Corscuant and supply logistics

[PainRack]

No, it isn't. Several hundred trillion maybe.

Saxton broke it down nicely. Even assuming a "Perth style" setting, your still several times lower.

I'm going to disagree here. Saxton assumption that there are several hundred trillion people on Coruscant rests on the fact that he takes purely city numbers to derivive his population figures. As population expands, more and more space and energy is going to be devoted to environmental and transportation technologies. Certain technologies, such as heat transfer would require relatively wide open space, much less the garbage dumps depicted in Rogue Planet.

Similarly, its only logical that more and more space is going to be "wasted", with older properties abandoned, certain areas left to decay or simply the inefficient use of space, both in terms of city planning as well as the display of wealth amongst the rich.

Its more likely that the population of Coruscant ranges from tens of trillions to the several hundred. Thousand trillions of people is unlikely.

[Noble Ire]

No, it isn't. Several hundred trillion maybe.

Saxton broke it down nicely. Even assuming a "Perth style" setting, your still several times lower.

I'm going to disagree here. Saxton assumption that there are several hundred trillion people on Coruscant rests on the fact that he takes purely city numbers to derivive his population figures. As population expands, more and more space and energy is going to be devoted to environmental and transportation technologies. Certain technologies, such as heat transfer would require relatively wide open space, much less the garbage dumps depicted in Rogue Planet.

Similarly, its only logical that more and more space is going to be "wasted", with older properties abandoned, certain areas left to decay or simply the inefficient use of space, both in terms of city planning as well as the display of wealth amongst the rich.

Its more likely that the population of Coruscant ranges from tens of trillions to the several hundred. Thousand trillions of people is unlikely.

I would tend to agree. After all, even in the movies themselves (namely AOTC) we see large swaths of infastructural and industrial facilities, fairly close to the capitol district even. I would think a large part of the planet is similarly used, or abandoned completely.

[apocolypse]

No, it isn't. Several hundred trillion maybe.

Saxton broke it down nicely. Even assuming a "Perth style" setting, your still several times lower.

I'm going to disagree here. Saxton assumption that there are several hundred trillion people on Coruscant rests on the fact that he takes purely city numbers to derivive his population figures. As population expands, more and more space and energy is going to be devoted to environmental and transportation technologies. Certain technologies, such as heat transfer would require relatively wide open space, much less the garbage dumps depicted in Rogue Planet.

Similarly, its only logical that more and more space is going to be "wasted", with older properties abandoned, certain areas left to decay or simply the inefficient use of space, both in terms of city planning as well as the display of wealth amongst the rich.

Its more likely that the population of Coruscant ranges from tens of trillions to the several hundred. Thousand trillions of people is unlikely.

Then you're ignoring what Coruscant is. It's not much of a city-planet if it's over 80% uninhabited. Not to mention the fact that what we actually see in the movies is also built on or within hundreds of layers of other structures. You can see the deep crevices in the movies themselves at times. I have no problem with hundreds of trillions, but only a few tens of trillions at best is absurd considering the near entirety of the planet is covered in multiple layers of city.

Further, I don't see much wrong with Saxton's number usage. Cities themselves also have industrial and manufacturing areas within them, so taking the same population count doesn't seem odd in the slightest, unless you think cities don't also have factories or industrial facilites?

[Wyrm]

Well, 14.6e21 J per day is only equivalent to 18 Acclamator 200 gigaton TL shots per day. As the Hoth ion cannon showed, planetary installations have much greater power resources than ship-based weaponry, so it's plausible that a single installation periodically sends enough energy into space (say, into the sun) to make Coruscant a significantly open system.

My problem with that explanation is that we're not talking about the well-behaved energy from a reactor here, but heat, and heat is an unruly beast. I don't care how advanced the SW galaxy is; I expect thermodynamics to apply there as it does here.

The lowest entropy that 14.6e21 J can be at is evenly spread about the planet (a quick calculation shows that, and given a nearly even spread of population about Coruscant, the actual state would be near that). It takes five-star energy (which has to be generated) to shove it to one spot to be radiated to space.

