If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.
We are basically just discussing super steel. The quantity may be limited, but once you build a ship with it the ship doesn't need any more.
What we were discussing is power generation. The Federation uses antimatter for that and apparently society is advanced enough to harness and black holes as a power source. Relatively, the Dyson sphere to them is simply to costly to use. Which is probably why Riker had never heard of it.
If they were that advanced they would have their own power sources.
And this is Star Trek, a no name poor guy had the access to build three man sized missiles capable of blowing up a star system (generations). And the reboot gave us red matter, a drop of that blew up a sun too. The Federation doesn't need a Dyson sphere.
Edit - Google says our sun outputs a total of 3.8×10^26J/sec. Per TNG's technical manual, the Enterprise's engines output 1.2×10^18J/sec just to maintain Warp 9. It's only one one-hundred-millionth the sun's value but consider how large of a solar panel it's take to replicate a warp coil which is about the size of a semi truck. DS9/Voy also introduced faster ships too.
But a warp coil requires dilithium and can't be replicated. The Romulans went around their dilithium shortage by using miniature black holes.
Dilithium isn't a power source, it's used to regular the antimatter reaction. When magically rendered inert, ships don't stop flying. They blow up (plot arc in Discovery).
The theta-matrix compositor which can recrystallize dilithium even appears in the episode Relics that's the center of this topic.
I would assume recrystalizing isn't the same as generating new dilithium for additional starships. And without dilithium, there wouldn't be a power source of this type.
And that is a separate issue.
We are basically just discussing super steel. The quantity may be limited, but once you build a ship with it the ship doesn't need any more.
What we were discussing is power generation. The Federation uses antimatter for that and apparently society is advanced enough to harness and black holes as a power source. Relatively, the Dyson sphere to them is simply to costly to use. Which is probably why Riker had never heard of it.