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Some notes on natural resources within the universe.

Natural resources are available in four categories, with several resources falling under each type. The types are metals, fuels, exotics, and foods.

Metals

The raw materials for industry and military. Metals are used for virtually all kinds of construction and shipbuilding. They can be found on essentially all celestial bodies in varying quantities.

  • iron
  • aluminum
  • molybdenum
  • titanium

Other potential names:

  • platinum
  • gold
  • silver
  • plutonium
  • uranium [see fuels]

Fuels

Used to provide energy for activity, as well as serve as the raw materials for some industries. They have varying amounts of energy content per unit, as well as natural availability.

Perhaps we could have energy per unit match that of the atomic number of the respective compound? I'm looking at what we get with existing energy estimates as well.

Numbers taken from (sources):

  • Coal
  • Energy Calculator
  • Fuel Efficiency
  • MJ -> kwH
  • Uranium
  • Nuke plant example
  • Biofuel energy content
  • 77 MJ -> kwH
  • 130 MJ -> kwH

1 kW-h = 3,412 BTU 1 ton of coal = 20,754,000 BTU or 6,082.65 kW-h 1 MJ = 0.277777777 kWh

Given that efficiency is a major issue in our society today, I think each fuel type should also include a baseline efficiency rate that can be improved upon with higher tech for that fuel. I've marked kW-h per kg energy estimates for the fuelds listed below and the baseline efficiency in paranetheses.

Reading about Uranium I think there is a lot of potential for tech expansion here. Natural uranium contains 0.72 percent U-235 (the one needed for nuclear power). LEU (low-enriched uranium) contains 3-4 percent. Weapons grade uranium contains 90 percent U-235. So the tech expansion for uranium resources could improve the U-235 ratio to gain energy efficiency. I've listed the 0.72% natural Uranium below. Idea being that a planet wouldn't have processed uranium naturally and it would require tech to be able to extract and resell higher grades of it.

Numbers for Uranium calculated based on a plant using 3.75% Uranium that runs at 1300 megawatts * 1 year. Using Wikipedia's value of 77,000,000 MJ/kg for pure uranium it looks like baseline efficiency is 56.8 percent.

1300 MW = 25,000 kg LEU @ 3.75% (937.5 kg U-235) 1300 MW * 1 year = 1.13955566*1010 kilowatt hours -> 1.13955566*1010 / 937.5 = 12,155,260 kW-h / kg for U-235 But 77*106 MJ/kg gives us 21,388,3889 kW-h/kg. So the plant in the example is running at 56.8 percent efficiency. This reduces UEU to 0.004 percent for production use.

MEU = 21,388,889 kWh / kg [maximum @ 100%] LEU = 486,210 kWh / kg [sample @ 3.75%]

  • coal = 6.67 kW-h/kg (30%) -> 2 kW-h/kg
  • petroleum = 13.0 kW-h/kg (35%) -> 4.5 kW-h/kg
  • uranium = 21,388,889 kW-h/kg (0.4%) -> 85,000 kW-h/kg
  • deuterium = 36.1 kW-h/kg (50%) -> 18 kW-h/kg

The tech race for energy could include varying levels of uranium refinement. Thus you could use UEU, but with necessary tech you could later on use LEU or eventually HEU. HEU would save on transportation costs fairly significantly over UEU. Perhaps an obscene tech for MEU.

There could also be energy plant efficiency, so that you can boost your plant up to the maximum efficiency for a given grade level, but without pushing your plant tech you would start at the minimum for the grade. IT wouldn't be important to push plant tech until LEU or HEU is reached though.

  • All min and max in units of kW-h/kg
  • Numbers were adjusted to have round multiples
  • COL = 30 to 100 percent - min: 2 - max: 6
  • PET = 35 to 100 percent - min: 5 - max: 13
  • DET = 50 to 100 percent - min: 18 - max: 36
  • UEU = 0.4 to 0.72 percent - min: 85,000 - max: 150,000
  • SEU = 0.68 to 1.2 percent - min: 145,000 - max: 250,000
  • LEU = 2.3 to 4 percent - min: 500,000 - max: 850,000
  • HEU = 48 to 85 percent - min: 10,000,000 - max: 18,000,000
  • MEU = 57 to 100 percent - min: 12,000,000 - max: 21,000,000

Exotics

Primarily consumed by research activities, as well as small volume high value production projects such as flagship production.

  • silicon
  • diamond
  • selenium
  • indium

Foods

Essential to population growth and maintenance. One of the easiest resources to generate, but also the most essential, as all activities of a civilization consume it.

Not sure if you intended these to be produced goods. Water and salt occur naturally but bread and meat are derived from more basic resources.

I was really running out of ideas by this point, but the category seemed like a good one to include. *Please* add to and hack at this section more

  • water
  • bread
  • meat
  • salt