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Old 12-04-2006, 01:43 AM
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Sa'ar Chasm Sa'ar Chasm is offline
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Uh, I don't think it's that easy. Even replicators can't be a hundred percent effective, even if everything they create gets recycled, which it's not. You'll still need an external power source.
Yes, I know, and you need a house to put it in. Quit snarking my snark. :P

Seriously, though, every few episodes we discover something that can't be replicated because the plot needs it, but those types of things rarely come up in real life. Since it converts matter into energy, and then converts than energy back into matter according to a pattern, you can use any source of matter as a feedstock: garbage, lawn clippings, dirt, bodies...

It's an effective way of solving the waste problem, especially if you can convert, say, CFCs (made from light, common elements) into things like platinum and palladium (expensive, rare, heavy elements).

I'm science-geeking out again. Occupational hazard. I'm also carefully ignoring the many egregious ways it probably violates various fundamental laws of the universe.
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