A Brief Encyclopedia of the Chronicles of Sacrifice

Energy Technology

Energy technology around the world varies immensely, as it tends to be highly dependent on local resources. The principle for its production is generally the same; create an electrical current by moving a conductor within a magnetic field. The method of accomplishing this is what varies, and some methods are far more powerful than others.

Coal/Heat Power Plant: The coal power plant works by burning coal for high heat to evaporate water and superheat steam, then shoot it through a turbine to spin it and generate electricity as described earlier. This method has potential to produce massive amounts of energy when harnessed properly, but the heat can cause the metal in the turbine to expand and tear into the sides of the tunnel. 

Titanium and Invar were developed for this; to provide metals that can take the heat without expanding too much and harness more of the energy being produced by burning the coal and shooting the steam through the turbine. There is still a great deal of progress to make with fully harnessing coal power, but its output of overheated water can destroy local ecosystems, and the harmful gases it produces can be problematic to those with lung issues who may live nearby. For the most part, newly industrialized nations use it as a temporary high-output power source.

Gasoline/Liquid Fuel: While fuels like Kerosene are used, the refinement process has yet to become efficient enough to make powerful liquid fuels widespread for use in larger machinery. Gasoline is not commonly used, typically seeing use in select industrial or military applications.

Wind power: While wind power is much cleaner in the long run than coal, producing large windmills is highly taxing on a society and requires massive resources. To produce all the metal required to put one up takes significant quantities of heat. In a society that does not typically use magic, this can be a difficult task to complete, and large windmills make for easy targets to hostile forces. They are primarily used by peaceful nations for this reason, like Vaporis, where wind is in no short supply and the windmill towers are relatively safe.

When large amounts of power are not necessary, and wind is significant as in mountainous areas, small, man-sized spinning panels can be used, designed to spin one direction by catching the wind one way and letting it go the other. Aluminum has made this highly valued to cities located high in the mountains. Two or three small towers can provide the energy to power a home while barely altering the terrain.

Water Power: Coming in many forms, water power can be harnessed with ocean currents, dams on rivers, or whirlpool turbines along rivers. The greatest source of energy comes from ocean currents, though actually placing the devices deep enough to harness the power of the deep-sea streams can be difficult and dangerous. More intelligent monsters are also prone to attempting to sabotage these systems to attract victims to the deep to fix them.

Damming a river can provide massive power, though it cuts off ecosystems, and unless many preventative and nature-respecting measures are used, a Waldgeist will always show up to thoroughly destroy the dam. Few dams exist in the world due to this, as the cost of meeting these requirements is astronomical.

Whirlpool turbines were created as a response. Set up beside a river, water is diverted through a grate to prevent wildlife from being sucked into a whirlpool with a spinnable turbine in the center. As water swirls down, it spins the turbine, producing electricity, and a near-horizontal pipe allows the water to rejoin the river with the aid of a few very small, highly efficient pumps or rotors. Many nations have adopted this for powering urban, suburban, and rural areas near rivers.

Water-wheels are a simple, though less efficient method of utilizing river power without angering a Waldgeist. By simply putting a wheel partially in the water, it will be spun by the river current for energy. Though not as powerful in a river as a whirlpool turbine, these are exceptionally useful when waterfalls are available, typically in mountainous cities with glacier runoff.

Solar Power: There are two variants of solar power, each being very different in nature and at different stages of development. The lesser-known and less developed is in photovoltaic panels, which produce electricity with sunlight directly. This is a new technology and still in development, and has yet to meet efficiency requirements for most places.

The more widely known and used technology, especially in desert environments, is the solar-oil turbine system. This system works by using a small, very long, one-way pipe filled with oil travelling a long distance in a single, repeating circuit. Under and around the pipe are highly reflective mirrors, specially designed to focus all the light that hits them on the pipe. As the pipe superheats due to the immense solar heat, the oil will move as it gains energy, going through the pipe to a turbine system and spinning the turbine. The oil will then move through a cooling system to repeat the process as many times as the system is designed for.

-WARNING: DO NOT MOVE BETWEEN MIRROR AND PIPE!!