types of energies

I do not know if we have already talked about this, but it would be interesting to discuss about the types of energy we can use the various nations.

You should also distinguish from renewable and non-renewable.

Non-renewable resources should not be to force the oil (hydrocarbon), but may be other types of substances that depend on the type of planet.
Many planets are beings full of methane, for example.

As i see it, everything is really non-renewable, or renewable, depending on how you see it.

If you see oil, it is renewing constantly, it is just that it takes millions of years to renew the amount we spend in one year.

Another example is oxygen. the amount of oxygen we use is really low in comparison to how fast it is produced by plants. But if we start to use it at a faster rate of wich it is produced, we would run out of it.

I propose just having resources be automatically produced by the environement and stockpile, and leave the (non)-renewable thing just be the comparison between how fast it is produced and how fast the nations use it.

Nice idea. So, should we instead distinguish between energy sources which are and are not stockpiled naturally?

For example:
Stockpiled - Oil, coal, wood, organic waste
Non-stockpiled - Solar, wind, tidal, geothermal*

*Actually, would the Earth's heat just be the result of one huge stockpile of kinetic energy from the planet's formation? Though tidal forces would heat the planet too… I think we need an astronomer/geologist for this one.


I think each type of energy should have a ‘production rate’ and ‘stockpile retention’ value, based on certain factors.

For example:
Production rate of solar energy is determined by factors such as system's sun's light output, atmospheric density, and latitude.
Stockpile retention of coal is determined by factors such as crust thickness and the planet's geological state.


I think I sense the imminent birth of a new brainstorming thread.

Ok, you got me there (more or less).

Solar energy is actually produced by the sun at the cost of hydrogen and helium nuclei (when it runs out of them it condenses into a dwarf). Actually this energy is not stockpiled directly. But it is used to creato other energies. Wind and water's kinetic energy (like rivers) is caused by it.

That two energies are in some way stockpiled. you can only get so much energy from wind. every time wind passes thru a (optimal) wind turbine its speed goes down by 1/3. Something similar happen with water. I'm not really sure about tidal, i just know it comes from gravitation effects.

I would code them just as having some generation rate and not being stockpiled.

From what i beliebe, geoothermal energy (heat) is just at the core of the earth, not generating at all and only losing energy slowly. this means the energy from the core of the earth will eventually run out, and without it we will freeze. This alone is a good point to open a new thread. This means the energy is stockpiled and its production rate is negative.

Kinetic energy from the core is another thing. It becomes heat from friction, and generates the magnetic field (because the core is made from iron). This rotating core is because at the earth creation, its rotarion was 20 times faster. While the surface has slowed down, the core has not.


I like this idea, and as long as we keep them simple is should be doable code-wise. Should we (I) start a new post or stay at this one.

This is the topic of this thread, so I think this thread is fine.

I think for now we can leave out the maths, and we don't need to go into too much accuracy with the factors (such as the number of butterflies trodden on annually)

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Things affecting the rate of an energy's conversion:
Production Rate (PR) - Factors affecting the rate of a resource's/energy's natural rate of production
Production Rate* (PR*) - Situations when the game should procedurally generate the resource/energy itself, rather than a producer of it
Harvest Rate (HR) - Factors affecting the rate at which a resource/energy-type can be harvested
Natural Stockpile Retention (nSR) - Factors affecting how effectively a stockpile is retained in nature
Harvested Stockpile Retention (hSR) - Factors affecting how effectively a stockpile is retained once collected by a civilisation

Conversion Rate (CR) - The energy conversion speed and efficiency of a conversion TO - these factors apply to everything listed

------------------------------

Layout:
Energy source
Production Rate (PR) - Factors
Production Rate* (PR*) - Procedural generation systems
Harvest rate (HR) - Factors
Natural Stockpile Retention (nSR) - Factors
Harvested Stockpile Retention (hSR) - Factors

∞ means the stockpile can be retained indefinitely, or signifies an infinite production rate.

