How the Androids have infinite energy

Anyway, on to the question. Ki is the same thing as vacuum energy. Quantum physics has shown that empty space—a vacuum—constantly creates and destroys billions of trillions of particles like photons and electrons and protons every second. It's happening all around you right now. A single gallon of empty space contains enough vacuum energy to destroy the entire universe.

Yikes! That's a little scary. But...how do you access that energy? I thought that energy couldn't be created or destroyed.

Vacuum energy always maintains the same average value, so nothing is being created or destroyed. Plus, it's totally chaotic; there's no consistent pattern to it, so you can't access it directly or use it to produce anything.

...

Hold on...what about the androids? They aren't alive, are they? How do they produce ki?

Keep in mind: the only thing you need to channel vacuum energy is knowledge of the flow patterns within vacuum energy itself. These patterns are random, but living cells use spiritual energy to align and channel them.

Dr. Gero figured out a way to access random vacuum energy patterns without using living cells. There are two ways, actually. The first was radiation; radioactive decay is caused by quantum fluctuations, so he discovered a way to extract the information he needed from radioactive decay. That's how he initially charged himself and Number 19.

I thought those models used absorption.

The initial charge from radioactive decay could only last a little while, so they needed to extract energy from living things in order to stay powered up. By pulling ki out of a person, they converted it back to the stream of information they needed to produce their own artificial ki.

The stronger models, 16 and 17 and 18, were different. Of course, 17 and 18 used the bodies of real people, making them cyborgs instead of androids, but that's not where their power came from. Gero synthesized a superheavy stable element three times the weight of palladium. Its stable decay rate allowed him to build a microreactor which gave these models a constant stream of quantum information...and with that came practically infinite energy.

- Bringer of Death Chapter 68