If we concentrate the heat produced by the planet into a concentrated area, say a one-kilometer radius disk on Coruscant (3.141e6 m^2), then to radiate 169.531250e15 W over this area, we need an irradiancy of 53.963e9 W/m^2. Stefan-Boltzmann gives the necessary temperature as 31,233 K. To transfer 169.531250e15 W of heat into this area requires at least 18.279840e18 W of power. If your power generation efficiency is any less than 99.08%, then you're right back where you started or worse. I can see the Coruscantians looking at each other and thinking, "There's gotta be a better way than this!"

Notice that I didn't specify the nature of the radiator. This also applies to the snazzy neutrino radiators; they would work by dispersing heat into the (much colder) neutrino shower of space. The radiators still have a temperature, just that its thermal conductivity with ordinary matter is poor with respect to the neutrino shower.

If the neutrino radiators are scattered about the planet (say one major radiation facility per square kilometer), then the problem is much less pronounced, as we are not fighting heat's natural tendency to spread out (at least, not as badly). Thus, every square kilometer gets a (say) a dedicated 100 m square footprint building 2 km high neutrino radiator (1.2 km^2). Since each square meter of the planet has to radiate a net of 1,326.516 W/m^2, each neutrino radiator would have a heat dissipation rate of 1.326e9 W, which means that its neutrino temperature is a mere 373.66 K, which means that we minimum energy we need to consume to move heat to the radiators is a mere 51.19e15 J each day. That's much nicer, but this is not including the heat produced making the energy we need to run the radiators. A little dithering will find the correct neutrino temperature for the population.

On the other hand, if your food-growing farming planets are going to continue providing food for Coruscant for a long time, you'd better be exporting your waste to those planets to fertilize them. (It also makes good business sense, since you're selling back the farming planets' own nutrients! ) In this case, you're spending a lot of energy to lift a bunch of matter to orbit anyway, so this cost is already paid. Thus, when you export the waste, it could also be worth your while to export heat along with it.

EDIT: The work figures were actually total amount of heat pushed into the radiators. (For the thermodynamically impared, when you pump heat out of a cool place into a warm place, the energy you need to drive the heat pump goes into the hot resivour as more heat. My previous figures were the total heat pumped into the radiators, not the power you need to drive that heat to the radiators) This has been corrected.

EDIT 2: Miscelleneous clarification. Feh.

[PainRack]

Then you're ignoring what Coruscant is. It's not much of a city-planet if it's over 80% uninhabited. Not to mention the fact that what we actually see in the movies is also built on or within hundreds of layers of other structures. You can see the deep crevices in the movies themselves at times. I have no problem with hundreds of trillions, but only a few tens of trillions at best is absurd considering the near entirety of the planet is covered in multiple layers of city.

Actually, using Hong Kong population density of 6k, I get 2 trillion people for Coruscant. That's definitely an underestimate, as Hong Kong doesn't have multi-kilometer skyscrapers, so, its likely to be the tens of trillions to hundreds of trillions.

Its not about the entire planet being covered in multiple layers of cities. A significant portion of the planet MUST be devoted to replicating the environmental controls that nature does. And as the population grows, the amount of space dedicated to this MUST grow, along with all the supporting infrastructure of a city. Power must still be shipped in, resources must still be stored, transportation, especially private transportation must still expand. Certainly, there must be areas of Coruscant where pollution or industrial processes make it unsutiable for inhabitation and NIMBY would still exist in the SWU. Once we account for wastage of space in terms or urban decay and ineffienct planning, affluence, tens of trillions as a lower limit becomes likely.

Further, I don't see much wrong with Saxton's number usage. Cities themselves also have industrial and manufacturing areas within them, so taking the same population count doesn't seem odd in the slightest, unless you think cities don't also have factories or industrial facilites?

