Why would the corporations in the SR world use nuclear power generation? It's expensive, and in SR it produces Toxic Shamans. Surely there is some arcanotechnological solution to the energy problem? Why not have an undersea archology tap into one of the trade currents to run a turbine? There's enough power in those to keep the sky lit bright, and solar, wind, and solar-thermal generation should easily take care of more point-source generation.

Also, why would anyone on the corporate court allow the Japanese Empire set up an orbital power collector that beams energy down to the planet? Is there some way to keep that from being weaponized by the Japanese, or shadowrunners?

Why not just have a hamster wheel with spirits applying the movement power to a devil rat? *squeeeeeeeeeeek*

Well, they have a niche to fill. If THEY don't create environmental catastrophes, who will?!(...insert BP joke here....) The world needs toxic shamans!

...As an aside, why aren't Follows of Atom more powerful? Seriously, just summon a rad-spirit and make your own battlemech

Hmm...do toxic shamans have to be crazy? Could you maybe stick one on a spaceship? You'd still have the problem of keeping a dual natured shaman alive, but it would be a creepy cool method of propulsion.

I'll have to answer this carefully, else end up derailing the thread terribly. By the rules every path a toxic shaman can follow is pretty much harmful to the rest of the world. It's hard not to make one that is downright twisting-his-mustache-while-throwing-a-maiden-on-mag-lev-tracks™ evil.

It costs a pile of money to decomission one of those reactors safely. During that decomissioning process, you are spending money for zero return. However, maintaining one of the reactors is less expensive and continues to provide income. Corps are all about profit and power.



How do you stop them once they have done it? Mutually Assured Destruction is the only way to keep the Jappos from using those sats as weapons. And yes you can keep runners out by requireing manual input from a crew on the station. As discussed in the ZO thread, it is very tough to board one of the big satelites un-noticed.

The problem with using magic on an industrial scale is that it would very likely, and very quickly, create an escalating background count in the area. Magic is delicate, sensitive, and natural. There's a reason it's so hard to cast a spell on a highly processed object regardless of what that object is. That's the biggest obstacle, and one that doesn't have an easy solution. I doubt if even Geomancy and Cleansing could keep up with the rate in which the mana warp would form after only a few months, even if you were to go with something relatively simple and seemingly innocuous like creating a quickened Fire Aura and Water Aura spell to produce steam.

It could work on a small scale, sure. But not on the scale needed to replace entire power plants.

"As the toxic magician’s approach to magic transforms due to his personal insanity [...]"

I guess if you want to play a toxic, you should play Promethean.

Back to power generation, a screw turbine in one of the trade currents with a water spirit bound to it for a year and a day to keep the salt out would produce a disgusting amount of energy.

That makes sense. It also makes groups like the rebels in the Yukatan more feasible. Although I bet you could still take your quickened Fire Aura/Water Aura steam turbine and mount it on a very large mobile platform. You would slowly drive it around in very big circles while your mages use Geomancy and Cleansing. If you took long enough to get back to a given point, you should be able to get it cleaned up.

Nuclear's the cheapest and cleanest right now, but I dunno about 2070. You'd think they'd have great solar by then (we almost do now), or microwave satellites, or something; nevermind magic.

As someone who works in the field of solar, I can safely say that what is dreamed of and claimed by the press and what is actually possible has a wide disparity to it. This is not to say that solar can't provide a large chunk of power, but excluding magic from the discussion I expect nuclear to form a 20-25% baseline constant power production for the next 100 years or more. Solar and wind are great, but have a huge problem with consistency. Geothermal is good for consistency, but I would have serious concerns about what impact such systems might have if we started drawing truly massive amounts of power from them. Nuclear is a fantastic source for very stable baseline energy production. Totally non-viable as a sole source of power due to limited quantities of reactants though.

Lucy

-- Short answer is everyone is in the process of, or already has, switched to fusion power plants.


-- The microwave beam produced by power satellites is very diffuse, which is why you need large rectenna arrays planetside to convert it into something useful. Dangerous to just sit under the beam for long periods without protection, but not like sticking your head in a microwave. Anyone who tried using them for something like that would quickly learn the effectiveness of ground-and-aircraft-based antisatellite weapons.
-- Besides, didn't most (all?) of the power satellites shoot themselves into the ground ub 4th edition?

-- That doesn't appear to add energy to the system. You can apply the Movement power to airliners and semiballistics for example, and they don't burn up from the friction or explode from added G-forces.

Solar and wind are great, and they do have a problem with consistency, but there are control systems under development that will help out considerably with that. Not to mention that if anyone ever manages a Grid-scale battery of some variety, wind and solar/solar-thermal could store energy for later use. Plus, wind and solar power produce more when people are using it more, so it's not as bad as it seems. I should probably present a disclaimer, though, as I work in that field.

Still, using ARE technology, PAB, and general VR, wouldn't it benefit a corp to try and brainwash a Toxic into providing a steady flow of Radiation Spirits? The shaman can be bat-shit looney, but they should still be controllable.

