HyperKat Support and Tester Forum
Mars Challenger V1.0 => Mars General Discussion => Topic started by: pad69 on March 21, 2010, 01:55:01 PM
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Alright some thoughts I have had about power generation. I know some of you like the idea of nuclear some like solar some like wind but no one has considered a combination of several different ideas used together or as new idea.
I had a Idea long ago and read some Ideas and learned of some existing technology we don't use. One Idea is to anchor a massive solar array in geosynchronous orbit and convert the solar electric power into laser power. Turn the laser on a ground target which heats up water to steam same as nuclear power does now except we use the laser rather than nuclear fuel. The solar is on always and the orbit is easy since it is stationary. Also a supplement to the laser due to dust storms could be the array can also be used to transmit microwaves to the microwave collector and converted directly to useful power. We already use solar in today's deserts the lasers are replaced with the use of mirrors to track and concentrate the sun and solar power in the form of heat like a magnifying glass from the ground and they are making some more of these power plants right now. We could just use massive mirrors in space to generate the same thing to do the same job. Microwave power is a little dangerous to biological life forms so it would need an isolated operational area by the receiver but it is not radioactive. The Microwave works the same principle as a radio transmitter and receiver except the receiver doesn't convert the signal to sound so you can "Rock and Roll" but it is converted to electrical energy to use for power. You do get some loss with microwave due to hysteresis but that should be low and the heat can be used in some fashion.
Maybe some of these ideas could be used to purchase or make before the colony is set up or goal to do when the colony can afford it. Maybe the colony invents it. Maybe the colony makes it and uses it.
There future technologies like fusion power, singularity power, and permanent energized particle power.
Oh well just some thoughts for everyone to play with so have fun. ;D
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That does sound like a possibility on Mars, what with it's thin atmosphere not diffusing too much of the beam. But I'd imagine during a dust storm it would be ineffective.
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Thats some real nice sounding ideas,.. maybe for the sim for a system that needs large scale power (like a unmanned far off mining outpost) it could be said thats how it gets powered rather than simulating the process. ie a cheap way of getting over a power problem ie 'that is powered that way' in its description.. but saying that Im allways a advocate for 'keeping it real' for MCO ;)
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I think the power problem will be easily solved. Two things we can get on Mars is alcohol from black algae and Mars has chlorides we can extract so a alcohol/chlorine fuel cell will be the cheapest and easiest to sustain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
Other than that mini nukes using thorium will probably be around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
as always tho we have solar panels as a backup for trickle charging things at almost no cost.
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Sounds great Hyper- will algae farms be at bio hab? prob get some medical based materials from alage production also?
Mini nukes sound like a whole mission to me. Collection, installation, remote repair/ removal if they go wrong/leak- danger of rad poisoning.. (rad med cures?)
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I think the power problem will be easily solved. Two things we can get on Mars is alcohol from black algae and Mars has chlorides we can extract so a alcohol/chlorine fuel cell will be the cheapest and easiest to sustain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
Other than that mini nukes using thorium will probably be around.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium
as always tho we have solar panels as a backup for trickle charging things at almost no cost.
True true but I think the nuke with thorium will be the cheapest for beginnings but I thought some of the other ideas could be considered just as game advances as in future type of alternatives. I am just having some fun with other ideas. ;D
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By the way here on earth we have used and are using multiple ways to generate electrical power. chemical, wood, coal, oil, nuclear, solar, hydro as in dams waves and shoreline holes using the power of waves and most recently hydrogen as in fuel cells. We also have people using bio fuels and just recently using algae to filter of co2 and using it as food and bio fuel because the thought now is algae is what made oil in the first place . They are using the existing smoke stacks to make the algae and converting it to food and oil.
My point is there are many different ways to make electrical power and we use a lot of different ways now and have in ancient past so maybe some choices of a variety for different applications should be available as game choices. I DUNO
Some more food for thought to play with. ;D
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I agree with pad, i think there should be a bunch of viable choices available, each with there own drawback and advantages.
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If we could make solar panels on mars using martian materials I see them as viable... Otherwise probably not..
