Question About Macross Valkyrie 'Reactive' Engines

[DeathHammer]

Please Delete Thanks

Edited February 8, 2010 by DeathHammer

[Skippy438]

Well, the valks reactors are fusion instead of fission( if I remember right), leading me to believe they don't necessarily need a strictly radioactive material as fuel (think Gundam where the reactor output is a helium ion). Destruction of a nuclear device like a reactor or a powerplant doesn't explode like a nuclear weapon explodes. There won't be a mushroom cloud or anything like that, but radiation would be released into the atmosphere (assuming a radioactive substance is involved in the reaction. Chernobyl exploded, but the source of the explosion was pressure, not nuclear material. The physical explosion only affected the plant, but the radiation released in the explosion is what really caused the problems.

[azrael]

Yes, they are fusion, but the yield is much greater than our modern tests with fusion so it's not quite fusion. It's intentionally mentioned that way by the creators. But we can leave it as fusion for clarity's sake.

http://www.anime.net/macross/story/encyclo...tion/index.html

The reactor would explode...but the yield is really too small to be a like that of a nuke. The reactor would overheat and burn and then as stated, the pressure would be the source of the explosion.

[Mr March]

The short answer to both your questions: No.

Now, I'm no engineer, but as a enthusiastic fan of both science and science fiction, I can provide a long answer in layman's terms.

Skippy438 is on the right track, but further explanation is needed. The Reaction Engines of OverTechnology in Macross are indeed nuclear fusion, not nuclear fission. At the most fundamental level, fusion theory holds that a reaction can be produced by COMBINING stable elements (as opposed to current nuclear fission which requires SPLITTING complex elements and thus produces harmful by-products). So fusion is by far a "cleaner" nuclear reaction, because it can be achieved using basic reactants such as hydrogen, combining them in a sustainable, controlled fashion eliminating production of radioactive neutrons.

As for the Reaction engines themselves, fusion reactors would not explode if breached. A fusion reactor is basically the reaction of a star, created in conditions of extreme pressure and heat. Breaching a fusion reactor would result in the quick release of hydrogen and helium gases (in a plasma) but there would be no instantaneous reaction or excessive harmful radiation. While a breached fusion reactor is certainly very hazardous, it is not a high energy effect of mass destruction (like a nuclear bomb).

Edited October 25, 2005 by Mr March

[JB0]

So unless I'm inaccurate about the above,

The above is accurate. Everything below starts drifting off into common misconceptions.

wouldn't that pose a huge risk if a Valk went down over a populated area? I mean having flying debris hitting civilians isn't going to be pretty in any instance, but also radioactive material? (I.E. Episode 35, the battle over the city during Xmas) 

As others have stated, fusion reactions like overtech generators use make use of non-radioactive materials. And depending on the specific reaction, may or may not create radioactive materials as a side-effect. The He3 reaction is interesting because there's no particle radiation, which means no radioactivity.

I mean a reactive engine would need some kind of coolant right?

Yah, since every known nuclear generator design extracts electricity from the heat generated.

The Valks have a double-coolant, since the thermonuclear reactor is ALSO used to heat the propellant used to send it flying about in fighter mode, or hovering in GERWALK.

I thought that was a huge problem with modern nuclear power plants today, that theres alot of waste generated from the coolant and theres no easy way to dispose of it all.

A. modern reactors are fission, and fusion is a totally diffrent tech.

B. Nope. Coolant isn't the problem(though there are some heat pollution issues from reactors that use river water for coolant). The problem is the leftover radioactive isotopes after the fuel rods are "spent." Fission of uranium doesn't leave you with stable isotopes. It leaves you with some stuff that's radioactive for very LONG periods of time. Tens of thousands of years long.

Annoyingly, we have the technology to fix this NOW. It's possible to use the "spent" fuel in a second "breeder" reactor, which reduces the life to a far more managable hundreds of years, as well as leaving you with stuff that's far less nasty before it expires, but anti-nuclear activists have crushed any new reactor construction by tying efforst to build them up in so many lawsuits that it's not economically feasable.

I can see in space, this would be less of an issue. But wouldn't a Valk crashing in a battle over a city be a huge HAZMAT nightmare?

No more than Hindenberg was.

Also curious, though the show doesn't show it, if you could rupture a Valks reactive power core somehow, so in some hypothetical case, could that cause a small nuclear explosion?

No. A fission reactor CANNOT explode like an a-bomb. It may "melt down". but it won't blow up and vaporize anything.There's risk of steam pressure breaking something, turning your reactor into a "dirty bomb", but not of a nuclear explosion.

