How does the Federation produce antimatter?

[Luzifer's right hand]

Antimatter is no raw material you can dig from the ground.
You must produce the energy you want to store in form of antimatter first.

Does someone know how the Federation produces the energy needed for the production of antimatter?

Fusion reactors? Handwavium? Giant solar energy electric power stations in orbit around a star?

[HRogge]

Fusion reactors orbiting a gas giant would be a pretty safe way.

[Robert Walper]

Fusion reactors orbiting a gas giant would be a pretty safe way.

Since when does the Federation do things the "safe" way?

[Howedar]

I believe the TNG TM states that antimatter is produced through huge solar arrays, but that is of course unofficial.

[Ted C]

Most likely they generate the energy with nuclear fusion. They could also put solar collectors in orbits relatively close to the sun to do it with solar energy. I believe the DS9 TM indicates that the station has the capacity to create anti-matter fuel for starships, although I can't confirm that claim myself.

[Robert Walper]

Most likely they generate the energy with nuclear fusion. They could also put solar collectors in orbits relatively close to the sun to do it with solar energy. I believe the DS9 TM indicates that the station has the capacity to create anti-matter fuel for starships, although I can't confirm that claim myself.

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

[SirNitram]

Most likely they generate the energy with nuclear fusion. They could also put solar collectors in orbits relatively close to the sun to do it with solar energy. I believe the DS9 TM indicates that the station has the capacity to create anti-matter fuel for starships, although I can't confirm that claim myself.

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

You mean, will it ever be net positive? No. Thermodynamics. If that's what you meant, I'm gonna smack you for being a moron.

At best, AM is a nicely compact means of carrying energy around, but the Federation handles it so badly it's ships are dangerous.

[Robert Walper]

Most likely they generate the energy with nuclear fusion. They could also put solar collectors in orbits relatively close to the sun to do it with solar energy. I believe the DS9 TM indicates that the station has the capacity to create anti-matter fuel for starships, although I can't confirm that claim myself.

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

You mean, will it ever be net positive? No. Thermodynamics. If that's what you meant, I'm gonna smack you for being a moron.

Not everyone is as smart or as knowledgeable as you think you are Martin.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Most likely they generate the energy with nuclear fusion. They could also put solar collectors in orbits relatively close to the sun to do it with solar energy. I believe the DS9 TM indicates that the station has the capacity to create anti-matter fuel for starships, although I can't confirm that claim myself.

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

Making antimatter costs ~10 billion times more energy than is finally stored in it's mass(nowadays).

[SirNitram]

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

You mean, will it ever be net positive? No. Thermodynamics. If that's what you meant, I'm gonna smack you for being a moron.

Not everyone is as smart or as knowledgeable as you think you are Martin.

2nd Law Of Thermodynamics is not exactly a difficult concept, Robby. Your persecution complex nonwithstanding, it's something any middle-schooler can figure out.

[HRogge]

Out of curiousity, would the energy expenditure of creating anti matter be justified by the energy gain of using anti matter?

Antimatter is just a very compact, but dangerous BATTERY....
Fusion is an energy source ( you can get the fuel nearly for free ).

[Jawawithagun]

I think the TNG Technical Manual states they work at a 20% net loss.

[General Zod]

I think the TNG Technical Manual states they work at a 20% net loss.

the technical manual isn't canon.

[The Silence and I]

True enough, however it is a reasonable ball-park figure--Starfleet uses antimatter extensively, they must be able to produce oodles of it and operating at a crippling net loss would be, well, crippling.

[HRogge]

True enough, however it is a reasonable ball-park figure--Starfleet uses antimatter extensively, they must be able to produce oodles of it and operating at a crippling net loss would be, well, crippling.

If you use a natural resource with nearly no limits ( solar power in LOW orbit of a how star, fusion generators by using hydrogen of a gas giant, ect. ) the net loss could be higher without any problems for the Federation.

[Patrick Degan]

Federation antimatter is produced by Chernobyl EnerTech LTD.

[Stofsk]

Federation antimatter is produced by Chernobyl EnerTech LTD.

I thought that was the Klingons? Y'know, with Praxis blowing up and all that. Maybe that treaty of alliance was more trouble than it was worth...

[Uraniun235]

the technical manual isn't canon.

No, but what's wrong with deferring to it in the utter absence of canon information on a given topic?

