Electricity: Photvoltaic Technology For A Fantasy World?

Photovoltaics probably aren't the best means of generating electricity since they're so hard to produce. On the other hand there are several other means of electricity production that could be used very well.

First off, you can generate current very simply with a rotating magnet and copper coils, you only need a way to turn it. This can be done with a mill-wheel that has the generating setup in the hub. The ancient world was full of waterwheels. Greeks invented the steam engine before the birth of Christ they only would have needed one more step to make it do work.

1.) I can definitely see a hot-springs based steam engine.
2.) Or a giant stirling engine as the centerpiece of a city built to produce the right conditions to power it. The Expansion chamber on top of a huge ziggurat with bronze sun-disk focusing mirrors on top of tall obelisks that direct sunlight onto it.
3.) Or a forest of lightning rods tall as redwood trees built atop a mountain with their grounding cables instead running into a "storm temple" whose holy relics are vast tanks of fitted volcanic glass full of compunds that make them alkaline batteries. (There is precedent for this, objects were found in the tomb of what appears to have been a metalworker that could have been primitive alkaline batteries. Tests with replicas have shown that they provide enough current to do electroplating.)
4.) How about a port city where a massive sealed tube runs out into the ocean depths well beyond the harbor, open at the bottom and top. Temperature differences between the top at the surface and bottom far below create a current through the pipe that turns a series of internal generating wheels as the cooling water sinks.
 

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Frukathka said:
I'm trying to find a scientific way to introduce electricity into a fantasy game. I've been looking at photovoltaic technology and think it might fit with a victorian theme.
Um, no. Photovoltaics are Computer Age technology.

The Victorians would simply hook up a steam engine to a generator. Or a water wheel. Or a Stirling engine -- which can run off of any heat source, including solar heat. That's what those solar towers in the desert surrounded by mirrors are.

The first modern AC generator was invented by Tesla in the Victorian era -- in America, not Britain, but near the end of the 19th century.
 

If you are looking for more ancient technology that would generate electricity, I saw a Mythbusters show where they replicated ancient batteries using gourds, some lead, and other stuff.
 

I set up an interesting setting once, that never got played in, where they pushed huge lightning rods into the air and got electricity that way. I know it wouldn't actually generate enough electricity to power anything modern, but it has a fantasy-esque feel to it, instead of peeling something from a modern encyclopedia. If some magic is possible control weather and lightning bolt can do bursts of electricity that is maybe stored in batteries of some sort.
 

Frukathka said:
I'm trying to find a scientific way to introduce eletricity into a fantasy game. I've been looking at photovoltaic technology and think it might fit with a victorian theme.

Your input would be appreciated.

Does it have to be an actual scientific way to produce electricity, or would a fantastical, but non-magical way suffice?

For instance, there might be an electricity producing plant that could produce electricity for towns and cities. Every town might have an orchard of these "Electrees" Further, maybe the leaves (or roots, or whatever) could be alchemically processed to make cheap and durable solar cells.

Later
silver
 

Temmogen said:
Try looking up the Electron Tubes of Dendera. Depictions of a Lightbulb like device found in an ancient egyptian temple. I have also read somewhere that they found an ancient greek or egyptian battery, similar to alkaline batteries.

The Electron tubes idea is based off a very dubious interpretation of a relief in an egyptian temple (I think by Von Danniken.)

The batteries you speak of is likely the Baghdad Batteries, which are 100% real, yet their purpose is unknown (they produce a pretty small charge.)

There are also interesting theories on the fabled Ark of the Covenant being some type of electricity conducting device.
 

There is speculation that the Baghdad batteries (and similar devices around the ancient world) were used for electroplating gold onto lesser metals, for either legitimate (accenting statuary or architecture) or nefarious (fake gold jewelry) purposes.

Others have suggested they were for "stimulating" baths.
 

If you're not opossed to this idea and if your setting uses time travel back in time, maybe the future could be tossing discarded energy creators into the past and the current civilization figures out how to use it. I know you don't want to use magic but perhaps a spell was used to replicate it the power source?

That way, if you really, really want to; could sort of explain photovoltaic energy sources.
 

mmadsen said:
Um, no. Photovoltaics are Computer Age technology.

Technically, yes, but...

If we're willing to concede that this is a fantasy world, and that a little pseudo-science is allowed, then we can make it work.

Option 1: Specially made arrays of lenses and mirrors focus sunlight onto a water-filled pipe manifold. Very simply, the concentrated light and heat generates steam that runs a generator. This is basic technology which could be available in a Victorian Age setting, and requires only a hyperbole of efficiency to make it work.

Option 2: In very pseudo-scientific way, scientists and engineers (or alchemists?) have learned to extract chlorophyll from plants, or have learned to "brew" synthetic chlorophyll, which can be laminated between sheets of glass. When exposed to sunlight, these green-tinted glass sheets generate an electric charge, which is collected by delicate copper filaments sandwiched between the plates within the chlorophyll layer. This is a far more fantastic, though still overtly non-magical, way of doing it.
 

Pbartender said:
Option 2: In very pseudo-scientific way, scientists and engineers (or alchemists?) have learned to extract chlorophyll from plants, or have learned to "brew" synthetic chlorophyll, which can be laminated between sheets of glass. When exposed to sunlight, these green-tinted glass sheets generate an electric charge, which is collected by delicate copper filaments sandwiched between the plates within the chlorophyll layer. This is a far more fantastic, though still overtly non-magical, way of doing it.
Actually, I've been contemplating throwing this into my homebrew as well, as it is mostly uncharted through natural means and the civilized areas have the Victorian Age feel while retaining a level of higher than above average high level magic mixed in with a modicum of Victorian Age technology and some 'magic technology' as well (Litguns (magic guns), because blackpowder/gunpowder doesn't work properly in my homebrew).

I guess the true reason I wanted this to be tech based and not magic based is because magic can be faulty/flakey; it is not 100% reliable and can be dispelled/disjoined.

I like your idea a lot Pbartender and think it is a great fit. Thanks for the idea.
 

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