No, his figures don't account for them at all. Environmental facillites are outside the urban centre and Coruscant should have "suburbs", or areas where urban density isn't as built up as downtown.
He uses downtown Hong Kong to derivive his hundreds of trillions populace, as opposed to the territory of Hong Kong where the population density is only 6 thousand per sq km. Hong Kong may not be as perfect an example though, as it has rural areas. Singapore might be an better example, as over 97% of its territory is urbanised. However, Singapore still only has a 6k per sq km population density.
The suburbs of Perth itself takes figures directly from the inhabitated areas, ignoring the total area of the city. From the wiki, Perth total population density is only 268 ppl per sq km.

[bilateralrope]

I vaguely recall from the novel "Rogue Planet" that there are underground mass drivers utilized to propel certain forms of waste material off-planet (I don't remember if the y were either collected by other sips or just allowed to shoot off into space though.)

Well, if I was in the habbit of shooting wate off my planet, I would try to aim it at the local star(s).

[apocolypse]

Its not about the entire planet being covered in multiple layers of cities. A significant portion of the planet MUST be devoted to replicating the environmental controls that nature does.

Except we have no idea how much this "significant portion" must be. Therefore, to assume that they cover large amounts without any actual proof is somewhat leaping since we don't know the size of the tech involved with their climate control.

And as the population grows, the amount of space dedicated to this MUST grow, along with all the supporting infrastructure of a city. Power must still be shipped in, resources must still be stored, transportation, especially private transportation must still expand. Certainly, there must be areas of Coruscant where pollution or industrial processes make it unsutiable for inhabitation and NIMBY would still exist in the SWU. Once we account for wastage of space in terms or urban decay and ineffienct planning, affluence, tens of trillions as a lower limit becomes likely.

No, it rather isn't. While there are areas set aside for power generation, recycling, waste reclamation and the like, you're still talking about a large portion of the planet covered in hundreds of layers with skyscrapers extending even more miles above all of this. There are almost no natural features left on the planet at all, save IIRC a couple smaller bodies of water. I can agree with you on going into hundreds of trillions, but tens as a lower limit is unlikely imo.

No, his figures don't account for them at all. Environmental facillites are outside the urban centre and Coruscant should have "suburbs", or areas where urban density isn't as built up as downtown.
He uses downtown Hong Kong to derivive his hundreds of trillions populace, as opposed to the territory of Hong Kong where the population density is only 6 thousand per sq km. Hong Kong may not be as perfect an example though, as it has rural areas. Singapore might be an better example, as over 97% of its territory is urbanised. However, Singapore still only has a 6k per sq km population density.
The suburbs of Perth itself takes figures directly from the inhabitated areas, ignoring the total area of the city. From the wiki, Perth total population density is only 268 ppl per sq km.

And the problem is, is that none of these modern cities are built up anywhere nearly as extensively as Coruscant is. The point you brought up is interesting, but ultimately doesn't change this fact. Further, Coruscant relies heavily on imports, which is going to further reduce this wastage.

[Lazarus]

Considering the multi layered nature of Coruscant, with a particular eye to those brightly lit crevices seen in AOTC, and whatever is below them, and below them, and below them, how can the government keep control of the entire planet? Wouldn't the lower areas just split off, because order can't be practically enforced? And then of course on the very bottom you get those corridor ghouls and god knows what else.
My other idea is, how can anybody possibly lose Coruscant in an invasion? I know Isard 'let' the Rebels take it, but surely this was quite possibly the owrst idea in Galactic history? The planets Stalingrad an a 10000000x scale! Shove it full of a few billion imperial troops, store supplies for a long term campaign etc, and even if the rebels managed to land on the surface, they would never be able to take the planet. True, the Imps would not be recieving supplies in such a situation, but if they store enough in the bowels of the city, how can they lose? The rebels have pathetic ground forces, they could never even hope to prevail under such circumstances, and orbital strikes couldn't even be used due to civilian casualties.

[Noble Ire]

My other idea is, how can anybody possibly lose Coruscant in an invasion? I know Isard 'let' the Rebels take it, but surely this was quite possibly the owrst idea in Galactic history? The planets Stalingrad an a 10000000x scale! Shove it full of a few billion imperial troops, store supplies for a long term campaign etc, and even if the rebels managed to land on the surface, they would never be able to take the planet. True, the Imps would not be recieving supplies in such a situation, but if they store enough in the bowels of the city, how can they lose? The rebels have pathetic ground forces, they could never even hope to prevail under such circumstances, and orbital strikes couldn't even be used due to civilian casualties.

