Hello, SFIA audio listeners. In this month's Nebula exclusive, big alien theory,

we're asked at the reason alien civilizations might be rare is because most aliens are huge.

To hear it and every episode early and ad-free, plus hours of bonus content,

check out go.nebola.tv slash Isaac Arthur and use my code, Isaac Arthur.

Black holes can swallow anything, even light, and small black holes made from light itself

may offer us abundant clean energy and a pathway to the stars.

Black holes are enormously massive and dense objects, both in the wake of dying stars

many times more massive than our own.

But that may not be the only way to create them.

One option proposed is to create Cougall Blitz black holes, and while this originally

referred to the suggested process for making them, it

has also come to mean a class of micro black holes smaller than an atomic nucleus that

could be used for powering spaceships or even civilizations.

While there are many ways a black hole might be used for power generation, these very

small ones offer the easiest and most portable version, Hocking radiation.

Today we'll be looking at the Cougarblitz black hole generation method, some variance on it,

how that would function, how hockey radiation works, what the scale of power generation

and mass and lifetime would be for these black holes and many potential

applications, advantages, and limitations.

If that sounds like fun, grab a drink and a snack, before a black hole snatches it from

you, relax and please hit those like and subscribe buttons.

Now Cougarblitz is the German word for ball lightning, and it is a pretty good

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