------------------------------

Fuel-To-Energy Conversion:
Fossil Fuels
PR - Amount of life on planet
PR* - Planet generation (if life is present)
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - Length of time a planet's crust section is solid
hSR - ∞

Easily Fissionable Elements
PR - Supernova production rate of heavy elements
PR* - Planet generation, stellar object generation
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - Atomic decay rate of element used
hSR - Atomic decay rate of element used

Easily Fusible elements
PR - N/A
PR* - Star generation, planet generation, stellar object generation
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - ∞
hSR - ∞

Wood
PR - Population growth rate of woody plants, amount of wood on the plant species
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - Plants' lifespans (i.e. amount of living or recently deceased plants)
hSR - ∞

Organic Waste
PR - Organic population
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - Amount of nearby decomposers (though we could probably just make this a constant)
hSR - Accessibility of decomposers to the resource

Food (A different kind of energy source, but still an energy source, we might as well include foods here)
PR - Population growth of food producing organisms
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors, domestication level of organisms
nSR - Life span of involved organism(s)
hSR - Accessibility of decomposers to the resource

Direct (Matter To Energy) Conversion
PR - N/A
PR* - All procedural generation systems
HR - Speed & quantity & efficiency of resource collectors
nSR - ∞
hSR - ∞

Energy-To-Energy:
Solar
PR - Solar-system's star's light output
HR - Atmospheric density, atmospheric thickness, atmospheric composition, size of solar panel

Fluid Currents
PR - Tidal forces acting on the fluid body, varying temperature levels in different areas of the fluid
PR* - Planet generation
HR - Span of rotors, thickness of rotors

Tidal
PR - Tidal forces on the planet
HR - Span of rotors, thickness of rotors

Hydroelectric
PR - Gravitationally induced downward flow of water (or another fluid) across a slanted landscape
HR - Amount of water harnessed, rate of flow

Geothermal
PR* - Planet generation
HR - Amount of liquid used, rate of flow

Thermoelectric
PR - Energy conversions
PR* - All procedural generation systems
HR - Amount of nearby heat, Conversion Rate

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Since this is the ‘types of energy’ thread, I ought to list the types of energy (from Wikipedia) (explanations credited to Daniferrito):

• Thermal energy, thermal energy in transit is called heat Usable, but sometimes hard to use due to it being chaotic It is really chaotic mechanical energy
  
• Chemical energy Usually not proffitable, but the only way we know of storing electicity It really comes from E=mc²
  
• Electric energy The most usefull energy for man, as it is easily transfered and converted Just an specific kind of potential energy
  
• Radiant energy, the energy of electromagnetic radiation Can be used by solar panels to create electricity. Usually it is converted to thermal energy It is electric and magnetic energy rapidly changing from one another
  
• Nuclear energy Usefull, but somewhat high end Directly comes from E=mc²
  
• Magnetic energy An intermediate energy from Mechanical energy to electric energy, but not really usefull on its own as energy source Just an specific kind of potential energy
  
• Elastic energy An specific kind of potential energy, but not profitable It is formed from elastic (potential) energy and mechanical energy in a similar way of radiant energy
  
• Sound energy Similar to thermal, but a bit more organized. Not usefull as it is found really low quantities
  
• Mechanical energy The main way of transforming any energy to electric energy. It is composed of kinetic and potential energy, and it is usually called momentum
  
• Luminous energy A specific kind of radiant energy, dont know why this is here
  
• Mass (E=mc²)

I'm not sure how will this interferewith the compound system, but if we keep it tied to energy sources it should be fine, i think

Ok, here are some of my own:

Nuclear:
Fision (easily fissioned nuclei)
Production Rate (PR) - None (?) I know some radioactive substances are natually generated
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Really low natural decay
Heavy elements (anything beyond iron) are generated at exploding supernovas, so this doesent refill itself

Fusion (Mainly hydrogen)
Production Rate (PR) - N/A
Stockpile Retention (SR) - N/A
Not sure if this fits, as hydrogen is the most abundant element on the universe, and if we asume life needs lots of water, the original planet's water will be enough to fuel this energy untill they get to the stars.