This array would only produce about 700KW of power on mars:
http://www.wapa.gov/newsroom/images/FtCarsonsolar1.jpg (I put the image as a link since it was kinda HUGE!)
A french rubis class submarine's reactor produces 48,000KW's of power... and will do so for many years without refueling. It we shipped the entire submarine including the torpedoes and exocent SM39 Mines it carries to mars it would only be about the size of ONE of the panels in the picture.
(7M wide by 6M high by 73M long)
At 300,000 USD or so per lb.... which do you think they will ship to mars?
*Smelting metals and the like could easily take a couple hundred KW of power on a decent scale. IE More than a couple KG's of ore at a time. On the bright side however, the waste heat from the process could at least keep a major hab complex on mars warm.
(I believe the Alcoa aluminum plant requires 820MW/hour to run)
*Going even smaller... Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two metres. Designed to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer, they could power a single building for up to 40 years.
They are entirely self contained, require no maintenance, and no observation. You just set them some where and you have power for 40 years. (They recommend burying it to prevent someone from stealing it.)
Will be great for places that do no have an irrational fear of nuclear power but have desperate need of electricity for humanitarian concerns such as Africa.
*And going even smaller are NASA's Stirling reactors, No one knows their final weights and dimensions but from what I have seen they are probably looking at less than 200KG in weight and fit into a space 1M/1M/1M. Course they will only produce 10-40KW... but a still will weigh a lot less than a single solar panel.
I think the power problem will be easily solved. Two things we can get on Mars is alcohol from black algae and Mars has chlorides we can extract so a alcohol/chlorine fuel cell will be the cheapest and easiest to sustain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_cell
Just want to point out, you will need to have about the same surface area of water exposed to sunshine to produce the algae as you would need for solar panels... and you would need tens of thousands of liters of water too...
Just a quick calc... 400 Watts per meter solar iradiance... 7-10 percent efficiency of capture and conversion... maybe.. Might be lower but I will use 9% efficiency... 1 meter depth to capture most of the sunlight... So that is about 36 watts for 1000 Liters of water. To produce 40KW of power then will take... 1,111,111 Liters of water. And that is only heat power...
After converting that inside of a fuel cell at 40 Percent efficiency... you would need.... a 2,777,777 Liter pond covering 2777 Square meters.
Uhh I think that is big but I am really not sure My mind does not work well in meters. I think if you take the square root of the square meters it takes it would allow me to have dimensions... so that would be (I think I am not sure) 53 Meters by 53 meters in size for the pool... Once again I really don't know how big that is...
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Couple minor potential issues with the solarsat power scheme: if the colony is at moderate to high latitudes, you'll get a probably unacceptable level of beam spread due to the rectenna being at such oblique angles to the normal of the beam. This is due to the fact that, to be geosynchronous, the sat must orbit the Martian equator, unless the array is so stupendously large as to function as a solar stator. At that point, you'd get issues with tidal forces and increased stationkeeping difficulties. Having dealt with commsats here, dust fade will be an issue, especially if there is entrained water ice with the dust storms. However, you will still suffer less LOS from atmospheric "smear" than you would on Earth. Of course, Bad Thingstm would happen from wandering too deep into the beam. Though, for short periods, wandering into the fringes might actually be beneficial to you, if not the electronics you're carrying around, due to microwave heating. Balance this against shorting and arcing through your electronic systems and it's still contraindicated to infringe on the beam :).
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I also thought geothermal but Mars shows no activity in its recent history so I guess no geothermal generation.
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I also thought geothermal but Mars shows no activity in its recent history so I guess no geothermal generation.
Yeah as far as everyone knows mars is likely to be geologically dead until you get very close to the core.... They believe there might be a small liquid core left.... But no one has the tech to drill 1000KM wells yet.