Well, the New Republic was able to take it from the Imperials because most of the higher ups had already evacuated, and no who was left was going to try very hard to keep it. Aside from a few Imperial holdouts, I doubt much of the populace that was left was going to seriously resist NR rule.

And the Vong? The Vong just dropped derelict satillites and starship hulks onto it until most of the populace was dead, then began to Vong-form it.

[Nyrath]

From FOUNDATION by Isaac Asimov

TRANTOR–...At the beginning of the thirteenth millennium, this tendency reached its climax. As the center of the Imperial Government for unbroken hundreds of generations and located, as it was, toward the central regions of the Galaxy among the most densely populated and industrially advanced worlds of the system, it could scarcely help being the densest and richest clot of humanity the Race had ever seen.

Its urbanization, progressing steadily, had finally reached the ultimate. All the land surface of Trantor, 75,000,000 square miles in extent, was a single city. The population, at its height, was well in excess of forty billions. This enormous population was devoted almost entirely to the administrative necessities of Empire, and found themselves all too few for the complications of the task. (It is to be remembered that the impossibility of proper administration of the Galactic Empire under the uninspired leadership of the later Emperors was a considerable factor in the Fall.) Daily, fleets of ships in the tens of thousands brought the produce of twenty agricultural worlds to the dinner tables of Trantor....

Its dependence upon the outer worlds for food and, indeed, for all necessities of life, made Trantor increasingly vulnerable to conquest by siege. In the last millennium of the Empire, the monotonously numerous revolts made Emperor after Emperor conscious of this, and Imperial policy became little more than the protection of Trantor's delicate jugular vein....

[Illuminatus Primus]

No, it isn't. Several hundred trillion maybe.

Saxton broke it down nicely. Even assuming a "Perth style" setting, your still several times lower.

I'm going to disagree here. Saxton assumption that there are several hundred trillion people on Coruscant rests on the fact that he takes purely city numbers to derivive his population figures. As population expands, more and more space and energy is going to be devoted to environmental and transportation technologies. Certain technologies, such as heat transfer would require relatively wide open space, much less the garbage dumps depicted in Rogue Planet.

Similarly, its only logical that more and more space is going to be "wasted", with older properties abandoned, certain areas left to decay or simply the inefficient use of space, both in terms of city planning as well as the display of wealth amongst the rich.

Its more likely that the population of Coruscant ranges from tens of trillions to the several hundred. Thousand trillions of people is unlikely.

The problem with this logic is rather than simply saying more space is going to be wasted than in modern cities, you're talking in excess of 99% of space per person in a modern city scaled up to Coruscant is now needed to correctly deal with economic and environmental concerns, and the films portray a much closer to modern-density of living space, not in excess of a hundred times modern norms.

Several quadrillion is still the most sensible figure. And again, everything in these estimates has always been bare-bottom conservative. Dozens of quadrillions would be more like it.

[Connor MacLeod]

Coruscant could very well have a stable population of a trillion, yet be capable of holding many times that number of people in either unofficial or transitory capacities (tourists, bureacrats and officials associated with the Senate in Republic times and the Empire itself in Imperial times, the countless "poor" individuals in the lower levels, Ship crews temporarily visiting the planet, etc.)

There are also sections of the planet that are abandoned (like where Dooku and Palpy hid out in AOTC) or isolated for private use (one could easily see Senators having their own private estates spanning entire football fields and it wouldn't necceesarily even take up a noticable chunk of the cityscape.)

And there is of course the fact that there are parts of Coruscant that are periodically being torn down and built back up (remember the Construction droids?)

