Saving Energy Crises One Black Hole at a Time

Michelle Graves
Meaghan Callahan
May 31, 2017

What I Already Knew/ What I Wanted to Know

 In the 8th grade, my partner and I were assigned the topic of Black Holes and how they

were formed. It was nothing very intricate, just the basics of black hole knowledge. After that

project, its very intriguing to me how powerful they were and the fact that not even light can

escape them. This year, I took Astronomy, but we ran out of time and never got to learn about

these powerful forces. When Mrs. Graves assigned us our I-Search project, I figured this was the

best opportunity for me to investigate black holes on a much deeper level.

I already knew that black holes are just very old stars that have burnt up and collapsed on

themselves, but that is all I really remembered from the 8th grade. I knew this I-Search was

going to be a lot of self-teaching and relearning simple knowledge of the black holes.

I really wanted to know how the energy from a black hole could help solve energy

problems back on Earth. I didnt even know where the closest black hole even was, or if the trip

would even be worth it. I wanted to know how much it would cost to harness energy from the

black hole, what type of energy black holes emitted, and how the energy would be used in the

real world. From these necessities, I formed my question, how to harness energy from a black

hole to use in the real world.

The Story of My Search

My research took around 4 weeks, and I began my research with Google Scholar. I felt so

lost looking at all of the documents because they had so many difficult words, and it made me

want to cry. Then I took a step back and started doing more background research on the type of

radiation black holes emit. I looked up energy black holes in Google Scholar, and found a

physics website which helped explain how rotational energy in black holes work and the

processes occur. The website included many physicists who like to put their thoughts on the

matter of harnessing energy from black holes as well. It was very interesting to see all of the
different viewpoints from each person on how it would be most appropriate to harness the

energy. On the other hand, I couldnt really tell which was most reliable from the other people.

After researching about rotational energy, I googled, Closest black hole to the Earth

and got very few reliable results. I found a couple of links that showed me that the nearest black

hole was approximately 3000 light years away. To put that into perspective for you, one light

year is 5.88 trillion miles, and Pluto isnt even one light year away. It would take hundreds of

years to even reach the black hole, which led me to another question, How would I get to the

black hole?

Later, I had to research whether the trip was cost effective. First, I had to research how to

calculate the amount of fuel for such a trip, I was hoping that I wouldn't need as much since it

would just be drifting in space anyways. But first, I needed to figure out how to get such a large

object out of Earth's orbit and to start its adventure into space. I found a website which helped

me get a better understanding of how NASA sends rockets into space. Although, the resources

needed will be a little more intricate than resources needed for the Voyager.

After all of my online research, I felt like I have learned a good bit of information to

finally meet up with my mentor. My mentor, Mrs. Bailey-Hennessey the Ocean Lakes Magnet

Astronomy teacher, knew a limited amount of information about black holes. My interview was

very quick, lasting no longer than 10 minutes. Mrs.Bailey knew about the same information as I

did, and explained to me that if Stephen Hawking didnt have a real answer yet, then she

probably didnt either. She really helped put my question back into real perspective, and was a

lot of help even if she couldnt tell me how to harness the energy.

Research Results
 After all of my research, I had gathered enough information to finally put together. First,

I found out where the closest black hole is to Earth. The closest black hole that we know about is

known as V616 Monocerotis, or V616 Mon. It is located around 3000 light years away and has

between 9-13 times the mass of our Sun. The next closest one is Cygnus X-1, which is around

6000 light years away. It has about 15 times the mass of the Sun. The closest known black holes

to the Earth are all in binary systems. This is the only way for scientists to detect them, so there

are probably other black holes closer, but we just do not know about them. There is quite a lot of

radiation given off from V616 Mon, but it isn't as powerful as other black holes. The fact that

V616 Mon is so far away is the main obstacle of my research question. My mentor explained to

me that nowhere in the near future will our technology be able to reach V616 Mon because of

how far away it is, but we discussed the theoretical side of everything. We talked about how the

event horizon acts as a barrier for where everything is sucked into the black hole and never

escapes. Once you pass the event horizon there is no turning back, however, in an area right

outside of the event horizon, called the Ergosphere. The Ergosphere is the region of the black

hole in which energy can escape. As a result of my research, my mentor and I concluded that the

best way possible to extract energy from the Ergosphere would be using a process called, the

Penrose Process.

