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death star

That'south no moon: Information technology'due south a gaping hole in the Empire's upkeep. The Death Star, equally depicted in the first Star Wars moving picture from 1977, was a terrifying super weapon that could destroy an entire planet, but the bills for keeping information technology running may have been terrifying besides. British free energy supplier Ovo Free energy decided to pull together all the bachelor data on the Expiry Star and gauge how much information technology would toll to power. Information technology turns out to be a lot — about $7.7 octillion per day. For the record, an octillion has 27 zeros.

To exist accurate, this analysis is not estimating what it would price the Galactic Empire of Star Wars to power the Death Star. We don't know enough nigh its economy or free energy sources to calculate that, at least not in the new official universe certified past Disney. This is technically an analysis of what it would cost we lowly humans to power a Expiry Star if we were suddenly in possession of one. Spoiler: It's more than than all the coin on Earth.

The planet-busting laser is the biggest expense. This adding is based on the power needed to destroy an Earth-like planet, which nosotros presume Alderaan is — er, was. Assuming you need 10^32 joules of energy, that works out to a cost of $5.1E+24. The next largest toll calculated past Ovo Energy is operating the hyperdrive. Using estimates of the amount of power needed to jump into hyperdrive, information technology figured that a single bound would cost $one.1E+23 (a one followed by a ane and 22 more than zeros). Recharging that laser in a day would also require more than energy than the sun puts out during that fourth dimension (tack on a few more zeros).

Even something as simple as lighting all 85 levels and 257 sub-levels of the battle station would be a plush endeavor. Assuming the lighting technology we have now, it would toll around $52 billion per twenty-four hour period just to keep the lights on. Food for the crew of ii meg? That works out to $299,000 per day, including ii cups of tea because Ovo is a British company. When you add in the various smaller bills like nearly $200,000 for laundry and more than than double that for waste disposal, you end upwards with the final tally of $7.7 octillion per day. That's 30 trillion times all the money on Earth.

None of this addresses the cost of actually building a Decease Star in the first place. On this, we have semi-official numbers. In 2022 a White House petition to build a Death Star reached the threshold required to get a reply from the administration. They pointed out it would cost roughly $850 quadrillion to build the structure. It's probably for the best we didn't build information technology, considering how expensive it is to operate.

Cheque the full infographic from Ovo beneath for all the numbers. They're in British pounds, of class.

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