How Is Energy Transported?
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I know they already have research stations around black holes (which is pushing it already), but a power station? How would you even transfer that energy? How would you stop the station falling into the black hole?
Hydrogen Fuel Cells.
A common misconception about Fuel Cells is that they are a energy source. They are not. The Hydrogen has to be produced (filtered out of water) using energy. That energy is (mostly) refunded when we use the Fuel Cell. Fuel Cells are a energy Transmission or Storage Medium.
A post Fusion age civilisation has propably figured out something even better then that.
What makes Fossil fuels such a good deal, is that we do not have to invest (a lot) of energy to get it.
Quantum entanglement or as it's popularly known - teleportation. Scientists have already teleported photons that way. It's also the most likely candidate for FTL communication and transportation in our lifetimes.
Singularities don't work that way. You can't really get that energy anymore than you can get energy that has been lost to entropy. And Antimatter would be amazing starship fuel, its super energy dense so you don't need to expend a lot of energy from the extra mass that is your fuel. Plus it doesn't take up much space.
Actually you can theoretically. While it stays impossible that anything can leave a black hole, it is still possible to get energy out of it (without anything leaving it). It is the same principle as Hawkins Radiation:
Basically you have a Particle and it's antiparticle just on the border. You blow them appart. The Particle becomes Power flying away from the hole, while the antiparticle drops into the black hole negating some of it's mass. Boom, energy created without anything leaving the blackhole and without breaking any physical law.
Maybe we're just thinking about it wrong. Instead of thinking of the currency as actual electricity/power, maybe the value just reprents how many energy credits of currency your civilisation EARNS by working or exploiting certain resources or buildings.
You're not actually printing money by building a power plant, you're creating power that then gets sold to the population, military and government agencies for x energy credits of value.
The Dyson Sphere produces massive amounts of credits by providing various companies and other entities with a system where power is basically limitless. I'm sure there are scientific applications and industrial processes that would eat so much energy that attempting them on a planetary surface would just be unfeasible, but conducting those processes and experiments in an otherwise unoccupied system in space via the help of the boundless energy created by the dyson sphere might be a different matter.
Instead of finding a way to transport energy that can't be intercepted, the energy credits would then instead just be transferred via accounts and used to buy energy from the nearest zero point plant, much as our bank notes used to be promisory notes representing a certain amount of gold (as it was easier to carry a slip of paper worth kgs of gold than having to pay people to lug around a heavily guarded strongbox full of rare metals).
This would also explain why credit theft isn't a thing in the game. If the energy was beamed around through empty space, I'd expect rogue elements to intercept the streams, siphon full batteries worth of current and skeedaddling before the authorities can get a navy detachment there to apprehend them - especially as it would probably take some time to find out where exactly along the line the stream was intercepted, given that at least hyperlanes and wormhole ships are unable to just cruise along the stream until they find the interloper (unless you only convey energy along the hyperlane or make special wormhole gate ships just to apprehend criminals that hide in the vast emptiness of space between stars).
It'd also make more sense than trying to beam energy, because I can't imagine a way to make beaming electricity around cheaper than just producing it on the spot.
You're not actually printing money by building a power plant, you're creating power that then gets sold to the population, military and government agencies for x energy credits of value.
The Dyson Sphere produces massive amounts of credits by providing various companies and other entities with a system where power is basically limitless. I'm sure there are scientific applications and industrial processes that would eat so much energy that attempting them on a planetary surface would just be unfeasible, but conducting those processes and experiments in an otherwise unoccupied system in space via the help of the boundless energy created by the dyson sphere might be a different matter.
Instead of finding a way to transport energy that can't be intercepted, the energy credits would then instead just be transferred via accounts and used to buy energy from the nearest zero point plant, much as our bank notes used to be promisory notes representing a certain amount of gold (as it was easier to carry a slip of paper worth kgs of gold than having to pay people to lug around a heavily guarded strongbox full of rare metals).
This would also explain why credit theft isn't a thing in the game. If the energy was beamed around through empty space, I'd expect rogue elements to intercept the streams, siphon full batteries worth of current and skeedaddling before the authorities can get a navy detachment there to apprehend them - especially as it would probably take some time to find out where exactly along the line the stream was intercepted, given that at least hyperlanes and wormhole ships are unable to just cruise along the stream until they find the interloper (unless you only convey energy along the hyperlane or make special wormhole gate ships just to apprehend criminals that hide in the vast emptiness of space between stars).
It'd also make more sense than trying to beam energy, because I can't imagine a way to make beaming electricity around cheaper than just producing it on the spot.
Not any more weird than using nuclear fission to boil water for your energy. Whenever energy changes form there's an overhead to pay. If it were today you'd probably electrolyse water for the hydrogen, but that's only because water is so abundant on Earth. I mean, you could do the same thing with liquid ammonia or methane or what have you, so probably beam the energy by laser to the nearest planet and break down whatever they have over there for hydrogen.
Using a laser for long-range transport is problematic since it's really slow, the laser will lose coherence over long distances and interstellar space isn't perfect vacuum; you've got stuff flying around that your laser will hit. Also it could be intercepted maliciously. Not to mention how incredibly well you'd have to aim it to hit a receiver a few light-years or light-centuries away.
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You are wrong. Small blackholes of a few kilograms of matter would evaporate in microseconds releasing 100% of the total mass as energy instantly.
That's not how you would do it. The way to do it is to create blackholes on the fly, containing just enough energy/matter that you need. Micro black holes evaporate insrantly converting 100% of the mass to energy.
Wouldn't that be massively inefficient considering you would have to make the singularity?
Only the first one, after that you would theoretically be able to string them along.