https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-02-08/clean-nuclear-energy-are-we-there-yet/6777180
An old article by Stuart Gary.
Remember him, he used to do StarStuff on News Radio years ago.
Anyway it’s a very good article and what’s even better we’re three years closer to fusion.
However Thorium looks like the best option.
Peak Warming Man said:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-02-08/clean-nuclear-energy-are-we-there-yet/6777180An old article by Stuart Gary.
Remember him, he used to do StarStuff on News Radio years ago.
Anyway it’s a very good article and what’s even better we’re three years closer to fusion.
However Thorium looks like the best option.
My opinion on Thorium reactors was that almost anything you can do with Uranium you can do with Thorium, and vice versa, with only slight modifications. I’ve been forced to reconsider that in the past fortnight (yes that recently) because supposedly 232U is a byproduct of thorium and is a “showstopper”, stopping you from doing things with thorium that you could do with uranium. Which apparently is good.
Tokamaks and laser fusion are as far off as ever.
Good Scientist’s Cartoon take on clean nuclear energy.
I’d need some convincing that an H bomb in a 120 m cavern would only raise the temperature by 0.14C.
By the way, just had an email saying I have 12 e-mails pending with nuclearmalaysia.gov.my.
Also, it’s balls easy to convert kinetic energy to heat.
If this 120 m cavern is spherical and is filled with air then the mass of the air is 1.2 million kg. Its thermal capacity a.c.v. is some 900 million J/K.
The RDS-202 hydrogen bomb had an energy of 210 PJ.
That would be enough to heat that air by 230000000 K. Obviously not all of the energy will go towards heating that air as some will destroy the cavity walls etc but even the temperature of the plasma in that cavity is still going to be in the millions of K, at its peak.
dv said:
Also, it’s balls easy to convert kinetic energy to heat.If this 120 m cavern is spherical and is filled with air then the mass of the air is 1.2 million kg. Its thermal capacity a.c.v. is some 900 million J/K.
The RDS-202 hydrogen bomb had an energy of 210 PJ.
That would be enough to heat that air by 230000000 K. Obviously not all of the energy will go towards heating that air as some will destroy the cavity walls etc but even the temperature of the plasma in that cavity is still going to be in the millions of K, at its peak.
Yes. That’s why you can’t use air.
Let’s try water. Latent heat is 2,200 kJ/ kg.
A 120 metre radius cavern contains 7.2 million tons of water.
Multiply it out gives 16 trillion joules.
That’s 38 kiloton.
mollwollfumble said:
Peak Warming Man said:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-02-08/clean-nuclear-energy-are-we-there-yet/6777180An old article by Stuart Gary.
Remember him, he used to do StarStuff on News Radio years ago.
Anyway it’s a very good article and what’s even better we’re three years closer to fusion.
However Thorium looks like the best option.
My opinion on Thorium reactors was that almost anything you can do with Uranium you can do with Thorium, and vice versa, with only slight modifications. I’ve been forced to reconsider that in the past fortnight (yes that recently) because supposedly 232U is a byproduct of thorium and is a “showstopper”, stopping you from doing things with thorium that you could do with uranium. Which apparently is good.
Tokamaks and laser fusion are as far off as ever.
Good Scientist’s Cartoon take on clean nuclear energy.
> 38 kilotons
Add to that the energy to heat water from ambient to boiling point, can absorb up to 45 kilotons of energy. Should be safe enough at containing a 10 kiloton atomic bomb.
So I seem to have slipped a decimal point.
So a 120 m cavern radius for an atomic bomb. 10 kT
A 1,200 m cavern radius for an H bomb. 10 megaton.
mollwollfumble said:
Peak Warming Man said:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2016-02-08/clean-nuclear-energy-are-we-there-yet/6777180An old article by Stuart Gary.
Remember him, he used to do StarStuff on News Radio years ago.
Anyway it’s a very good article and what’s even better we’re three years closer to fusion.
However Thorium looks like the best option.
My opinion on Thorium reactors was that almost anything you can do with Uranium you can do with Thorium, and vice versa, with only slight modifications. I’ve been forced to reconsider that in the past fortnight (yes that recently) because supposedly 232U is a byproduct of thorium and is a “showstopper”, stopping you from doing things with thorium that you could do with uranium. Which apparently is good.
Tokamaks and laser fusion are as far off as ever.
Good Scientist’s Cartoon take on clean nuclear energy.
So, last frame refers to an A-bomb not a H-bomb.
But is this “clean”?
Answer, fairly. Enormously cleaner than all existing nuclear blasts except for high altitude atmospheric tests. Almost all radioactives in fallout from nuclear blasts come from irradiation of rock.
Radioactive isotopes generated are limited to:
The first two decay so quickly as to be negligible threat underground.
Tritium is only produced in very small quantities because both hydrogen and deuterium have very low neutron capture cross sections. It is also safe enough to be sold as key chain lights. And its decay product helium 3 is so valuable that some have suggested going to the Moon to mine it.
