Science and Tech

Black holes could provide unlimited energy for Earth, but there is no way to harvest it

Black hole

In 1971, English physicist Roger Penrose claimed that energy could be extracted from a rotating black hole. The most advanced civilizations could use tools to capture the release of energy in multiple wavelengths and supply their entire population, although for the moment it sounds like science fiction.

Matter entering a black hole falls at almost the speed of light, which It allows the release of a quantity of energy that can be collected with a huge net surrounding the hole.This method, known as the Penrose process, could explain why extraterrestrial life has not yet been found.

The Fermi paradox may finally be resolved after decades. The theory proposes that the Universe is so large that the probability of finding intelligent life is high, although no clear evidence has been collected from Earth so far. If aliens can harness the energy of black holes, it would make sense to think that their civilization is based near them.

Avi Loeb is a professor at Harvard University and states in an article that Advanced civilizations could use black holes as a moon for EarthThese enormous masses not only produce energy, they also become a source of light more powerful than the Sun.

Controlling black holes to harvest their energy

Pixabay

Stephen Hawking himself stated in 1975 that black holes emit photons, neutrinos and some larger particles that can be used as a source of energy. This phenomenon became known as Hawking radiation and can be obtained in different ways.

The Penrose process takes advantage of the circular motion of the black hole’s disk to trap photons, while the Dyson Sphere system allows the heat and energy of hypervelocity jets to be captured.

The most advanced civilizations even They could feed the black hole with matter to control the amount of energy it produces.. Loeb supports this latter theory and has explained in his study that aliens would be able to create a controlled black hole that would orbit their planet.

Industrial batteries

The black hole would be quite small, with weighing around 100,000 tons or risk it getting out of controlIt could then be maintained by accreting small amounts of matter at 2.2 kg per second in exchange for an infinite supply of energy, according to Loeb.

The efficiency of this method is 100% because all the mass that falls into the black hole comes out in the form of Hawking radiation. Humans are far from achieving this feat, which would only be within the reach of a type III civilization (the most advanced), although a type II could begin to design it. Humans are type 0 because they are only capable of using the energy available on Earth.

Civilization has the potential to develop this technique if it has the means to do so. Humans produce about 1.92 billion tons of waste per year that can be used to feed a black hole for more than 437 million years.

Meet How we work in ComputerHoy.

Tags: studies, Renewable energy

Source link