The Crash of '29 led to a great loss of data and was a step backwards in terms of technological innovation. (I don't know how well that would actually stand up in real life, but its a canon explanation for why tech hasn't advanced insanely far.)
Solar power & microwave energy: I'm sure I've read somewhere that there are at least a few satellites in SR that gather solar energy and beam it via microwaves to stations on Earth. Sadly I've no source. As for regular solar power, while its certainly feasible in some quantities I think the cyberpunk setting of SR precludes that in many instances (its always cloudy, everywhere, it seems like; either because of weather, or ash falls, or environmental damage, or...) The outback would be a great place for huge solar arrays; unfortunately mana storms would screw everything...
Geothermal: This is used in-universe, although we've yet to see an instance of a station powering an entire sprawl or anything. Gaeatronics and Shiawase certainly use geothermal taps; Gaeatronics is currently building a new one in Outremer.
Nuclear energy as we think of it is created through fission, which in SR has led to toxic zones through meltdowns and whatnot. In SR they also use fusion energy, which (according to the information we have now, anyway) is potentially safer and less likely to cause massive meltdowns. Which is why it still sees use even after the Awakening made nukes work funny.
As for magic? Well, its never the be-all end-all solution in SR. There's always something to go wrong. And I think thats why it isn't used more often: even 60 years after the Awakening, people are still afraid, mistrustful, and ignorant of magic. It's not entirely reliable; it can go wrong, and bad. (So can all the other options, though...) You want to bind spirits to make them create energy? Okay; what happens if they go free? They probably aren't going to go back to the metaplanes without causing some havoc first... And good luck getting mage-o-phobe Switzerland's energy contract if you're going to power it with magic. Or Amazonia if you're going to enslave spirits. Or...

That may be feasible. But can you imagine the shitstorm that would result if something went wrong, or the conditioning broke down, or any number of other things happened? Not even Horizon could spin that event positively.

Oh, right, my usual failing of assuming Magic obeys at least some parts of physics. But that's not entirely true, is it? If you are using the Movement power and you run into a tree you get hurt pretty badly, so it seems the Kinetic Energy build-up is there, it just dodges friction somehow. You also wouldn't be using friction, as you can just have the hamster wheel made of iron and put it in a copper coil to use the inductive effect.

Yes, its true. Of such things are great shadowruns made, though.

Mr J: Here is money. Go kill that Radioactive monstrosity before it gets tied to us. There will be cake.
Runner: Sure thing boss.
Peanut Gallery: The cake is a lie!

You have a point there. You could spin a whole campaign around that.

Ah damn, they nerfed the hell out of Movement in the 20th Anniversary Edition (it wasn't capped by Body in the original 4th edition rules).

Me thinks you are mashing up "Yucatán" and "Yakut".

Nuclear energy is cheap. It´s trouble is the inability to cope with fluctuations in energy demand. (We will sidestep the nuclear waste issue, as SR corporations will have plenty "acceptable" solutions.)


Will happen. It is unfortunately still no way of creating a self-reliant arcology, as the turbine fans will have to be exchanged on a regular basis (sea-water + mechanic stress).


Yepp. Keeping it stationary over the receiver and guarding it like Z-O.

Carbon fiber and carbon allotrope components would significantly reduce those factors.

And you can use BAM for lubrication to reduce mechanical stress, and use air spirits to keep the salt out of the water as it comes into the turbine.

I thought the main power production came from FUSION power, which isn't as "dirty". There are also better fission reactor designs (cheaper and safer to build an operate), both today and on the horizon. By 2050, we will NEED such things (barring magic).

I also suspect that magic as a power source just doesn't work, or ends up costing more than its worth in terms of resources and manpower. Its magic- no need to explain how it fails, just assume that it doesn't pan out somehow. If you do find a fool-proof, economical way to extract usable power, maybe the magic just fails (IE, you don't roll enough successes), kinda the way you can't observe an electron being both a wave and a particle, even though it is. A mages power doesn't really come from himself, it comes from the universe, and the universe makes the rules.

I think magics major flaw is its inconsistency compared to other things. Rolling for force and drain ect. Plus a few cultureal issues. As well as "big players" want to limt it over uses of magic due to the "enemy" the GGD almost caused problems one can only imagen what continual use of spirits and such to make power woudl do. Also spirits are sapienent most traditions and mages view them as such. Abusing spirts can cause problems. I see all that as enough as why you dont have steam generating spirit farms. There are even spirit rights groups some of witch resort to terrorist acts.

You wouldn't be abusing the spirits, they are just performing tasks. It isn't any more abusive than any other task they get set on over a year and a day. Also, the inconsistency of power output for energy production can be handled with a Quickened spell, as you know it's force before you cast (I think.). I mean, if you were making a Mako-smasher or something, and using the spirits for fuel, yea, you'd get Tutor up your ass in a heartbeat. You also shouldn't pick up a huge background count if you are cycling your production locations long enough.