# Alcubierre-White warp drive energy consumption

I can't find any place that gives a number other than for a $10c$, 8 lightyear trip being something like 68 exajoules (off the top of my head, might be wrong). I'm sure the math would tell me this if I understood it, but what I'm looking for is determining energy consumption for a given distance and "speed" from at least $0c$ to $1000c$ and how much the size of the field affects the consumption.

I'd prefer a simple equation that I can input into Google Sheets, or write a small JavaScript program so that I can mess around with the variables to use for my purposes, but I don't know if that is possible.

What I am doing is designing star ships for a sci-fi universe and part of that requires storage capacity of fuel and such, and I'd like it to be relatively accurate.

• I think your question is not so bad, it is a specific feature of this community that they unlike the - anyways mainstream -, but unconventional GR applications. The main, real problem of your question that the Alcubierre drive is a very theoretical thing and you want engineering calculations from that. It is like if you would want to calculate the effectively of nuclear reactors from the isotope masses. – peterh Jul 17 '17 at 2:57
• I've deleted some inappropriate comments and their responses - please take note that stuff like that shouldn't be posted. Remember to be nice. On the separate matter of the topicality of the question: the Alcubierre drive itself is an established research topic on which papers have been published and vetted, even though the drive itself doesn't exist. So I'm leaning toward this question being on topic here. – David Z Jul 17 '17 at 3:13
• Possible duplicate of How much Energy to create a 'warp field' according to White? – StephenG Jul 17 '17 at 4:21
• @David-Z It's not really on topic. How can it be : it's unanswerable. The OP wants data we can in no way work out. How much capacity does the fuel take up ?!?!? What's the fuel ? How efficient is it ? This is just wild guesswork, not physics. It's a sci-fi story, for heaven's sake. – StephenG Jul 17 '17 at 5:34
• White not e-mail Harold White? His e-mail address is on the paper if it's the one linked to in the earlier question. – StephenG Jul 17 '17 at 7:02

Here is a report of NASA research on the drive:

Last year, Sonny White revealed a new design (pictured top) for the Alcubierre drive that reduces the energy requirement from the total mass-energy of a planet the size of Jupiter, down to the mass-energy of Voyager-1 (700 kilograms). We say “mass-energy,” because no one quite knows how to fuel an Alcubierre drive, with some research suggesting that it might require more energy than the mass of the observable universe, or possibly negative amounts of energy. Basically, though, according to NASA’s preliminary research, the energy requirements appear to be somewhat feasible if the drive is doughnut shaped (like the image at the top of the story) rather than a flat disc.

the current cost of producing 1 gram of antimatter is about \$100 trillion. But, with completely unsupported optimistic estimates, you might get that down to \$10 billion per gram. So, with the most wild-eyed pie-in-the-sky estimates, fuel alone will cost you \\$3.5 quadrillion — roughly the entire economic output of the world for forty years.