[gruundehn]

OK, I knew what I was talking about in my first post but it seems I forgot that no one else knew the specifics I left out because they were not needed. After all, you are all electronic techs, right?

The measure of a capacitor is the Farad. A farad is the ability to store a specific number of electrons - a coulomb, or 6.242 x 10 to the 18 electrons. Most capacitors are rated in micro-farads and are about the size of the fingernail of your pinky, or maybe as large as your thumb.

So, to get the charge necessary, as implied in the stories, the capacitors would have to be on the order of Giga-farads if not larger. So, either the capacitors are each larger than Manhattan, with more than one available to allow for multiple shots, or the scientists of that era found a way to store a coulomb of electrons in a capacitor the size of one today that stores a Nano-coulomb.

Capacitors "bleed" all the time as electrons flow away from the capacitor into the circuit. The larger the capacitor the more the bleed. Usually this is countered by constantly charging the capacitor. Capacitors are often used to smooth out the ripples in a DC circuit, where the current above a certain value is shunted into the capacitor and the capacitor bleed some current into the circuit when the DC value is lower than wanted. So, unless these huge capacitors can be charged almost instantly, the engines have to constantly replace the bleed amount.