Matter
Production Rate (PR) - N/A
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Really low decay of matter
In order to fuel the god tools, we would need HUGE amounts of energy. In order to create a planet, if we keep thermodynamic laws, we would need to have burned 1.5 planets (due to energy loss) into energy before. I sugest just taking that matter from the planet's mass.

More human-like energies:
Water's kinetic energy (Hydropower)
Production Rate (PR) - Amount of water, speed/height of water
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Amount, size and height of lakes over the sea's level

Geothermal
Production Rate (PR) - None (Correct me if i'm wrong)
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Composition of planet (or even just a static small number)
Geothermal energy is stored as heat in the planet core, if a specie starts to use it massively, they can actually deplete it, cooling the planet's surface


I dont know how much deep to go. If we take into acount what could potentially be a source of energy, we could count earth's nucleum rotation, earth's magnetic field (which is a byproduct of the last), solar flares, cosmic microwave radiation,...

We could dream of everything being a possible source of energy, but before we go much deeper, i think we need to place a stop sign somewhere. Anyway, i think all human-like energy sources are alredy covered.

Planetary Kinetic Energy
PR: Spin of planet
SR: Very low, however it is non renewable

There should be some way to extract the kinetic energy from a planets rotation. I think you can fly a spaceship past it and it gains some speed from tidal forces, which could then be turned into useful energy.

The Uteen wrote:

This is the topic of this thread, so I think this thread is fine.

I think for now we can leave out the maths, and we don't need to go into too much accuracy with the factors (such as the number of butterflies trodden on annually)

So, if we're going to brainstorm some things, I think we should organise them something like this:

Layout:
Energy source
Production Rate (PR) - factors, other factors
Stockpile Retention (SR) - factors, other factors

------------------------------

Stockpiled:
Fossil Fuels
PR - Amount of life on planet
SR - Length of time a crust section is solid

Wood
PR - Population growth rate of woody plants, amount of wood on the plant species
SR - Plants' lifespans (i.e. amount of living or recently deceased plants)

Organic Waste
PR - Organic population
SR - Amount of nearby decomposers (though we could probably just make this a constant)

Food - Fruit & Veg (A different kind of energy source, but still an energy source, we might as well include foods here)
PR - Population growth of fruit or vegetable producing organisms
SR - Life span of involved organism(s)

Non-stockpiled:
Solar
PR - Solar-system's star's light output, atmospheric density, atmospheric thickness, atmospheric composition
SR - N/A

Wind
PR - Tidal forces on the planet, solar-system's star's light output
SR - N/A

Tidal
PR - Tidal forces on the planet
SR - N/A

-----------------------------

I suppose I will keep this post up to date with any suggestion's.

I'd suggest ‘wax or wax equivalents’ (which can't be burnt, but can fuel a flame, like in candles), if anyone understand the process, and what exactly can be used in it.

as non-renewable stocks is necessary to add all those materials (such as silicon, helium-3, iron ....) that depending on the planet change of percentage or in some planets the presence of a given material is also absent.

Doggit wrote:

as non-renewable stocks is necessary to add all those materials (such as silicon, helium-3, iron ....) that depending on the planet change of percentage or in some planets the presence of a given material is also absent.

We are speaking about energy sorces only, for materials and resources, go to the compound thread.

Firstly, thanks for the suggestions, everyone.

Daniferrito wrote:

Doggit wrote:

as non-renewable stocks is necessary to add all those materials (such as silicon, helium-3, iron ....) that depending on the planet change of percentage or in some planets the presence of a given material is also absent.

We are speaking about energy sorces only, for materials and resources, go to the compound thread.

Materials that can be used as a source of energy are fine, but materials like iron and silicon generally aren't useful for that.

