In one minute

Chris Van Den Broeck shows that a small change to the Alcubierre geometry dramatically cuts the total energy a warp bubble needs to carry macroscopic objects. His spacetime needs total negative mass of only a few solar masses, with a comparable amount of positive energy. That places the warp drive on the mass scale of large traversable wormholes. The new geometry satisfies the quantum inequality on weak energy condition violations and keeps every advantage of the original. The quantum inequality is amply satisfied, proving that warp drive energy requirements need not be as stringent as Alcubierre's original. He presents it as a proof of principle on total energy, with very large local energy densities still to be solved.

A 'warp drive' with more reasonable total energy requirements