. It would be like saying that the modern world nuclear arsenal could "destroy the planet five times over". Of course it can't actually destroy the planet itself, but it can render it pretty much uninhabitable. The difference between destroying a planet and just reducing its surface to radioactive lava is a little fine when you're standing on said planet. Although it WOULD be consistent with Galactic Empire ships having Death Star level firepower.
Just a thought though, if that's the case how is it that Trantor was still there and habitable after being sacked by the Mule? Well, I guess you could probably write that up to some action by the Second Foundation (getting reduced to space dust WOULD have radically fucked up their plans ).

[Connor MacLeod]

Hyperbole is almost out of the question, as this message was meant to be a credible threat and nobody states that it is impossible or incredible to do such a thing.

Being a creditable threat and hyperbole are not mutually exclusive. You can threaten to bombard or damage a planet without being precise about the manner in which one does so.

Since "ionic dust" is not really a meaningful term I'm willing to bet the RESULT is hyperbole. He's going to do something nasty to the planet, we just don't know what or how.

[XANATOS]

I believe the character in Dr. Asimov`s book was refering to how much
power it took to generate a gravity field not how much
power the star liner`s engines are abel to genarate




XANATOS

[Connor MacLeod]

It's just the artificial gravity that consumes the power of a small town. That means the ship as a whole uses a shitload more.

The Peak generation capability is going to be greater, but the quote is clearly indicating that the vessel has a finite generational lifetime.. IE it can only generate energgy enough to power the arttificial gravity for so long.. meaning it tells us more about the fuel supplies the ship has onboard. We can infer "peak" operational power from assuming that they can operate at "full power" for a certain period of time (an hour, for example.) before running out of fuel.

Generally, inferring a MW range power usage for Aritificial gravity and at least decades or centuries (approximately a human lifetime of some sort) would infer a terajoule-petajoule range fuel supply low end.

It can certainly be higher, but there are going to be certain logical limits. A million years (for example) seems a bit excessive a "lifetime" issue.. billions even more (but possible). More problematic is assuming excessive "power generation" for a small "town" - one would be VERY hard pressed to justify anything about TW level even in an advanced society for a "small town" - there is conceivably nothing IN a small town that could justify vastly greater power outputs.

And even if there were inefficiencies and heat dissipation is STILL a crucial limiting factor and it become smore problematic if you get beyond the TW/PW power output range..

[The Silence and I]

Waa? IT was said fuel is the last thing they'll run out of, for all we know from that bit of text is that they won't run out of fuel. How can saying they will not run out of fuel be used to guestimate how much fuel they have?

Besides that the small town statement was in regards to gravity generation. Nothing was said about anything else.

[Murazor]

My impression is the average population of a planet in the Galactic Empire is a couple of billion. 2.5 billion seems about right to me.

The planets themselves don't seem to be very heavily populated, granted. But in Foundation and Foundation and Empire there are statements of a population of quintillions (Seldon says one quintillion in the court) for the thirty million planets of the time. Either a helluva lot of planets aren't included in that count, planetary population increased a lot (and statements about Trantor's population don't support this) or most of the galactic population started to live in space habitats (Hummin in Prelude to Foundation mentions space stations with populations of up to ten billions).

Agree. I didn't get the impression it was particularly noteable in its shithole-ness, but you're right; it was a backwater by any definion of the word. Hell, there was a period of at least decades when it had no CONTACT with the rest of the galaxy. And as I recall the Fall cut the population of most planets in half (at least on the Periphery; the Kingdom of Anacreon had 9 billion in the early Foundation era and supposedly 18 billion in the Galactic Empire era).

Not. Actually, the impact was inmense. Galactic population wasn't cut in half. It was reduced by, at least, one order of magnitude. The whole kingdom of Anacreon (formerly one of the richest Rim provinces) had in the time of Hardin 25 stellar systems (and perhaps 30-35 planets) and 19 billions. This is about 0.6 billion per planet and for 30 million planets we get just 18 quadrillion. Although the Core territories weren't hit until much later, the Fall had an extremely high impact in the Galactic population.

There are conflicting estimates for the population of Trantor. Fine, we'll go with four hundred billion. That would mean that there are planets in the galaxy that have populations of close to forty billion. I think they're mostly rich core systems and probably exceptional cases. Average population for a Foundationverse planet doesn't seem to be terribly huge.

What Dors Venabili is that there are not many planets with a tenth of Trantor's population, not that there are not such planets at all. There may be a number of core planets (Sirius seems to have been an important system, too) with populations of 40-400 billion, although it is exceedingly unlikely that there are many planets with trillions in them (even as floating population). Trantor is a massive exception, although you must remember that its population was limited by imperial decree, as they couldn't control all the sectors (particularly Wye and Dahl).