Daniferrito wrote:

Nuclear:
Fision (easily fissioned nuclei)
Production Rate (PR) - None (?) I know some radioactive substances are natually generated
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Really low natural decay
Heavy elements (anything beyond iron) are generated at exploding supernovas, so this doesent refill itself
If we have to make the material artificially to use it, it isn't really an energy source, so we should stick to naturally occurring rare earth elements for this. We can just put supernovae for now, since interstellar civilisation may be able to capture the debris later in the game. On a planet, however, the production rate would indeed be zero.

Fusion (Mainly hydrogen)
Production Rate (PR) - N/A
Stockpile Retention (SR) - N/A
Not sure if this fits, as hydrogen is the most abundant element on the universe, and if we asume life needs lots of water, the original planet's water will be enough to fuel this energy untill they get to the stars.
This is something to consider, but as far as I know we haven't yet been able to efficiently get a good amount of power in this way (discounting solar energy), due to the amount of energy required to make atoms fuse. However, it isn't unthinkable that a solution will arise in the future, so we could just be a bit ambiguous about it for now.

Matter
Production Rate (PR) - N/A
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Really low decay of matter Let's just say infinite, most natural matter is pretty stable.
In order to fuel the god tools, we would need HUGE amounts of energy. In order to create a planet, if we keep thermodynamic laws, we would need to have burned 1.5 planets (due to energy loss) into energy before. I sugest just taking that matter from the planet's mass.
A good global energy source for the final days of physical civilisation, I like it.

More human-like energies:
Water's kinetic energy (Hydropower)
Production Rate (PR) - Amount of water, speed/height of water i.e. rate of flow
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Amount, size and height of lakes over the sea's level This could get away with being non-stockpiled, but yes, lakes do provide a short-lasting stockpile.


Geothermal
Production Rate (PR) - None (Correct me if i'm wrong) This depends on the formation of the planet, which we definitely wont be simulating with any sort of accuracy, so none should be fine.
Stockpile Retention (SR) - Composition of planet (or even just a static small number), size of planet should also be a factor (reduced heat loss)
Geothermal energy is stored as heat in the planet core, if a specie starts to use it massively, they can actually deplete it, cooling the planet's surface


I dont know how much deep to go. If we take into acount what could potentially be a source of energy, we could count earth's nucleum rotation, earth's magnetic field (which is a byproduct of the last), solar flares, cosmic microwave radiation,...

We could dream of everything being a possible source of energy, but before we go much deeper, i think we need to place a stop sign somewhere. Anyway, i think all human-like energy sources are alredy covered.

Harnessing the power of the CMBR sounds pretty cool, but is definitely not something we should include. You have a good point.

I'll get adding the suggestion to my post.

Holomanga wrote:

Planetary Kinetic Energy
PR: Spin of planet
SR: Very low, however it is non renewable

There should be some way to extract the kinetic energy from a planets rotation. I think you can fly a spaceship past it and it gains some speed from tidal forces, which could then be turned into useful energy.

I think this is basically how the slingshot effect works, though the slowing of rotation is negligible, so the stockpile retention is pretty much infinite. Nice idea.

EDIT: Ideas have been added.

The Uteen wrote:

Holomanga wrote:

Planetary Kinetic Energy
PR: Spin of planet
SR: Very low, however it is non renewable

There should be some way to extract the kinetic energy from a planets rotation. I think you can fly a spaceship past it and it gains some speed from tidal forces, which could then be turned into useful energy.

I think this is basically how the slingshot effect works, though the slowing of rotation is negligible, so the stockpile retention is pretty much infinite. Nice idea.

If you are speaking about this, it doesent afect the planet's rotation, but its momentum. When you gain momentum for your ship, you are stealing it from the planet's momentum.

This is actually really easy to implement if we make dinamic solar systems, as the effect is derived from gravitatioin laws. We just need to give the ship a mass, position and speed and ad it to the gravitation system.

However, due to the amount of calculus and exactitude needed to perform the slingshot, i dont see it being viable unless we add a tool that calculates the right trajectory for the player.

EDIT: Can you explain a bit more what do you mean by retention rate? I still dont fully grasp its meaning

Thanks for the correction, though it wont really affect gameplay (and if it does, we'll know something's wrong).