[Publius]

It is known that some Senators were lavish in their residences. Senator Palpatine's apartments in 500 Republica were large enough to house the entire Royal party in relative comfort in The Phantom Menace – the novelization mentions that they were staying as guests within his apartments – , and yet the Core Rulebook calls it a "modest apartment." Episode I: The Visual Dictionary explains, saying that it is indeed modest, "compared to the stunning palaces of other sectorial representatives." Presumably, these are at least comparable to the later castles of such grandees as the Prince Xizor of Falleen and Darth Vader.

Even a "modest" Senator like Sen. Palpatine was not without extensive properties, it seems. "Lumiya: Dark Star of the Empire," for example, mentions that Maj. Shira Elan Colla Brie was "a native of the beautiful planet Coruscant, and was raised on an estate belonging to Senator Palpatine." Note that the phrase "an estate" implies quite strongly that there was more than one such estate on the planet. If Sen. Palpatine keeps apartments spacious enough to house royalty in relative comfort and at least one estate, yet is regarded as "modest" and "unassuming" among the Senate's numbers, it is not difficult to imagine that the more ostentatious members of the Senate may be given to dwelling in "stunning palaces" of considerable size, to say nothing of other private estates.

[PainRack]

The problem with this logic is rather than simply saying more space is going to be wasted than in modern cities, you're talking in excess of 99% of space per person in a modern city scaled up to Coruscant is now needed to correctly deal with economic and environmental concerns, and the films portray a much closer to modern-density of living space, not in excess of a hundred times modern norms.

Actually, I'm not. let me say this again, scaling up the populace from Hong Kong or Singapore gives you 2 trillion people. Obviously, this doesn't take into account the level of urban density. As such, I just chose to mutiply this by 40 to get kilometer high residential buildings, thus simulating Coruscant multi-kilometer skyscrapers, but assuming that a goodly portion of the area near the ground is simply not inhabitated, as stated outright in the RPG and a goodly portion of the remainding area is taken up by supporting infrastructure. That gives me 40*2=80 trillion people. That's my tens of trillions people figures as a lower limit, assuming that SW technology has not minaturised supporting infrastructure and huge wastage occurs as a result of ineffiency and affluence. As an upper limit, I multipled the base populace by 400, giving nearly ten kilometer tall skyscrapers, having 800 trillion people.

Its obviously has no scientific basis and assumes that scaling the height of a building is linear with a rise in population density, but if you know of something better, please enlighten me.

But nowhere did I claim that 99% of the space used is "wasted". Rather, I pointed out that Saxton figures don't account for supporting infrastructure at all. As such, saying that thousand trillion should be the bare "norm" for Coruscant is unsupported.

Several quadrillion is still the most sensible figure. And again, everything in these estimates has always been bare-bottom conservative. Dozens of quadrillions would be more like it.

Based on what? Which population scale did you use? Saxton used human residences to scale up his population density, ignoring environmental and industrial facillities utterly. The population density of Perth is only 238 that way, not thousands. Hong Kong population density is 6 thousand. So, where does this "quadrillion" figure come from? By multiplying the urban density of Hong Kong by several thousand times?

Except we have no idea how much this "significant portion" must be. Therefore, to assume that they cover large amounts without any actual proof is somewhat leaping since we don't know the size of the tech involved with their climate control.

And so? This has no bearing on the fact that Saxton figures utterly ignores this.

No, it rather isn't. While there are areas set aside for power generation, recycling, waste reclamation and the like, you're still talking about a large portion of the planet covered in hundreds of layers with skyscrapers extending even more miles above all of this. There are almost no natural features left on the planet at all, save IIRC a couple smaller bodies of water. I can agree with you on going into hundreds of trillions, but tens as a lower limit is unlikely imo.

I'm assuming that the lower levels are utterly decayed, with no permament human habitation. Granted, this isn't true, as the novels and New Jedi Order Sourcebook shows otherwise, but that's why its a lower limit.

And the problem is, is that none of these modern cities are built up anywhere nearly as extensively as Coruscant is. The point you brought up is interesting, but ultimately doesn't change this fact. Further, Coruscant relies heavily on imports, which is going to further reduce this wastage.

