Wind - one of the basic energy sources. Construction of Wind Power Plant will give energy as long as wind is present. Maybe it will be good idea to make Wind Power Plant upgradable. Light - also one of the basic energy sources. Solar Power Plant can produce energy during day. I also think about possibility on planet where always day and no night due 2 or 3 star in system. Dynamo - very easy and portable source of energy, you just start to rotate wheel or press the pedal, and step by step capacitors are filled with energy. Good as temporary source of energy, because slavery in space is rare. Lightning - planets with persistent storms can be dangerous, but their persistent lightning strikes can be very good source of energy. Think about something like Lightning Conductor Capacitor Spire...? Combustion - another basic source of power. Combustion Power Plant, that can use as fuel for energy everything that burns good, trees, coal, oil, petrol, gas, etc. Lots of thing to burn. Even corpses of some creatures. Geothermal - lava can be good source of energy too. Just build there Geothermal Power Plant and fill its' containers with lava, or build pump somewhere, that will send liquid directly to it's containers. Chemical - some strange liquids and acids also can be good source of power. Just make right reactions when them and don't mess up, and Chemical Power Plant will be a good source of energy to you. Tidal - underwater streams can be very powerful, enough powerful make very bulky vents rotate in right direction. Thus, Tidal Power Plant may come handy on water planets. Hydroponic - sometimes plants create stable energy pulses, or even stable static energy flow. This can be used for you own good, to create Hydroponic Power Plant, that can provide you with energy. Fission - nuclear energy, as long as it suitable for fission: uranium, plutonium, technetium and other isotopes. Nuclear Power Plant can actually go "Nuclear BOOM!" if built wrong or if its damaged. Fusion - fusion and cold fusion, processing of He^3 (Helium-3, third isotope of Helium), Deuterium, Tritium & and other rare isotopes. Construction of Fusion Power Plant is very hard and complex work. Preferred to make them armoured as much as possible. Because if something goes wrong, or it's damaged... You will meet older brother of Nuclear BOOM - Thermonuclear BOOM! Sure nobody will survive, nor you, nor creatures who damaged within very big radius. Bioenergy - corpses of creatures, or even creatures themselves can be used as source of energy. Simply construct a Bioreactor, very complex yet fail-safe source of energy. In the worst case creatures will escape from there, or zombie army will hunt you down for your brains... At least you won't destroy half of the planet if you will mess up with schematics... Antimatter - very dangerous source of energy, in the same time provides VERY much energy. When you're constructing Antimatter Power Plant, keep same caution (or even more) as when you're building Fusion or Nuclear Power Plant. If something gone wrong... Take your shuttle and fly away, because its matter of minutes before whole planet will be annihilated. Zero-Point - even in its ground state, vacuum have fluctuations and they can be used as source of energy. While construction of Zero-Point Power Plant is very complex and difficult, its completely fail-safe. Even if something goes wrong, it just won't work. Einsof - limitless source of energy, its basis is infinite interpolation of dimensions between each other within itself. Einsof Power Plant is very easy to build and its completely fail-safe, and it requires only one thing to produce power - Einsof Energy Core, but the impossible difficulty of it's creation - is whole other story...
hmm, the main components required for the building of the facility may be craftable from the tech tree? to be able to utilize renewable and more efficient sources of energy would require more research and rarer resources? also, take into account the emissions/byproducts of some sources of energy? OMG, yes, corpse grinders.
There is a good reason why I wrote here "Basic Enrichment Module" and not just "Enrichment Module" Sure. Same example with Fission/Nuclear Power Plant: this is a reason why I added "Improved Waste Storage" to whole schematic. I'm Yuri! I'm your... khm... khm... You got it right some corpses are enough flammable to call them "combustible" resource. But yeah... Bioreactor it's an idea... I will add it EDIT: Added.
It'd be neat if you had to power your base on the planet (I really hope you do) and if so, these would be some pretty amazing ways of obtaining that energy. The risk and complexity may be quite deep, but I'm sure it could work in a way where everyone could settle down. Would give me a use for all those darn trees that'll be around...
You give some great ideas on how to harvest or obtain energy, but what would you use it for? Would you need it to power your ship or weaponry? What is your idea for how it would find its place in the game?
Uh... Planetary Shields? Automatic Defenses? Factories? Workshops? Research Labs? Shipyards? Docks? Automatic Mining Facilities? Teleporation Jammers? Base Dome Shields? My Friend, where is your imagination?
Zero Point Energy Fluctuations... genius! Just make sure it doesn't start going the way of all of those Asimov stories.
Perhaps (expanding upon the lightning suggestion) you could make a weather center that made very strong storms all the time, and then have a bunch of lighting spirals = Lots of energy! That is, if weather stayed the way it is forever once it is changed (which I highly doubt).
About energy from light, I wanted to point out that it isn't really necessary to have two or three stars in a system to have permanent daylight. You could simply have a tidally-locked planet which always shows the same side to the sun, like the Moon does with the Earth. Of course, this would also mean the other half of the planet would be in permanent darkness. By the way, nice and extensive list of power sources you did there. Never would have thought of harnessing zero-point energy!
I think some planets will have permanent storms, so it's not really necessary to have weather control device...
Humanity has a need to screw up fertile and plentiful planets as well, comrade. "Hey, it's lush and fertile." "Sounds good for planetary-wide extermination!"