In trying to give an explanation, I realised the definitions of the terms were quite vague, so I've extended the list of factor groupings, making them more precise, and added explanations for each. Hopefully it's a little more understandable now.

I'm not sure whether that is clearer or darker, but i'm having a bad time trying to understaund. Let me know if my assumptions are right:

PR: The amount of energy each entity adds to the stockpile
PR*: The amount of energy the game adds to the stockpile directly.

HR: How fast it can be harvested by the creatures
nSR: How fast it gets dissipated/destroyed/unussable by nature/other uncontrollable means
hSR: ???

If that is right, i have some corrections about some of the energy sources you have up there:

Fossil Fuels: I dont get what do you mean by the PR*, if you mean it should be generated on the planet regardless of life on it, it's not correct. Fossil fuels are from fossilized plants/animals (mostly plants), and through heat and pressure, it becomes fuel. If a planet had no life on it, it wont have fossil fuels.

Easyly Fussible Elements: Hydrogen and hellium are not generated at stars, they are consumed. Stars fuse hydrogen and hellium in order to create heavier elements (up to iron) and energy. So PR is really nSR. PR* is right if you mean the light elements are generated when a star/planet is generated.

Wood: I believe the second line is just a typo

Direct Matter To Energy Conversion: You are kind of right, but the right phrasing is "Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, only transformed". That is the first law of thermodynamics. Matter in nothing more than a specific kind of energy, so it can be transformed into usable energy, and back.

Hydroelectric: Just call it water, or much better, liquid (althrough i dont think any other liquid would be suitable and abundant enough to produce energy)

Slingshot efect: Momentum (Mechanical energy) is not generated by planets (again first law of thermodynamics), so i would take off the PR. Anyway, i cant even dream of a way to use the effect to get usable energy other than more momentum.


Another factor we need to add is how much energy is every unit of energy source worth. Like matter to energy E=mc². For efficiency we can use this page.

Spoiler about energy sources:

Spoiler:

Ok, i get it much better now. I saw the definitions, but i didnt get hSR. (I still dont get it)

About the hydroelecric, i meant wording it

PR - Natural convergence of water (or suitable liquid)

better than

PR - Natural convergence of hydrogen and oxygen

About the slingshot effect, wouldnt the momentum in the planet just be the stockpile itself, better than PR, which would mean generation rate? Anyway, if its out, it doesent really matter.

One more for the list:

Water current
Production Rate (PR) - Heat differences on the water
Harvest rate (HR) - Span of rotors, thickness of rotors

It is quite similar to wind, so it could be merget together, changing the wording to say fluid

Wind (and water currents) are generated by differences in pression. When one part of the fluid is warm, it goes up, leaving a hole where it was and too much pressure up where it ends up. When it is cold, it goes down, leaving too much air down and a hole up. As this is not stable, a current is generated from the high pressure zones to the low pressure ones.

This explanation is really simplified, but it is accurate enough. Anyway, simulating anything more than that in a non-Nasa computer is impossible. I would just use that as amount of energy obtainable.
EDIT: To clarify things up, difference of heat between close-by zones generate a current that can be transformed into energy. Maybe take some energy out if the zone has large obstacles that could block the wind, but nothing too complicated.

Spoiler:

hSR - Harvested Stockpile Retention - The stockpile retention, but specifically when the resource has been collected and stored by a civilisation, for later use. hSR is basically when the resource is in an artificial, as opposed to natural, environment.

Hydroelectric - that could do with rewording, since that is how water forms in general, rather than the energy source. Changed to Gravitationally induced downward flow of water across a slanted landscape.

I've changed wind to ‘fluid currents’, since this type of energy harnessing could apply to any fluid, not just water and air. Thanks for the tip.

Even if we can't accurately simulate these things, it still helps to have a list of possible types of energy-generating TOs. I doubt fluid mechanics will be possible, but we can still pretend they're present.

The Uteen wrote:

hSR - Harvested Stockpile Retention - The stockpile retention, but specifically when the resource has been collected and stored by a civilisation, for later use. hSR is basically when the resource is in an artificial, as opposed to natural, environment.

