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death star

That'south no moon: It'south a gaping pigsty in the Empire'southward budget. The Death Star, as 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 it running may accept been terrifying too. British free energy supplier Ovo Free energy decided to pull together all the bachelor data on the Decease Star and approximate how much information technology would cost to ability. Information technology turns out to exist a lot — almost $7.7 octillion per day. For the record, an octillion has 27 zeros.

To be authentic, this analysis is not estimating what it would cost the Galactic Empire of Star Wars to power the Decease Star. We don't know enough about its economy or energy sources to summate that, at least non in the new official universe certified by Disney. This is technically an analysis of what it would cost nosotros lowly humans to power a Death Star if we were suddenly in possession of one. Spoiler: It's more than all the money on Earth.

The planet-busting laser is the biggest expense. This calculation is based on the ability needed to destroy an World-similar 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 price calculated by Ovo Energy is operating the hyperdrive. Using estimates of the corporeality of power needed to bound into hyperdrive, it figured that a unmarried jump would cost $ane.1E+23 (a 1 followed past a ane and 22 more than zeros). Recharging that laser in a solar day would also crave more free energy than the sun puts out during that time (tack on a few more zeros).

Even something as elementary as lighting all 85 levels and 257 sub-levels of the battle station would be a costly try. Assuming the lighting applied science we have now, information technology would cost around $52 billion per day only to go on the lights on. Food for the crew of 2 one thousand thousand? That works out to $299,000 per day, including ii cups of tea considering Ovo is a British visitor. When you add in the diverse smaller bills like nearly $200,000 for laundry and more than double that for waste disposal, you end up with the last tally of $vii.7 octillion per day. That's xxx trillion times all the money on World.

None of this addresses the price of actually edifice a Death Star in the first place. On this, we have semi-official numbers. In 2013 a White Business firm petition to build a Death Star reached the threshold required to become a reply from the administration. They pointed out it would cost roughly $850 quadrillion to build the structure. It's probably for the best nosotros didn't build it, considering how expensive it is to operate.

Bank check the full infographic from Ovo beneath for all the numbers. They're in British pounds, of course.

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