The statement that it wasn't done apparently applies to a different canon; there's apparently quite a lot that's changed in this one. However, the amount of en

The statement that it wasn't done apparently applies to a different canon; there's apparently quite a lot that's changed in this one. However, the amount of energy is trivial compared to what starships in the Trek universe must be capable of. Impulse engines are supposed to be able to drive the ship to some respectable fraction of the speed of light, so no matter how they work, they should be able to get the ship off the surface of the Earth. I think the fact that the Trek universe has artificial gravity solves all of the handwavy problems, though, even apart from that, so there's no canonical technical problem here.