Ok, that makes sense. In that case, wouldnt hydroelectric hSR be amount of water that you let go minus amount of water supplied, and maybe some small loss because of evaporation (Althrough evaporation loss could just be rounded to 0)

The Uteen wrote:

Even if we can't accurately simulate these things, it still helps to have a list of possible types of energy-generating TOs. I doubt fluid mechanics will be possible, but we can still pretend they're present.

Hey, dont get me wrong. That we cant fully simulate something doesent mean we shouldn do it. It just means that we need to make some aproximations. I was just proposing some aproximations.

By the way (althrough it is a bit off topic): What is exactly a TO? It is the object/building you make in the tecnological editor? Or am I missing something?

Daniferrito wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

hSR - Harvested Stockpile Retention - The stockpile retention, but specifically when the resource has been collected and stored by a civilisation, for later use. hSR is basically when the resource is in an artificial, as opposed to natural, environment.

Ok, that makes sense. In that case, wouldnt hydroelectric hSR be amount of water that you let go minus amount of water supplied, and maybe some small loss because of evaporation (Althrough evaporation loss could just be rounded to 0)

I think that would be covered by the conversion Tech Object's efficiency. (conversion TO in this case would be a water mill, or something similar)

Quote :

Conversion Rate (CR) - The energy conversion speed and efficiency of a conversion TO - these factors apply to everything listed

The current Stockpile Retention is basically just to say how long the river/canal would last if the river lost its initial sources of water, though I'm tempted to just classify hydroelectric as non-stockpiled, since it's really the same concept as fluid currents, just caused by gravity. Come to think of it, since it doesn't use any sort of fuel, instead being energy to energy conversion, it really should be non-stockpiled.

Time for revision #3 - get a more explanatory title for the groups:
Stockpiled - Fuel-to-energy, Non-stockpiled - Energy-to-energy.

Daniferrito wrote:

The Uteen wrote:

Even if we can't accurately simulate these things, it still helps to have a list of possible types of energy-generating TOs. I doubt fluid mechanics will be possible, but we can still pretend they're present.

Hey, dont get me wrong. That we cant fully simulate something doesent mean we shouldn do it. It just means that we need to make some aproximations. I was just proposing some aproximations.

By the way (althrough it is a bit off topic): What is exactly a TO? It is the object/building you make in the tecnological editor? Or am I missing something?

A tech object, put simply, is anything created in the tech editor, although the (underused) Thrive Abbreviations Dictionary has an excellent definition, of this and many other words and phrases.

And by the way, thanks for your interest and contributions to the list. I think its actually becoming something useful.


EDIT: Added Thermoelectric, a future heat to energy conversion, which takes heat from the surroundings, and converts it into electricity.

Ok, another correction:

Thermoelectric: Althrough i think it would be possible to extract energy from pure heat, it is currently not possible (As i said, heat is too chaotic to be used). It is fine for future tecnology.

The problem is that in earth, we have a source of energy called thermoelectric, which is based in converting temperature DIFFERENCIES into energy. You can look up an engine called stirling engine on youtube. Althrough it was invented shortly after the steam power, we still cannot output high enough power to be worthwile. It was being researched (I think in the east coast of France), outputing electricity from the temperature difference from the top layers of the sea and the ones just below it, as well as wave energy and tide energy (tide energy is not usefull at the mediterranean sea, my memories are fuzzy about the location).


And about one of my previous statement, yes stars actually produce hellium from hydrogen, and actually stars output about 90% of their energy by fusing hydrogen into hellium, and the 10% remainign from fusing the remaining elements (up to iron), wich means that hydrogen is by far the best resource for nuclear fusion. Anyway, as you said, when an empire is advanced enough to steal mass from a star, it will have gainded to all the hydrogen from the star. Anyway, while hydrogen is REALLY common (water) in any life bearing planet, hydrogen is usually really rare, as its low density makes it escape the gravitation pull.