[Connor MacLeod]

Waa? IT was said fuel is the last thing they'll run out of, for all we know from that bit of text is that they won't run out of fuel. How can saying they will not run out of fuel be used to guestimate how much fuel they have?

Read the fucking quote alright?

"Don't worry about that. Ships are fueled by the total conversion of mass to energy. Fuel is the last thing we'll run out of. The outer hull will wear away first."

They need fuel ie mass in order to generate energy. That by definition is going to mean that the fuel supply is finite. Unless you are seriosuly proposing they can pull mass/energy out of thin air (thereby violating CoE.)

Besides that the small town statement was in regards to gravity generation. Nothing was said about anything else.

Given a finite fuel supply, there is only so much power they gan generate in any given period of time. Clearly, you didn't even bother reading what I posted./

[Murazor]

Other parts of the same book they were impressed by Spacer data storage tech (it was said to be very dense-which is something when you consider how fast computers are advancing today and that those data storage modules were 20,000+ years old)

Daneel's last brain (the roughly 500 years old one) was a hundred thousand times faster/more sensitive and with ten million times the memory of his original one. It is obvious that there was some improvement here since the Spacer era.

And the data storage units weren't created by Spacers, but by Settlers and Calvinians attempting to fight the memory loss.

and the Ktlinians thought the Spacer archive would contain a lot of useful new tech.

I remember Sybil mentioning that the tech was quite primitive, but there were some surprisingly new perspectives (hardly surprising as there were at least a couple of fields were the Empire never bothered to research for long, namely Spacer medical technology and advanced robotics). Gornon was more interested with the history and the art.

That certainly SEEMS to suggest there was a tech loss between Spacer era and late Imperial era. Not surprising, I imagine a lot of stuff would have been lost when Earth got nuked and the Fifty Worlds collapsed.

The Fifty Worlds didn't collapse. Solaria survived until the Foundation era and the other died slowly, but the Settlers never bothered to attack them. And the Settlers had more or less ten thousand years to get any useful technology out of Earth.

BTW how big was the Weinis? As I remember Galactic Empire vessels were about the size of an Acclamator (900 meters).

With quick practiced motions, he moved the little levers that opened all communications, so that every part of the two-mile-long ship was within reach of his voice and his image.

Roughly 3 km. And considering that this was a battlecruiser, it is obvious that they had bigger guns somewhere.

Verisof stating that an Imperial battlecruiser has "atom blasts that can blow a planet"

Wow! That puts an Imperial battlecruiser on a par with the Death Star! And that's an AVERAGE ship!

Actual quote:

"It's a ship! They could build in those days. Its cubic capacity is half again that of the entire Anacreonian navy. It's got nuclear blasts capable of blowing up a planet, and a shield that could take a Q-beam without working up radiation. Too much of a good thing, Hardin --"

I ought to mention that Verisof was an actual scientist, the "high priest" of the religion of Scientism in Anacreon, and he seems to be trying to make an accurate description of the ship's capabilities.

Not quite as impressive as the first observation, but suggests a pretty powerful beam if it can disassociate matter at the atomic level.

Actual quote:

"It's about the same thing. You surrendered your ship when you might have decided to waste our ammunition and have yourself blown to electron-dust. It could result in good treatment for you, if you continue that sort of outlook on life."

Riose is an experienced soldier (oddly enough he seems to have been part of the Navy since the start of his career) and he should know what his weapons can do. This idea is supported by:

There were two noiseless flares that pinpointed space as two of the tiny gnats shriveled in atomic disintegration, and the rest were gone.

Doesn't say much about power level, all it says is that they can destroy another ship with one shot (a modern H-bomb does that fairly effectively).

Actually, the quote supports vaporization. Even if we use the melting (mentioned in other edition, although the description still supports vaporization), forget energy shielding (and all Trader ships were shielded) and consider the ships to be made of iron and of very small size, we still get kilotons per shot.

Just a thought though, if that's the case how is it that Trantor was still there and habitable after being sacked by the Mule?

Trantor was not sacked by the Mule. It was sacked by Gilmer the Usurper, a rebel against one of the Dagoberts, who claimed Trantor for himself. The fact that the word "sack" is used makes it pretty clear that his forces looted Trantor when they conquered it. It is hard to find something valuable when you melt the planetary surface and even harder to claim the Imperial palace for yourself if you blow the planet to smithereens. You might add as well that lack of maintenance and civil strife had at this point very much destroyed the former Imperial Navy and Gilmer probably didn't have true warships. Also, you are right about the Second Foundation: they used their powers to save the Galactic Library (although they used weapons, too) and later signed an agreement with Gilmer. Last, but not least, there was some actual damage done as a result of the sack.

Spires were truncated, smooth walls gouted and twisted, and just for an instant there was the glimpse of a shaven area of earth – perhaps several hundred acres in extent – dark and plowed.