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hey profit I have always like your exactly tehnical details about Mars ;)
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Couple minor potential issues with the solarsat power scheme: if the colony is at moderate to high latitudes, you'll get a probably unacceptable level of beam spread due to the rectenna being at such oblique angles to the normal of the beam. This is due to the fact that, to be geosynchronous, the sat must orbit the Martian equator, unless the array is so stupendously large as to function as a solar stator. At that point, you'd get issues with tidal forces and increased stationkeeping difficulties. Having dealt with commsats here, dust fade will be an issue, especially if there is entrained water ice with the dust storms. However, you will still suffer less LOS from atmospheric "smear" than you would on Earth. Of course, Bad Thingstm would happen from wandering too deep into the beam. Though, for short periods, wandering into the fringes might actually be beneficial to you, if not the electronics you're carrying around, due to microwave heating. Balance this against shorting and arcing through your electronic systems and it's still contraindicated to infringe on the beam :).
Actually the beam power would likely be low enough you would not be able to feel it or have it damage electronics, but due to beam dispersal unless we can discover some form of "Maser" or something, the collection area to gather most of a beam would be enormous.... (IE: hundreds of square miles.) Not that it is undoable... I believe if I am recalling right when I looked up the idea when I was playing simcity that the capture array could be mostly open space.
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hey profit I have always like your exactly tehnical details about Mars ;)
LOL, I am only as knowledgeable about mars as Google is...
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We could always go with the Pedal your way to electricity... keeps you trim... and alive....
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Hmmm.... Pedal power...
http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generator.php says the average person can probably produce about 150 watts while they are pedaling sustainibly.... I really doubt someone could keep up that pace for more than an hour but it would be a little bit of extra power.
And you are right that we would need to stay in shape while on mars due to the lower gravity.
This would also help offset the load from the heater, as the generator and you on the bike would both throw off significant amounts of heat (Think of how much heat a motor throws off while it is running, and how hot you get when you are working hard.)
the extra 150 watts or so would be a pittance, but the added heat to the hab would probably be somewhere in the range of 750-2000 watts per hour you were on it. That would translate directly into energy that would not be needed to be sent to the heater.
So... Overall.... You would produce about 900 to 2150 watts of power per hour for the hab. Mostly in heater savings but honestly it does not matter where it comes from as it would add significantly to the power budget. *Certainly more so than the pittance of solar panels really would that we currently have. They should produce about 50-80 watts an hour.
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Hmmm.... Pedal power...
http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generator.php says the average person can probably produce about 150 watts while they are pedaling sustainibly.... I really doubt someone could keep up that pace for more than an hour but it would be a little bit of extra power.
And you are right that we would need to stay in shape while on mars due to the lower gravity.
This would also help offset the load from the heater, as the generator and you on the bike would both throw off significant amounts of heat (Think of how much heat a motor throws off while it is running, and how hot you get when you are working hard.)
the extra 150 watts or so would be a pittance, but the added heat to the hab would probably be somewhere in the range of 750-2000 watts per hour you were on it. That would translate directly into energy that would not be needed to be sent to the heater.
So... Overall.... You would produce about 900 to 2150 watts of power per hour for the hab. Mostly in heater savings but honestly it does not matter where it comes from as it would add significantly to the power budget. *Certainly more so than the pittance of solar panels really would that we currently have. They should produce about 50-80 watts an hour.
Guess it's worth noting that you would be converting the food you ate into energy. Meaning a constant supply of food would be needed.
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Very true. You would need to increase your diet dramatically if you were on one of these constantly.
Possibly more than quadruple the number of calories required if you were really seriously on it all the time and it was made to be like an elliptical machine where you could also use your arms. *Michael Phelps requires 5x the number of calories as an average American. Eating up to 12,000 calories in a day. So 8000 is high but not an impossible energy expenditure.
Also should be noted that this would require massive amounts of o2 and create a large amount of co2
But... Once again it would be good for their health.
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I'm sure we could use the excess CO2 for something in smelting, the petal power wasn't entirely serious, although it looks we could run with it.
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We could always go with the Pedal your way to electricity... keeps you trim... and alive....
