Random Idea #14 · 9:56pm Jan 3rd, 2015
Portals. Especially the types that seem to be of the wormhole variety, in which while setting one up may take energy, once it is done, either end can be moved with little cost.
The ones from the game "Portal" is one such example. Once set up, you can go through it, and not experience any loss in energy from doing so, no matter the height difference.
The "Stargates" from the show "Stargate" seem to be one too, though I profess my lack of knowledge of them makes me uneasy in pointing them out as an example.
In any case, whenever such devices are used, why hasn't anyone tried making a gravity-powered perpetual-motion energy generator?
Simple version. A funnel or ramp with a water wheel somewhere along it. The bottom has a portal that leads to the top. The water wheel is hooked up to a generator.
Cave Johnson lost a great opportunity right there.
Interestingly, the last time I saw somebody using something like this was when an extremely pissed off Twilight Sparkle in the fic "The Immortal Game" created a air-less hammerspace with gravity that looped infinitely to itself in order to accelerate chunks of metal to high enough speeds to become a supercharged rail gun.
That's actually at the top of my list, should such technology ever exist.
Or, in a fictional world, to have to explain how the change in potential energy is taken into account - change in temperature or velocity, most likely. I suppose it depends on whether magic or technology is used.
2700816
A simple way to remove the issue is to simply make it more energy intensive the further away it is from a gravity well, and the further away it is in general.
*Thinks about Eakin's fic "First Contact"
They used a goddamn near energy free teleporter system to connect the worlds. Dammit.