What do you mean by wastage? Imports don't reduce the need to store, distribute and remove waste. It doesn't even solve the basic problem of ventilation. The Death Star uses huge, empty shafts for the sole purpose of ventilating heat and air, although that's hardly applicable.

As for built up, yes, we know that.

[apocolypse]

And so? This has no bearing on the fact that Saxton figures utterly ignores this.

And so you're missing the point, that's what. You're assuming that environmental controls and all this infrastructure remains (apparently) a large component and takes up large swaths of the planet with no proof. Hell, a starship neutrino radiator can radiate a large amount of energy, yet doesn't take up the whole damn ship to do so. Obviously a planet such as Coruscant would require much more than a simple starship, but the tech doesn't seem that massively large like you're implying (with no basis) that it is.

I'm assuming that the lower levels are utterly decayed, with no permament human habitation. Granted, this isn't true, as the novels and New Jedi Order Sourcebook shows otherwise, but that's why its a lower limit.

Except it's too low of a lower limit since these lower levels are populated as well. Granted, it's not going to be nearly as comfortable or nice as mid and upper levels, but it is possible, and it does happen.

What do you mean by wastage? Imports don't reduce the need to store, distribute and remove waste. It doesn't even solve the basic problem of ventilation. The Death Star uses huge, empty shafts for the sole purpose of ventilating heat and air, although that's hardly applicable.

As for built up, yes, we know that.

Wastage meaning they don't have to grow their own crops, nor have to dedicate as much space as they might have to as they import a great many consumables. Therefore, also meaning that the space that a normal planet would have to use for these things will not be applicable to nearly the same degree on a planet like Coruscant. Yes, they still have some industry and manufacturing, I'm not negating this. However, they also import a large amount of goods as well.

[Darth Kalgarath]

another good question to consider is what info Saxton based his calculations on. Did he use information that would give a number indicating the 'true total' population, or did he provide what an official census would turn up: only those who have a permant mailing address or a registered, long-standing residence? If the second is true, then you have to ignore all of the transients, the homeless, and the illegal immigrants. Not to mention all the twisted abominations that have been spawned by Force knows what down at surface level.

[PainRack]

And so you're missing the point, that's what. You're assuming that environmental controls and all this infrastructure remains (apparently) a large component and takes up large swaths of the planet with no proof. Hell, a starship neutrino radiator can radiate a large amount of energy, yet doesn't take up the whole damn ship to do so. Obviously a planet such as Coruscant would require much more than a simple starship, but the tech doesn't seem that massively large like you're implying (with no basis) that it is.

Excuse me. The lower limit is a lower limit for a reason. Assuming that most residential high flats has only a kilometer of habitable space, even though the buildings are multi-kilometer tall isn't absurd. So, I assumed that 1/3 of the space available is taken up by supporting infrastructure or wasted. What's so absurd about that? The lower levels are for all purposes abandoned by Coruscantis, only visited by scavengers or gangs.

Furthermore, a starship isn't a city. Every component, equipment and design on a starship must be functional. A city does not have this requirement. Furthermore, starships may very well seperate off one deck from another, such that sailors working on one deck may never see another portion of a ship. A city transportation infrastructure cannot.

Except it's too low of a lower limit since these lower levels are populated as well. Granted, it's not going to be nearly as comfortable or nice as mid and upper levels, but it is possible, and it does happen.

Yes, that is true. However, the purpose of the lower limit here was to explictly demolish the "1 trillion" figures in lower canon. Even with the most restrictive limits placed on the habitable areas of Coruscant, factoring in urban decay, redundancy and sheer waste, Coruscant population cannot be lesser than tens of trillions. A mere kilometer in height of habitable space will yield a min of 80 trillion and its impossible to believe in any figure smaller than this. Even the arguments of a "transient" population is absurd, considering that NYC, Beijing and other cities include foreign/temporary workers as part of their population headcount.

Wastage meaning they don't have to grow their own crops, nor have to dedicate as much space as they might have to as they import a great many consumables. Therefore, also meaning that the space that a normal planet would have to use for these things will not be applicable to nearly the same degree on a planet like Coruscant. Yes, they still have some industry and manufacturing, I'm not negating this. However, they also import a large amount of goods as well.