We could use humans like in the movie Matrix! lol ;D
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If Mars colonists doesn't excersize they'r maximum stamina level will drop significally, and if they doesn't excersize regulary for a long time also they's maximum life's level will drop. [Health & Stamina would recover to a certain level, but not uver it]
While training they use more oxygen and afterwards they get thirsty and need food for the calories.
In MCO player should train about 2-5 minutes per 1 h of gameplay. Once a while astronauts have they'r body's performance check while doing a special excersize - like the modification of "Harvard's Test" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Step_Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Step_Test).
They'r pulse, breatch rate, pressure, stamina recoverry and other are beying tested, and as a resoult they know if the astronaut trained enought or to little. The test doesn't take long. In game it could be like 20 sec. :)
If someone excersizes more then the minimum needed (for a long time) maybe he will gain beter stamina recovery/maximum health?
But taking electric energy from excersizing is just....stupid to me :P (sry!)
EDIT: on the other hand CO2 - should be stored and transfered to the greenhouse. Plant's love when ther's more CO2 in the air - humans DON'T ;D
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Hmmm.... Pedal power...
http://www.windstreampower.com/Bike_Power_Generator.php says the average person can probably produce about 150 watts while they are pedaling sustainibly.... I really doubt someone could keep up that pace for more than an hour but it would be a little bit of extra power.
And you are right that we would need to stay in shape while on mars due to the lower gravity.
This would also help offset the load from the heater, as the generator and you on the bike would both throw off significant amounts of heat (Think of how much heat a motor throws off while it is running, and how hot you get when you are working hard.)
the extra 150 watts or so would be a pittance, but the added heat to the hab would probably be somewhere in the range of 750-2000 watts per hour you were on it. That would translate directly into energy that would not be needed to be sent to the heater.
So... Overall.... You would produce about 900 to 2150 watts of power per hour for the hab. Mostly in heater savings but honestly it does not matter where it comes from as it would add significantly to the power budget. *Certainly more so than the pittance of solar panels really would that we currently have. They should produce about 50-80 watts an hour.
Genetically modified super hamsters anyone??
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If Mars colonists doesn't excersize they'r maximum stamina level will drop significally, and if they doesn't excersize regulary for a long time also they's maximum life's level will drop. [Health & Stamina would recover to a certain level, but not uver it]
While training they use more oxygen and afterwards they get thirsty and need food for the calories.
In MCO player should train about 2-5 minutes per 1 h of gameplay. Once a while astronauts have they'r body's performance check while doing a special excersize - like the modification of "Harvard's Test" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Step_Test (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Step_Test).
They'r pulse, breatch rate, pressure, stamina recoverry and other are beying tested, and as a resoult they know if the astronaut trained enought or to little. The test doesn't take long. In game it could be like 20 sec. :)
If someone excersizes more then the minimum needed (for a long time) maybe he will gain beter stamina recovery/maximum health?
But taking electric energy from excersizing is just....stupid to me :P (sry!)
EDIT: on the other hand CO2 - should be stored and transfered to the greenhouse. Plant's love when ther's more CO2 in the air - humans DON'T ;D
Is a good point, Mars a 1/6th of Earth Gravity yes? so guessing generally pepole would need to exersise more (6 times as more??) to maintain fitness level? Saying that, an EVA would be knakering, so exersise could be gained from EVA's - as far as food nutrition levels Vs general health and energy/fitness I think has been discussed and to an extent is in game (plants/meat harvested to early wont give as much stam as food harvested at later or correct time)- also, the ideas of radiation poisoning, sickness and colds/flus/virus- have been disscused and again I think are in the code, but not yet implemented.. Theres a medical system in place, which I am guessing will be worked on later..
