Carbon footprint of superheroes

Superhero carbon footprint varies with the energy source.
eos.org/articles/researchers-explore-car...rints-of-superheroes.

slim36 wrote: Superhero carbon footprint varies with the energy source.
eos.org/articles/researchers-explore-car...rints-of-superheroes.

He seems to ignore their secret identities. (Clark Kent doesn't have a zero Carbon Footprint). Also, how much carbon does the Fortress of Solitude make? We have no idea about its energy source (though it doesn't SEEM to produce carbon). Except Jones .. as I don't know what extra foot print she uses in her hero identity, so hers seems to incude a normal new yorkers emissions?. Unless he counted up the foot print of the alcohol she drinks...

Oracle is listed with a high footprint, but Batman uses as much computer equipment as she does, so I'm not sure why Batman isn't significantly higher than Oracle.

Not sure why Spider-Man is so high, he must be putting the web shooter solution as pretty energy intensive. (Iron Man should generate far more carbon footprint, he uses a lot of energy to produce his suit, even if repulsors are zero carbon in the field.)

TwiceOnThursdays wrote: Not sure why Spider-Man is so high, he must be putting the web shooter solution as pretty energy intensive. (Iron Man should generate far more carbon footprint, he uses a lot of energy to produce his suit, even if repulsors are zero carbon in the field.)

Iron Man's suit(at least the MCU version) is powered by what is more or less cold fusion. Once the ARC Reactor is constructed there are no further emissions for most suit functions. I suspect that the mini-missiles would put out more emissions than the repulsors Iron Man uses to fly.

jumperprime wrote:

TwiceOnThursdays wrote: Not sure why Spider-Man is so high, he must be putting the web shooter solution as pretty energy intensive. (Iron Man should generate far more carbon footprint, he uses a lot of energy to produce his suit, even if repulsors are zero carbon in the field.)

Iron Man's suit(at least the MCU version) is powered by what is more or less cold fusion. Once the ARC Reactor is constructed there are no further emissions for most suit functions. I suspect that the mini-missiles would put out more emissions than the repulsors Iron Man uses to fly.

As I said it takes a LOT of energy to manufacture the suit. In one of the MCU movies they make a big point of him turning on an ARC reactor to power the Stark Building ... indicating until that point he could not have been using ARC to power building his suits. (Not to mention some of the energy is spent before the materials hit Stark.)

It's a fiendishly complex piece of equipment, with a lot of technology and (probably) exotic materials. The robots to build them need energy, energy to produce the materials (smelting/etc). And according to the movies and comics, he makes a LOT of them.

He also runs a lot of computers behind the scenes and in the armor. Some of that would be ARC powered ... but I doubt all of it is. (I'm ignoring the costs of running Stark Enterprises, just talking about the sub-set tasked with building/maintaining/running the Iron Man armor.)

say we could somehow acquire vellorians on contract to turn turbines of power plants that were powered by carbon based fuel.
would the contracts to Velor be for megawatthours
could be a work stoppage for people in the fuel industry.

slim36 wrote: say we could somehow acquire vellorians on contract to turn turbines of power plants that were powered by carbon based fuel.
would the contracts to Velor be for megawatthours
could be a work stoppage for people in the fuel industry.

This is actually a really cool line of inquiry. What superheroes could REALLY change the world?

Obviously, if Stark could build affordable large ARC reactors that would change power generation. (I often think that Bruce Wayne's millions could do more to stop crime than Batman. Oracle was far more effective than Batgirl.) At the very least, even if expensive, a small power supply that can operate his armor's power requirements for that long ... it has many non-war uses that would be worthwhile.

I always loved the idea of the Guardsman armor -- essentially inexpensive low power knock off of iron man armor, so you can outfit advanced security forces with it (like the security at Project Pegasus). Good enough to handle normals and some super powered attackers (esp with a lot of them).

Kryptonians/Velorians just using impossibly large amounts of mechanical power, or heat vision (etc). Design the turbine strong and massive enough and they'd just have to stop by every once in awhile and flick it again to keep it rotating fast enough.

Or any hero with heat/energy generation powers. (One always wonders what the ultimate power source for Super-Heroes is.)

In the novels "Ex-Heroes" by Peter Clined (A series, they all start with Ex-), there is a Zombie attack in a super-hero world. The main story follows a compound of people trying to survive with some of the remaining super-heroes (and some former bad guys).

One of the heroes could turn into Energy (a la Spectrum/Captain Marvel/Photon). So the compound is powered by him. Every so often he has to turn back into human and eat to keep his body mass up (his conversion percentage must be total shit else a few ounces of flesh would be a LOT of power).

A good novel on deconstruction the super-hero myth, a zombie world, rebuilding, and social dynamics. Not the best ever, but good enough on multiple scores that it's a nice read.

TwiceOnThursdays wrote:

slim36 wrote: say we could somehow acquire vellorians on contract to turn turbines of power plants that were powered by carbon based fuel.
would the contracts to Velor be for megawatthours
could be a work stoppage for people in the fuel industry.

This is actually a really cool line of inquiry. What superheroes could REALLY change the world?

Obviously, if Stark could build affordable large ARC reactors that would change power generation. (I often think that Bruce Wayne's millions could do more to stop crime than Batman. Oracle was far more effective than Batgirl.) At the very least, even if expensive, a small power supply that can operate his armor's power requirements for that long ... it has many non-war uses that would be worthwhile.

