Serpentor

25th Jul 2012

Iron Man (2008)

Question: After Obadiah Stane steals Stark's new reactor, how does the old one he reinstalled run out of power? It's a reactor: it generates power.

Serpentor

Chosen answer: It was basically a prototype made from, to quote Stane, "a box of scraps." It was not strong enough to last, especially when it came to powering Tony's high tech armor armor upgrades.

Rydersriot87

Answer: Yes it does create electric energy, but because of the laws of physics, energy can't just be created, it must be converted from another type of energy (chemical in this case, I assume), so Tony added a ring of palladium to the reactor while building it, which causes a chemical reaction inside to generate electric energy, so anyways, if the chemical energy inside the reactor is taken way so is the ability of the reactor to produce electric energy. Tony solves this in pt. 2 with switchable cores.