Isotopic Energy Reservoir

The isotopic energy reservoir, which provides the huge amount of energy the wormhole drive demands when forming a wormhole mouth, is an energy storage system which uses the atomic nucleus rather than chemical means to store energy. By using specific isotopes energy can be stored in an excited state of the nuclei of those isotopes. As such it provides several orders of magnitude (up to 1,000,000 times) more energy density than any other energy storage method.

 

Another advantage of isotopic storage is that the energy can be released on a much shorter time scale than usual. For example, in a specific excited state of an isotope of molybdenum a "hole" created in an atomic shell will attract a free electron. The free electron falling into that shell will in turn transfer just the right (small) amount of energy to the nuclei and, like a switch, cause a fast but controlled release of the stored energy.

Such isotopic energy storage reservoirs are sometimes called isotopic capacitor banks although they have nothing to do with traditional capacitors . . .

Source:

Sci-pedia - The Online Resource for Science – Isotopic Energy Reservoir