on a black hole of any size, but the large the better.Accretion discs around black holes generate large amounts of energy. All the matter swirling around these black holes heats up through friction with other matter. "This hot, fast-moving gas emits lots of radiation, ranging from optical light to X-rays" which could be collected much in the same way as solar panels collect power from our sun (Zabarenko, 1999). In the future it may be possible to build a sphere around a black hole and have the inside walls coated with this energy absorbing material which will convert it into electrical energy. This power can then be transferred to a collecting station where it can then be used or transferred for use elsewhere. Another advantage to this process is that the black hole can be used as a dumping site for our waste, which then will then actually be the matter that ends up producing energy. This process is known as the rotational vortex method of Roger Penrose (Controlling a Black Hole, 1999). Ibrahim Semiz wrote in 1995 that the Penrose process has drawbacks: The black hole acts mostly as energy storage device, because the 'rotational contribution' of the total energy of the black hole is extracted. With each step, the rotational slows down, and when rotation finally stops, energy production stops.The jets that are formed from the magnetic field of black holes could also be a possible future power source. The particles in these jets are "propelled to incredible speeds and energy by the magnetic field. They pick up so much energy that they become x-rays and sometimes gamma-rays" the highest form of energy (Jebornak 1998). Since large amounts of charged particles are shooting away from the black hole at speeds nearing that of light, if scientists figured out a way to collect that charge, it would be a power plant outputting large amounts of electrical energy. Furthermore, like with the accretion disc, a collector could also be set up to absor...
