> A series of 50-kiloton bombs would be dropped into the cavern and exploded to heat the water and create steam. The steam would then power a secondary cooling loop for power extraction using a steam turbine. Dropping about two bombs a day would cause the system to reach thermal equilibrium, allowing the continual extraction of about 2 GW of electrical power
For some reason (that I haven’t figured out yet) thermonuclear bombs are just so much more efficient than any other proposed fission or fusion reaction.
It’s strange that controlled fusion is an energy sink, but whatever black magic is happening inside an H-bomb manages to unlock so much “free” energy.
Fusion is ridiculously efficient and effective power source. The problem with it is that it is very hard to created conditions where fusion can happen. The one reliable way we have that doesn't take more energy in than it outputs, is to detonate a fission bomb and use the x-rays to compress a fusion secondary.
The history of fusion research for the past 70 years is trying to figure out a cost-effective way to trigger enough fusion to make net energy without a nuke. So far, we've got bupkis. (The magnetic containment approaches using high-temperature superconductors seem promising, but we won't know they actually work until we've built them.)
Even the cleanest bombs (97%+ fusion rather than fission) turned out to be too dirty for basically everything civilian (unlocking gas reservoirs - too radioactive; landscaping to replace enormous amounts of conventional explosives - too radioactive).
Fission fragment rocket engines are also (theoretically) extremely efficient.. using the particles that come out of the reaction directly as a high-velocity exhaust stream.
Check out this 1970s project that proposed extracting electricity from thermonuclear explosions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_PACER
> A series of 50-kiloton bombs would be dropped into the cavern and exploded to heat the water and create steam. The steam would then power a secondary cooling loop for power extraction using a steam turbine. Dropping about two bombs a day would cause the system to reach thermal equilibrium, allowing the continual extraction of about 2 GW of electrical power
There was also project Plowshare, as chronicled by Kurzgesagt at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3DCdWyb0cc
Which was building canals etc with nuclear bombs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Plowshare
In the end we're just boiling water.
"Hey boss, do you think there is a chance this scheme might introduce radioactive byproducts into the ground water?"
"Shut up"
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Coming soon: thermonuclear fracking.
Already done https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy
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For some reason (that I haven’t figured out yet) thermonuclear bombs are just so much more efficient than any other proposed fission or fusion reaction.
It’s strange that controlled fusion is an energy sink, but whatever black magic is happening inside an H-bomb manages to unlock so much “free” energy.
Fusion is ridiculously efficient and effective power source. The problem with it is that it is very hard to created conditions where fusion can happen. The one reliable way we have that doesn't take more energy in than it outputs, is to detonate a fission bomb and use the x-rays to compress a fusion secondary.
The history of fusion research for the past 70 years is trying to figure out a cost-effective way to trigger enough fusion to make net energy without a nuke. So far, we've got bupkis. (The magnetic containment approaches using high-temperature superconductors seem promising, but we won't know they actually work until we've built them.)
Even the cleanest bombs (97%+ fusion rather than fission) turned out to be too dirty for basically everything civilian (unlocking gas reservoirs - too radioactive; landscaping to replace enormous amounts of conventional explosives - too radioactive).
Not really? How do you define efficiency here?
Thermonuclear bombs literally create lots of heat, and don’t tend to drive anything that produces work. It’s the opposite of efficient.
Just like lighting gasoline on fire and claiming that that’s more efficient than a combustion energy…
I’m talking about net energy. Harnessing it is a whole different story.
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What if we used them to run Tesla turbines
In order to trigger an H bomb, you first trigger a regular fission bomb to generate the necessary energy to trigger the second fusion stage.
So, fission bombs are the black magic.
I think there’s a lot more to it than that, like the heavy uranium tamper, “FOGBANK”, and radiation implosion (whatever that means).
It’s a much more efficient version of inertial confinement fusion like at the NIF.
Some of the nuclear rocket propulsion ideas propose exactly that, like Project Orion.
Fission fragment rocket engines are also (theoretically) extremely efficient.. using the particles that come out of the reaction directly as a high-velocity exhaust stream.
FFR have super high ISP but microscopic thrust. Not exactly practical.
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If you like Orion check out Project Pluto (they even built some some test bench engines)
did they ever figure out how to brake? Spin the ship 180 degrees and bomb the front?
Couldn't you just turn and orbit ?
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