And what makes you think that Singapore or Hong Kong, the city states I draw my figures from has a flourishing agricultural sector? Saxton thousand trillion figure doesn't get such an easy pass.

[Ender]

Well, 14.6e21 J per day is only equivalent to 18 Acclamator 200 gigaton TL shots per day. As the Hoth ion cannon showed, planetary installations have much greater power resources than ship-based weaponry, so it's plausible that a single installation periodically sends enough energy into space (say, into the sun) to make Coruscant a significantly open system.

My problem with that explanation is that we're not talking about the well-behaved energy from a reactor here, but heat, and heat is an unruly beast. I don't care how advanced the SW galaxy is; I expect thermodynamics to apply there as it does here.

Correct, but the reactor annalogy still applies.

One point suggested in this thread is that most of the buildings are self contained - power, air, food, water, all processed inside. This is confirmed as correct in the EU. However, you are not making the critical leap connecting the reactor analogy - reactors control their waste heat by circulating coolant around the source and then directing it to a heat exchanger. There is absolutely nothing to stop the skyscrapers of Coruscant from doing the same. we know the hovels on tatooine have complex netwroks of cooling mediums running through the walls that transfer heat to a specific exchanger, there is no reason to believe the buildings on Coruscant are different. Heat produced within the buildings can be directed to the neutrino radiators and harmlessly released.

The lowest entropy that 14.6e21 J can be at is evenly spread about the planet (a quick calculation shows that, and given a nearly even spread of population about Coruscant, the actual state would be near that). It takes five-star energy (which has to be generated) to shove it to one spot to be radiated to space.

Not familiar with the concept of thermal driving head, are you? No, it does not necessarily require energy to move fluid. It is dependent on the system design.

If we concentrate the heat produced by the planet into a concentrated area, say a one-kilometer radius disk on Coruscant (3.141e6 m^2), then to radiate 169.531250e15 W over this area, we need an irradiancy of 53.963e9 W/m^2. Stefan-Boltzmann gives the necessary temperature as 31,233 K. To transfer 169.531250e15 W of heat into this area requires at least 18.279840e18 W of power. If your power generation efficiency is any less than 99.08%, then you're right back where you started or worse. I can see the Coruscantians looking at each other and thinking, "There's gotta be a better way than this!"

Like, say, letting each building dump it on its own?

Notice that I didn't specify the nature of the radiator. This also applies to the snazzy neutrino radiators; they would work by dispersing heat into the (much colder) neutrino shower of space. The radiators still have a temperature, just that its thermal conductivity with ordinary matter is poor with respect to the neutrino shower.

That applies to neutrino radiators now does it? Care to prove it? Considering that the physics behind how novas release their energy as neutrinos is unknown and all, I'd be very interested in learning how you know the thermodynamic states involved. Or were you just making a gigantic leap in logic and treating neutrino radiators like conventional ones despite the fact that they were chosen for the explanation of waste heat because they don't act like normal radiators and thus are not contradicted by the canon, which normal radiators would be?

If the neutrino radiators are scattered about the planet (say one major radiation facility per square kilometer), then the problem is much less pronounced, as we are not fighting heat's natural tendency to spread out (at least, not as badly). Thus, every square kilometer gets a (say) a dedicated 100 m square footprint building 2 km high neutrino radiator (1.2 km^2). Since each square meter of the planet has to radiate a net of 1,326.516 W/m^2, each neutrino radiator would have a heat dissipation rate of 1.326e9 W, which means that its neutrino temperature is a mere 373.66 K, which means that we minimum energy we need to consume to move heat to the radiators is a mere 51.19e15 J each day. That's much nicer, but this is not including the heat produced making the energy we need to run the radiators. A little dithering will find the correct neutrino temperature for the population.

Yawn. Your maths fail because of your flawed assumptions.

