=Eco-footprint=I thought it might be useful to use 'Eco-footprints' in determining the viability of a hive, and the 'standard of living' a hive dweller would have.
Ecological footprint calculatorfrom this
site=Hyrpponics etc.=I've been doing a bit of reading on
hydroponics/
aeroponics etc and I think you could make a make one of my 'hydroponics modules' using today's technology. The only area of concern is power consumption.
=Power Consumption=These
bulbs could be used for the trays, one per tray at 110W each (£99).
Now the 80m hydroponics modules have 6444 trays, for 708840W, 708.8 kilowatt per hour.
18 hydroponics modules per clan block 12759 kilowatt or 12.7 megawatt to support 180 people (70.8 kilowatt per person per hour).
Running 24/7 at 8,760 hours per annum, for a total of 111,252 megawatts, or 111 giagwatts per annum.
Considering 1 megawatt is enough for 1,000 Americans, this means these 180 people are crewing through enough power to keep 12,700 America going. Mind you America have free 'Sun'.
Replacing the sun is expensive, but not that expensive.
=Heat=The amount of heat generated by the bulbs is going to be very high. It could be used as heating for the clan block or pumped up through the central shaft to heat exchangers at the top of the clan block.
All this heat would mean that the hydroponic modules are going to be hot like the tropics (hotter), so I'm thinking the the bulbs aren't too hot in 40K (or the D/GAoT) producing more light and less heat.
However, having said that it shouldn't be too much of a problem as each tray is also having air blown over it to remove the carbon dioxide in the air and re-oxygenate it. This air will cool the trays, but the air would become quite humid and may be used in other ways.
This humid air could be recollected as it would be quite 'pure', perhaps for drinking water?
=Power plants=Danish Wind AssociationYou would need 55 600kW turbine each producing 0.5 GWh per annum, with standard air density and an average 4.5 m/s wind speed at hub height.
Obviously 55 wind turbines are not going to fit on the 200m x400m clan block. So we can rule out wind power for hives using the STCS:CS.
Could a fusion power plant supply enough power?
This little
nuclear reactor in Japan is rated at 825 MWe, so could supply 64.9 Clan Blocks (ignoring down time).
That is enough to support 11,700 people per 825 MWe reactor. At 9,000 people per sq/km, that means the equivalent of one 825 MWe reactor per sq/km.
=STCS fusion (plasma) power=The central fusion power plant of the STCS:CS is going to be chucking out huge amounts of energy to work, and it is going to have to be far more efficient (direct conversion fields rather than turbines). It may be that there has to be one fusion plant per 10 sq/km.