Can black holes be used as a power source?
Black holes are like 40 ton gorillas, they sit wherever they want to. And that will be a major problem with using them as a source of power. How do you get one to where you can use it, and how would you keep it there once you have it. Black holes are sources of extreme amounts of energy and are responsible for some of the most luminous objects in our Universe (AGN, etc.) as well as some pretty hefty beasts in our own Galaxy. If you haven’t already, you can read about them in Imagine the Universe! The article on black holes also suggests several books to read on the subject. While most of what has been written about deriving useful energy from black holes is in science fiction, here are a few good references. One way of extracting energy from a black hole is known as the Penrose process. The energy comes from reducing the angular momentum of a black hole (or any massive body). A popular-level description is given in Nigel Calder’s “Einstein’s Universe” in the “Ultimate Waterfall” chapte