On the other hand, if your food-growing farming planets are going to continue providing food for Coruscant for a long time, you'd better be exporting your waste to those planets to fertilize them. (It also makes good business sense, since you're selling back the farming planets' own nutrients! ) In this case, you're spending a lot of energy to lift a bunch of matter to orbit anyway, so this cost is already paid. Thus, when you export the waste, it could also be worth your while to export heat along with it.

pumping it into a heat sink on a ship and then moving the heatsink has its advantages, but also its disadvantages. More liekly its jsut a good system of radiators.

I'd point out that in the movies we see alderaan's shield hold out for a fraction of a second corresponding to something like 10^30 watts. Clearly heat dissipation is not an issue.

EDIT: The work figures were actually total amount of heat pushed into the radiators. (For the thermodynamically impared, when you pump heat out of a cool place into a warm place, the energy you need to drive the heat pump goes into the hot resivour as more heat. My previous figures were the total heat pumped into the radiators, not the power you need to drive that heat to the radiators) This has been corrected.

Of course, you don't need pumps to drive the fluid. Thus the pump waste heat issues can be ignored.

[Ender]

Coruscant could very well have a stable population of a trillion, yet be capable of holding many times that number of people in either unofficial or transitory capacities (tourists, bureacrats and officials associated with the Senate in Republic times and the Empire itself in Imperial times, the countless "poor" individuals in the lower levels, Ship crews temporarily visiting the planet, etc.)

There are also sections of the planet that are abandoned (like where Dooku and Palpy hid out in AOTC) or isolated for private use (one could easily see Senators having their own private estates spanning entire football fields and it wouldn't necceesarily even take up a noticable chunk of the cityscape.)

And there is of course the fact that there are parts of Coruscant that are periodically being torn down and built back up (remember the Construction droids?)

There is also the fact that there is a difference in an American trillion and the international trillion - the latter being 10^18. It fits.

[apocolypse]

Excuse me. The lower limit is a lower limit for a reason. Assuming that most residential high flats has only a kilometer of habitable space, even though the buildings are multi-kilometer tall isn't absurd. So, I assumed that 1/3 of the space available is taken up by supporting infrastructure or wasted. What's so absurd about that? The lower levels are for all purposes abandoned by Coruscantis, only visited by scavengers or gangs.

Because you're also ignoring the hundreds of built-up layers that surrounds the skyscrapers as well. And you're also ignoring the fact that people "do" live in these lower sections. It isn't just scavengers and gangs.

Furthermore, a starship isn't a city. Every component, equipment and design on a starship must be functional. A city does not have this requirement. Furthermore, starships may very well seperate off one deck from another, such that sailors working on one deck may never see another portion of a ship. A city transportation infrastructure cannot.

I don't understand how this even relates to what I'm saying. I posted an example of tech that is not massive or vastly space consuming, and somehow you've gone off on a different tangent. My point is, is that the tech required for climate control, etc is unknown as far as size goes, but if technology like neutrino radiators are taken into consideration (which is probably tied into it), then it doesn't appear to be as substantial as you're implying.

Yes, that is true. However, the purpose of the lower limit here was to explictly demolish the "1 trillion" figures in lower canon. Even with the most restrictive limits placed on the habitable areas of Coruscant, factoring in urban decay, redundancy and sheer waste, Coruscant population cannot be lesser than tens of trillions. A mere kilometer in height of habitable space will yield a min of 80 trillion and its impossible to believe in any figure smaller than this. Even the arguments of a "transient" population is absurd, considering that NYC, Beijing and other cities include foreign/temporary workers as part of their population headcount.

I agree with you here on this, and actually the 80 trillion figure is better than what I first thought you were advocating with your "tens of trillions" as I was under the impression you were more in the 20-30 ballpark.

And what makes you think that Singapore or Hong Kong, the city states I draw my figures from has a flourishing agricultural sector? Saxton thousand trillion figure doesn't get such an easy pass.

Agriculture is only one part of it though, as far as consumable go. They import many of their goods (the Coruscantis) which is why I made the statement that I did.

[PainRack]

I'm limiting my argument towards Saxton thousand trillions estimate from now on.

My question is, how is this figure estimated?