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Regarding the capture of the beamed power, coliminated, or "maser" technology is already a somewhat mature technology, as microwave radio transmission towers have been around for at least 20 years. Admittedly, hitting a 3 meter dish at 70 miles is somewhat different from hitting from martian geosynchronous orbit (10600+ miles). This would still require a rectenna roughly a kilometer across for high-intensity microwave transmissions. Lower powered transmissions would require larger collectors, up to 10 km along the major axis, depending on the latitude of the receiving station. The smaller axis length is due to the fact that Martian geosync satellites orbit at about 2/3 the altitude of Earth geosync sats. Martian atmosphere is essentially transparent to EM radiation from ~.1 to 1 meter wavelength. Power transmission is based on amplitude and frequency. However, you start running into CO2 absorption at the higher freq end of this spectrum. The rectenna would require a grid of wires spaced at 2 * wavelength intervals. So, yes, a fair bit of empty space. Since these wire are fairly thin (1-2 cm apiece) they could be mounted on poles above the colony if the lower-powered option was chosen. Since the rectenna could reasonably be expected to pull 5+ GW of power, it might be possible to subdivide the rectenna with proper diode alignment so that each hab has its own draw from the overall rectenna. This would, in turn, raise all sorts alternate missions to service said rectenna. To note, though, this would be a MAJOR undertaking to emplace the poles and string the wires / wire bundles. Definately not something a newly established colony would have immediately available.
Edit:
Gah, just noticed a major error: the grid spacing would be 1/2 wavelength, not 2 * wavelength. Stupid mistake.
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OK, it seems you know your stuff- but remember MCO is a sim, so allthough it leans to the realistic nature, being a sim allows us to bend the rules, allthough unrealistic in actual setting such a system up,.. at the moment it seems, so is setting up a colony on mars :'( for at least 50 years or so it seems, unless of course the chinese get there first, or we find oil lol up there.. so allthougth 'cheating' I could live with a way of getting over a situation, by description of how something is done and letting it happen in the sim- allows for refining the simulators smaller issues???
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ELFs (Extremely long frequencies) cause a lot of radiation during operation, via long cables.
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True, but ELF is ~3 - 30 Hz, SPSs operate at ~3 GHz. I have little direct experience with long-line radiative issues with this freq, as most of my experience has been with 5 - 15m dishes...
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Sounds like you work with that type of tech..but if you had too, what kinda power set up would you have if you had to go to Mars.. It has to be considered that from a gamers point of view, It shouldnt be fool proof, or be 'unlimited' or just 'switch on power generator ' and massive power is gained using tech of the future- needs a system where power has to be created, controlled and suits the needs of the sim.. I know I quoted earlier that we can sorta cheat and say, this is powered by this methord thats why it works, but that was for something in the sim like an orbiting ship, a tunneling machine or far off outpost we dont really vist...
Theres PVA's becouse, it makes players think about power generation and control, for nightime operations- allows for maintenace and repair tasks too
Fuel cells again, create a situation where planning ahead and thought is needed to maintain. All the systems all linked so closely, that one overlooked sub-system has a knock on effect with others.. the future with Thorium mini-reactors will have an element of pre-thought, safety exlusions, maintence, leaks, rad poisioning- disposal etc..
Hyper's exellent thought through system, as a sim is a marvel itself- yes, be nice to have alts for power and as set in future allows for multiple theoretical and known choices, but must be thought of in gaming potential first--- IMHO lol ;D but Im still into the Genetically modified super hamsters forced to run in wheels lol joking..
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To be honest, what type of power generation would depend on what "tech level" we were willing to put in the sim, as having a sufficiently sized satellite to provide decent amounts of power will likely take advances in material sciences and control logic to maintain a 1km+ diameter solar collection panel array / steam generator and the lift capacity to haul multiple tens or even hundreds of tons of components to Mars orbit and assemble in place. Further, we'd have to determine at what level of development the colony would be at. A newly established colony has higher priorities than emplacing dozens of poles and stringing miles of copper and diodes between them. Another consideration would be the number of colonists expected. Low numbers would require far too much maintainance to be cost-effective, even without people running rovers into poles. If nothing else, having to go blow off electrostaticly charged dust off the wires after a major storm would be ... man-power intensive. For a new colony with near-current tech and a small to moderate colonist base, fuel cells, Stirling reactors, RTGs, etc. would probably be more manageable and feasible than SPS. Now that's not to say that we would want to abandon it completely, but I would be surprised if it was a major concern for getting the simulation off the ground.