I always loved the idea of the Guardsman armor -- essentially inexpensive low power knock off of iron man armor, so you can outfit advanced security forces with it (like the security at Project Pegasus). Good enough to handle normals and some super powered attackers (esp with a lot of them).

Kryptonians/Velorians just using impossibly large amounts of mechanical power, or heat vision (etc). Design the turbine strong and massive enough and they'd just have to stop by every once in awhile and flick it again to keep it rotating fast enough.

Or any hero with heat/energy generation powers. (One always wonders what the ultimate power source for Super-Heroes is.)

In the novels "Ex-Heroes" by Peter Clined (A series, they all start with Ex-), there is a Zombie attack in a super-hero world. The main story follows a compound of people trying to survive with some of the remaining super-heroes (and some former bad guys).

One of the heroes could turn into Energy (a la Spectrum/Captain Marvel/Photon). So the compound is powered by him. Every so often he has to turn back into human and eat to keep his body mass up (his conversion percentage must be total shit else a few ounces of flesh would be a LOT of power).

A good novel on deconstruction the super-hero myth, a zombie world, rebuilding, and social dynamics. Not the best ever, but good enough on multiple scores that it's a nice read.

Can't speak for Kryptonians, but Velorians have significant energy losses when converting their power from one form to another. For instance, the power for muscular contraction, while seemingly close to Kryptonian levels, comes from Orgone energy storage in their body. But that has to come from somewhere, and their is a loss of efficiency in storing it and then metabolizing it for use.

Of course, they can fly off to the sun's photosphere to tank up, but getting over-tanked leads to both clothing and balance problems. Not to mention losing the ability to see one's feet. Storing a painfully large amount of Orgone is a good idea prior to diving through a wormhole or other space travel, which are very rare events, but going back and forth from the sun to Earth to provide power would get old in a hurry. Not to mention leading to stretch marks.

But Vels are very handy to have around in an emergency. Sort of like having a big drawer or two full of spare batteries, except their batteries are much more out front. Once you get to know a Velorian, you can always judge their "state of charge" with little more than a glance. No testing required (although it might be fun to develop a proper tool for measuring energy levels.

Here are a couple of glances:

Fully-charged and ready for any type of emergency action:




Holding a section of collapsed bridge span over her head, her fantastic strength still intact, but she really needs to go and charge up:



Shadar

A solar plant that heats salt to 1050F could serve as a relaxing salt bath. And an outlet for invigorating multi megawatt hour workouts on overcast cloudy days and nights to maintain the salt temperature. The salts would likely get infused with pheromones that could be extracted for perfume companies.

AuGoose wrote:

TwiceOnThursdays wrote: Or any hero with heat/energy generation powers. (One always wonders what the ultimate power source for Super-Heroes is.)

In Side Effects May Include, Jessie draws her power from Earth's magnetosphere. Most of her energetic abilities (like flight and the structurally reinforcing telekinesis she exerts on her costume) come from interacting with magnetic flux lines. So theoretically, overuse of her powers would cause some decay in the field and a slight slowing of the earth's metallic core, but that's a truly astonishingly deep well she's drawing on.

Sylvia in Best. Day. Ever. is fictionite's attempt at a practical solution to the normally absurd notion that Kryptonians are "solar powered". Her body is entirely opaque to neutrinos... making her something of a step-down transformer between the power held invisibly in the 'high energy universe' all around us that is so energetic its cast of particles simply ignore traditional matter down here in the dregs we dwell in. She's absorbing several trillion of them every second, so her limit isn't really a question of production but of storage.

Most of Liam Walker's legacy are subject to "Quantum Fortification". Basically, they are to varying degrees more 'real' than normal reality. The effect ends up being akin to a hard level difference in an MMO. the 50th level charter tends to win arguments with 12th level mobs even if the mob appears physically bigger. And yet they still display dramatic differences in potency versus each other. e.g. Black Athena isn't especially the strongest/highest level of the bunch (that distinction almost certainly goes to Eu-fùnh Caldwell), but her spear is so fortified it can kill pretty much any of them with 'hot knife through butter'-like ease.

It's always fun to see the kinds of pseudo-science that we all come up with to explain our characters having gigawatts of power available. Anything but flat-out unexplained "magic", which I don't like. It's easy to spin a thin layer of "science" around everything to keep it "real" and a bit science-fictiony.

Even if means storing the energy in inflatable/deflatable boobs. That's not magic, that's science! (And more than a bit of wishful kinkiness.)

And back to the original topic, if we assume Velorians fly out to the sun to tank up, then they most definitely have a zero carbon footprint. Just solar energy, aka with a few twists compared to mere Kryptonians. And it has the nice side benefit in that it allows females to be the premier warriors in my universe. Men exhaust themselves too fast.

Although I did create male/female teams of Arion Primes, where the male had the ultimate physical power, with the female fighting by his side and also serving as his "battery" or "tanker" When he got low on power, they hooked up to recharge, which meant dropping out of combat and engaging in a different kind of athleticism. Energy flows during shared orgasm are off the charts for Primes. Think of aerial refueling.

Unfortunately, for the Arions, once the Vels figured out what was happening, they focused on disrupting the tanker hook up, which took the male out of the fight. Eventually, the Arions completely quit putting their males into combat with Vels. It rarely ended well for them.

Shadar

I remember the 1990s Flash TV show.
After running around Flash would have an enormous appetite and would eat everything in the house.
Thousands of calories.
I thought this was about as scientifically plausible as you could get.

Our modern Barry did eat more.
With the Speed Force as a THING in the new Flash show I guess he draws energy from there.