The Penrose process is extracting the rotational energy from the black hole since the

rotational energy is at its highest in this area. I also found out that rotational energy seems to be a

high percentage of the energy given off by a black hole. It is said that 20% of a black hole's

mass-energy is given off from rotational energy. When using the Penrose Process, you would be

extracting energy from a rotating black hole which in conclusion results in a decrease in the

angular momentum of the black hole, and that reduction corresponds to a transference of energy
whereby the momentum lost is converted to energy extracted. The maximum amount of energy

gain is 1.3 times the initial energy. The energy that is given off from a black hole isn't

necessarily the black hole's energy. The black hole has particles that end up colliding at such a

rapid speed which releases 13 times the amount of combined energy which is how the output

particle can escape the ergosphere of the black hole. If the particle has negative energy and a

negative angular momentum but no radial momentum both procedures violate the requirement

that the area of a black hole not decrease. For the gradual exchange method, however, it appears

that the Penrose process could proceed if the particle has positive energy and angular

momentum, but still removes energy from the black hole.

There is another process in which we could take in the energy which is known as the

Blandford-Znajek mechanism. This mechanism is purely electromagnetic. The energy that would

be collected using this process is very powerful and vanishes very quickly. Many scientists do

not really trust or believe in this process as much as the Penrose Process because of the

shakiness of the procedure. According to an article, (Blandford-Znajek mechanism versus

Penrose process, 2008, Komissarov, 2017), Its shakiness has revealed itself when Punsly and

Coroniti formulated the so called causality paradox of Blandford-Znajek process [35, 36, 37]

basically the event horizon cannot serve as a unipolar inductor because it is causally

disconnected from the black hole exterior. This shows that there are a lot of kinks in this

process because there are a lot of unknowns. Both processes extract the rotational energy, but the

Blandford mechanism depends on magnetism whereas the Penrose Process relies on

conservation of momentum

Using the Penrose Process would be the most efficient way of harnessing the rotational

energy that is given off from black holes. This energy is very powerful and is going to be very
difficult to harness. With the technology that we have today, there are no ways of collecting the

energy and later using it in the real world.

Even though it would be nearly impossible to reach V616 Mon, I needed to know how

much it would cost, and if it would be worth the trip. In order to fly to Pluto, the mission would

cost around $720 million dollars. Now, Pluto is only 7.5 billion km away from Earth, putting that

into perspective Pluto is 0.000624 (327 light minutes) away from Earth. The nearest black hole

to Earth, V616 Mon, is around 3000 light years away. On that note, the resources and the cost of

the overall mission would be way over 100 billion. The average cost that the United States

spends on energy is about 1.2 trillion dollars a year. That is only the United States, so if we were

to use the rotational energy as an energy source the outcome would definitely pay off. The

energy harnessed and returned back to Earth could be used as a replacement for fossil fuel

energy, electricity, transportation, and some water systems that we have today. It would be a

better energy source for the environment since it is a natural, clean resource. However, even if

this trip was possible, not even my great-great-great-great-great grandchildren will experience

the payoff. Also, this trip would be so expensive due to the fact of how much fuel will be needed

to get it to its destination, the fact that the ship will have to sustain harsh conditions for more

than 500 years, as well as the technology having to be serviced and updated in case of service

failures. So, hypothetically speaking, if we did have the technology or if V616 Mon wasnt 3000

lights years away, then the mission would be worth it in the end, but not for a long, long time.

After completing the research, I have come across so many different theories of

completing a trip to a black hole to harness its energy. My mentor and I tried to work out a lot of

the kinks in my research topic such as the fact that there would be no possible way of getting to

V616 Mon anywhere in our near future with the technology that we have today. In about a
100,000 years, with all of the new technology advancements, the black hole energy could be

used for spacecrafts instead of using fuel to get around, as well as using the rotational energy as a

way to keep the electricity running on all of the space stations. Nevertheless, this best way of

completing this mission would definitely have to be using the Penrose Process because it takes

the rotational energy directly in comparison to the Blandford-Znajek mechanism which is a little

more questionable only because it is depending on the electromagnetism to pull out an electron

out of the event horizon and create the energy in the Ergosphere. Whereas the Penrose Process

uses the collision of the positively-charged and negatively-charged particles to collide and create

an output of energy outside of the event horizon. This is more reliable in my opinion because

random collision occurs more frequently and would be much easier to harness the output of

particles in the Ergosphere. Even though the Penrose Process would only gain about 20% of the

original energy, hopefully, this extra kinetic energy could somehow be converted into electrical

energy. This energy would be such a powerful resource and help solve many energy crises, but

this all just in theory. Hopefully one day in the future, our advancements in technology will help

solve energy crises around the world, one black hole at a time.

WORK CITED

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ml

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work/20818
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penrose_process

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