Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur cover image

The Megastructure Compendium

Science & Futurism with Isaac Arthur

00:00

Black Hole Power Sources

Black holes may generate power in multiple fashions. Small ones, typically by hawking radiation. Large ones by dropping matter to them and collecting the radiation coming off them from their acceleration or orbital collision in the accretion disc. Because of their very efficient nature, they have incredible service lifetimes. A 100 megawat hawking generator has a service lifetime of ten trillion years. At a mass of one point nine giga tons, able to generate comfortable gravity to a large personal habitat or building. Alternatively, drip feeding the sun's mass into a black hole to power at perhaps 20 % mass to energy conversion at a rate of 20 mega tons per second would produce the same energy as our

Play episode from 23:57
Transcript

The AI-powered Podcast Player

Save insights by tapping your headphones, chat with episodes, discover the best highlights - and more!
App store bannerPlay store banner
Get the app