Antarctic Space Nazis Across the Multiverse

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Icelander

At worst, it might be possible to use the same power for mooring and off-loading operations as they use for the AA searchlights. After all, they'd never try mooring or off-loading under combat conditions anyway. Granted, they'd need lights for ordinary mooring and off-loading, but probably not with as much range as AA searchlights.

You need quite a bit of electrical equipment. I found power requirements for 24" carbon-arc searchlights, which are about 12KW each. Those are fairly small searchlights, but you are not dealing with high-altitude bombers here, so they're probably adequate.

Unfortunately, they need their power as direct current, about 100 volts, 120 amps. That means you need a homopolar generator to drive them, and that pushes you towards an all-DC setup. You don't have to transmit power long distances, so this is acceptable.

You want to have at least 100KW of generating capacity, and a homopolar generator isn't very efficient. If you're willing to use mercury electrodes and have a great big bank of lead-acid accumulators, which need to be kept warm, you can probably get away with a 300KW turbine to drive it, which will need about 1MW of Elemental Furnace to heat its boiler. You have no problem with a heat sink, anyway. This is a lot more stuff to transport to Kadath, and will need at least four mechanics/electricians to look after it 24/7.

You probably use incandescent lamps for your normal lighting, because carbon arcs are hard on people's eyes (lots of UV) and consume their electrodes fast enough that lamps come with machinery to adjust them continuously. They actually work by generating enough heat to evaporate graphite, and the carbon gas glows blue-white.