[Enola Straight]

I believe the TM refers to an emergency AM generator which takes normal matter down to near absolute zero (Bose-Einstein Condensate territory) and in that ultra-inert state switches the polarity of matter's charge to that of antimatter.

[HRogge]

I believe the TM refers to an emergency AM generator which takes normal matter down to near absolute zero (Bose-Einstein Condensate territory) and in that ultra-inert state switches the polarity of matter's charge to that of antimatter.

If they have this thing, why should they store antimatter at all ? It would be much safer to produce it just before you need it.

[Patrick Degan]

If a starship had to manufacture its own antimatter to sustain its mission, it would be burning up fuel to produce fuel, which hardly makes sense. Also, it would require considerably greater space to store deuterium to provide the mass for conversion as well as the fuel to power the production process, which would increase the ship's overall inertial mass and thus require greater power from its engines to drive it through space —hence more fuel. I could see it possibly being feasible for a starship to renew its antimatter supplies by tapping the atmospheres of gas-giant planets for the hydrogen to be used by the converters, but you'd still need on-board storage for the ship's independent operation in space.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

If they have this thing, why should they store antimatter at all ? It would be much safer to produce it just before you need it.

Perhaps because the durn thing can only produce it at the rate of a snail.

Still, since there is a net-energy loss even using such treknobabble processes, wouldn't it be more efficient to simply use that source that's powering the process (probably the Fusion Drive in the impulse systems) to power whatever needs to be powered?

[Uraniun235]

The problem to which the solution is antimatter is that of energy density. The fusion reactors on the Enterprise can't produce enough power in the timeframe needed in order to use the warp engines. A rough analogy would be that there's a reason we don't have coal-burning airplanes.

The AM generator, as explained in the TM (and before anyone mouths off about canonicity, I don't ever recall hearing about the AM generator in any of the episodes, so this is all utter speculation), is meant to produce just enough AM such that the ship can manage to warp to a point where they can be refueled by a starbase or tanker... although, it'd be bizarre circumstances where a big and important starship like a Galaxy class managed to run out of antimatter.

The TM acknowledges that the process of creating AM is a net-loss process, and that it takes several units of deuterium to produce one unit of antimatter.

[Chris OFarrell]

Ok I dug up the TM. This is what it says about the antimatter generators in major systems that do the vast majority of the work:

As used aboard the USS Enteprise, antimatter is first generated at major Starfleet fueling facilities by combined solar-fusion charge reversal devices, which process proton and neutron beams into antideuterons and are joined by a positon beam accelerator to produce antihydrogen (speficialy antidueterium). Even with the added solar dynamo input, there is a net energy loss of 24% using this process, but this loss is deemed acceptable by Starfleet to conduct distant interstellar operations.

And the E-D apparently does have an antimatter generator on board, specificaly:

As mentionde there exists in the Galaxy class the ability to generate relatively small amounts of antimatter during potential emergency situations. The process is by all accounts incredibly power - and matter - intensive and may not be advantageous under al operational conditions. As with the Bussard Ramscoop, however, the antimatter generator may provide critial fuel supplies when they are needed most.

.....

One disadvantage imposed by the proces is that it requires ten units of deuterium to power the generator and the generator will only produce one unit of antimatter.

It makes a deal of sense if you consider episodes like Voyagers 'Demon'. Where the ship is more or less totaly out of duterium/antiduterium. They go looking and eventauly find a supply of the stuff, preaty much in unlimited amounts. So they can use the impulse fussion reactors to chew through the duterium and supply power, while converting more duterium to antimatter. Then when they have full antimatter tanks, they can load up their duterium tanks to the max and takeoff.

[hvb]

I would say it makes perfect sense for the ship to have the ability to produce AM:

In case of a warp core problem the AM container would (OK we are talking Trek, so should) be ejected in one unit, while the remaining warp core if needed goes out in another direction.
This supposes that they eject the non-AM containing part of the core, wi´hich may not be nessessary, probably what they mean when they say they are ejecting the warp core is that they are ejecting (only) the part that powers the warp drive: the AM containment field unit.

After the AM unit is ejected, the ship is unable to go to warp. But with an AM converter onboard they can just install a spare AM unit from the carried spare parts in the warp core and fill it with a small amount of AM from the converther, thus giving them the ability to reach the nearest refueling station, rather then just floating dead in space.

Of course the Enterprise did have enough other issues with its warp core, so we never see this system in operation as it was (I here surmise) originally intended by the designers.