The power consumption in Human space [George Tell us!]

[FourFire]

The following exchange happened in IRC

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 FourFire: we globally are only using ~400 000 000 MWh/Day
 FourFire: could we calculate approximately how much power The trans universe uses on average?
 FourFire: worldwide we use 17 000 000 MegaWatts
 digdug: FourFire, as in realistic fusion power consumption calculated on He3 fusion reaction or theoretically for human space ?
 FourFire: how many ships are there on average per station in trans?
 FourFire: No based on the reactors installed in the starter ships
 digdug: i would say 4
 FourFire: and how many of those are flying around
 FourFire: ok so 4 ships per station
 FourFire: how many stations per system on average?
 digdug: mmhh, 4-5 in remote empty systems, up to 15-18 for busy systems
 digdug: st kat even more
 digdug: let's say 8 as an average ?
 FourFire: ok so there's 25 systems total
 digdug: 25*8*4 ?
 FourFire: 200 stations in the game: 800 ships
 FourFire: what's the average reactor going to be?
 digdug: mmhhh
 FourFire: SN150? 250?
 digdug: i was going to say 15-20 MW :P
 digdug: most ships are small
 FourFire: yeah but the lategame... ok say 25 MW  to make up for the larger ships in lategame
 digdug: even in lategame, most ships are small
 FourFire: all the ares ships though...
 FourFire: ok so 25MW* 800 ships
 FourFire: 20 000MW is the energy use of human space
 digdug: i calculated an average of 71MW per ship
 FourFire: that's very little in comparison to earth's current 17 000 000MW
 digdug: by doing a simple averaged distribution of the reactors
 FourFire: ok I'l try again with 75 (for more buffer)
 digdug: ok
 FourFire: 60 000 MW 1/283 of current energy
 FourFire: that sounds like a major downfall
 digdug: interesting
 FourFire: the syrtis war really nearly killed everyone
 digdug: or sounds like a major tech advancement :D
 FourFire: but then the game is incomplete
 FourFire: no industry, no shipyards no item manufactories
 FourFire: lets try again using numbers from The Network
 FourFire: How many systems are in the network
 digdug: you know, most of the energy on the planet atm is used for metal foundries, transport, cement production and major chemical processes like steam reforming, ammonia production and cracking
 FourFire: same average of stations/system and ships/station
 FourFire: yeah, all things you'd need in a modern spacefaring civilization
 FourFire: quick count/estimate is 114 systems
 FourFire: say 115
 digdug: ok
 FourFire: 267 000MW
 FourFire: that's better
 digdug: brb
 digdug: yeah
 RPC: FourFire, put ideas on forums?

Now how much power does stations use?
Where Does Human space rank on the Kardashev Scale?

[george moromisato]

A few random notes:

1. By the middle of the 21st century, population growth was negative. In 2008, the European Union had a fertility rate of 1.6 children per female, which is less than replacement rate. If you imagine everyone on Earth developing up to EU standards, then you can imagine negative population growth. In the Transcendence Universe, Earth's population follows the UN's "low estimate prediction", which calls for around 6 billion people by 2100 (fewer than in 2013).

2. After the Syrtis War, Earth was devastated; perhaps 500 million were killed, mostly indirectly through disease and starvation. The remaining population continued to shrink, mostly because young people ended up leaving to other (more prosperous) star systems. By 2400, the population on Earth was probably around 1 billion.

3. The 2008 European Union per-capita rate of energy consumption was ~40 MWh, so the Earth's total consumption per year in 2400, was 40 PWh (40 petawatt-hours or 40,000 terawatt-hours).

4. The population of stations is much smaller than worlds. A large station like a Commonwealth station might have a population of about 1 million; but there aren't too many of these around. My guess is about 1 billion humans and neo-humans scattered around Human Space living in stations.

5. The per-capita energy consumption in space is probably much higher than Earth's, maybe by a factor of 2 or 3, so assume around 80-120 PWh per year.

6. St. Kats has a (barely) habitable planet (Incandescent), but its population is small (tens of millions?). By the time humans reached Incandescent (in the 2120s) human civilization had already adapted to space and the inconvenience of a planetary gravity well made large-scale colonization undesirable. Their per-capital energy consumption is probably 80 MWh and their total consumption around 1.6 PWh.

7. The Ares have their own world, somewhat like Mars, with a population of a few hundred million. Total annual consumption is around 20 PWh.

8. A single 1 GW reactor, if it ran a maximum output for a full year, would consume ~8.7 TWh. You would need 114 reactors running full time to consume 1 PWh in a year.

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TL;DR: Total annual energy consumption for all of Human Space, including all stations and three planets =

160 +/- 20 petawatt-hours

This is roughly equal to the energy consumption on Earth in 2008. Note, however, that I might have underestimated the per-capita energy consumption (in item #5 above). I could see arguments for much higher values.

[Ttech]

nice! need to get some short stories based off of this

[pixelfck]

I always wondered why the fusion reactors in transcendence accept antimatter fuel, in fact, most reactors are hybrid reactors if you take a look at the fuel they can consume.
Also, the amount of energy stored per KG of fuel items is waaaay too low and/or reactor efficiency is so bad that fosil fuel combustion engines are the summum of technological wonder (pick one).

Anyhow, I came to the conclusion just not to look at those mechanics too closely : )

[Jay2Jay]

Well we can at least assume that at this point we are using muon-catalyzed fusion to make our reactors. We can assume this because at this point it is simple to make muons, simply direct cosmic rays (specifically protons going near to c) through oxygen/nitrogen mixture to make the muons and catch them with electromagnetic fields. Once suspended they would be used to replace the electrons in the Hydrogen/Helium and presto! Instant fusion at room tempurates (popularly known as cold fusion). So in reality power should not be an issue, and fuel extrememly cheap as even the most inefficient fusion reactor can create hundreds of megawatt hours. Plus, what kind of kinetic weapon uses mw of power? THe only thing I can think of is a railgun, but that uses Gigawatts (unless you want to make an extremely small and low powered railgun) or maybe a coil gun? But the Akan should really use far less energy to activate tahn it soes.

[Ttech]

I always wondered why the fusion reactors in transcendence accept antimatter fuel, in fact, most reactors are hybrid reactors if you take a look at the fuel they can consume.
Also, the amount of energy stored per KG of fuel items is waaaay too low and/or reactor efficiency is so bad that fosil fuel combustion engines are the summum of technological wonder (pick one).

Anyhow, I came to the conclusion just not to look at those mechanics too closely : )

*cough* we still use gas engines and things to make steam to power devices. None of which is very efficient

[PM]

Reactor efficiency is terrible for players, almost as bad as food consumption in Nethack or health drain in Gauntlet (though justified in the latter, being a quarter-muncher). If NPCs had to worry about fuel like the player, we should see many wrecked ships that ran out of fuel due to their power-hungry configurations.

[FourFire]

Plus, what kind of kinetic weapon uses mw of power? THe only thing I can think of is a railgun, but that uses Gigawatts (unless you want to make an extremely small and low powered railgun) or maybe a coil gun? But the Akan should really use far less energy to activate tahn it soes.

The type of kinetic weapon which accelerates it's projectile to 0.9c (and also doesn't use ammo)

George thanks for your informative answer, that seems to have cleared up the question, and now that we have approximate population numbers we can extrapolate that owning a private ship is a luxury reserved only for the most privileged of people: like owning a plane is for people today.