this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
16 points (100.0% liked)

askchapo

23152 readers
125 users here now

Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.

Rules:

  1. Posts must ask a question.

  2. If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.

  3. Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.

  4. Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Scenario: Aliens gift humanity some mega power plant that runs off a black hole or some shit. Maybe it's a quantum time battery or perpetual motion machine, whatever.

If we plopped it somewhere on Earth, could humanity build infrastructure across the globe to provide everyone with near unlimited clean electricity?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] BynarsAreOk@hexbear.net 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

A staple of Sci-fi like Star Trek is that not just power generation, but storage and transmission are also trivial. They have any number of ways to transmit energy across large distances, between ships etc.

As an example, this already exists: In a First, Caltech's Space Solar Power Demonstrator Wirelessly Transmits Power in Space

I imagine one of the ways for planet level energy generation would be solar panels in space and transmitting to earth somehow. I don't know whether that is feasible IRL anytime in the next 200 years but in a "sci fi setting" its probably the most reasonable idea that is not just "magic" IMO.

So maybe one realy big solar panel array, or a planet wide coverage of many smaller arrays coordinated for sharing load with dozens of transmission points down to Earth would be my solution to your question.