Fusion reactors are even safer, as the reaction requires active effort to maintain.

Break your reactor and you get a jet of flame out the side, then just leaking hydrogen, helium, or whatever other fuel you use(H is the easiest to work with, He has the potential to be the cleanest).

Of course, if you use a volatile fuel like hydrogen, you may get an explosion from your fuel tank catching fire. But again, it's non-nuclear.

A reIts always been unclear to me if you hammered a real modern silo in some specific lucky way, could you actually get a detonation? Or is it like C4, where its harmless, at least from an explosion,  until you put in a specific type of detonator?

For one, nuclear warheads use diffrent tech than power plants.

2. The silo isn't a weapon. It houses a missile that has a weapon mounted on it.

3. No. A nuclear explosion requires the nuclear material to be mated JUST right, and there's both electrical and mechanilca safeties in the weapon to prevent accidental firing, for obvious reasons.

This question actually rooted from a conversation with a friend about nuclear subs and aircraft carriers, i.e. could you reduce the size of some kind of 'reactive' power system to fit smaller vehicles.

Obviously there is fictional overtechnology and its an animated show, but I find it interesting anyway. Well thanks in advance to any engineers or guys who were good at physics/chemistry here who might have some insight on this.

A modern fission reactor can't be reduced much farther than it has been, due to the nature of the technology and need for extensive supporting equipment.

A fusion reactor could, hypothetically, be reduced much farther.

As you've said, Macross cheats by using "overtechnology." Gundam cheats too, by using fictional particles to create an enhanced confinement of the reaction. But a basketball-sized fusion reactor is hypothetically possible(though you won't get a lot of power out of it, since the more matter you fuse at once, the more power you get).

[JB0]

Skippy438 is on the right track, but further explanation is needed.  The Reaction Engines of OverTechnology in Macross are indeed nuclear fusion, not nuclear fission.  At the most fundamental level, fusion theory holds that a reaction can be produced by COMBINING stable elements (as opposed to current nuclear fission which requires SPLITTING complex elements and thus produces harmful by-products).  So fusion is by far a "cleaner" nuclear reaction, because it can be achieved using basic reactants such as hydrogen, combining them in a sustainable, controlled fashion eliminating production of radioactive neutrons.

Some innacuracies here.

It's possible to get safe elements out of fission. In fact, given enough time, all radioactive elements fission into stable elements. It's just not easy or efficient, because the bigger atoms are far easier to split than the smaller ones. Once your nucleus gets smaller than the effective reach of the storng force, inducing fission becomes nearly impossible, and you have to let natural emission decay take it's course.

And fusion does not NECESSARILY emit neutrons. But it can. Of course, they'll all be dumped into the reactor, so there's no fuel or waste products to worry about storing later.

As for the Reaction engines themselves, fusion reactors would not explode if breached.  A fusion reactor is basically the reaction of a star, created in conditions of extreme pressure and heat.  Breaching a fusion reactor would result in the quick release of hydrogen and helium gases (in a plasma) but there would be no instantaneous reaction or excessive harmful radiation.  While a breached fusion reactor is certainly very hazardous, it is not a high energy effect of mass destruction (like a nuclear bomb).

This is basically right. There's a few possible nitpicks, but they're minor, and excessively technical for the discussion at hand.

Only notable one is that you'd get your fuel and reaction products belched out, but these are not necessarily hydrogen and helium. In fact, pure H reactions have been abandoned in the real world, as I understand the issue. Partially because it's a dirty reaction if you aren't using pure deuterium, and partially because other reactions offer more bang for the buck.

[Final Vegeta]

I thought that was a huge problem with modern nuclear power plants today, that theres alot of waste generated from the coolant and theres no easy way to dispose of it all.

I can see in space, this would be less of an issue.

This may be untrue. The vacuum is actually a thermal insulator.

For more informations, see how vacuum flasks work.

FV

[ghostryder]

Only notable one is that you'd get your fuel and reaction products belched out, but these are not necessarily hydrogen and helium. In fact, pure H reactions have been abandoned in the real world, as I understand the issue. Partially because it's a dirty reaction if you aren't using pure deuterium, and partially because other reactions offer more bang for the buck.

Here's a visual of the heavy hydrogen fusion reaction, for us non-nulcear physicists:

I've read that deuterium is cheap and plentiful, while tritium is derived from lithium, also cheap and plentiful. So I suppose the products release during a Valk explosion could be deuterium, lithium, tritium, and helium? More info here.

Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen. There is one atom of deuterium for every 6000 atoms of hydrogen. So deuterium fuel is plentiful. The energy released by fusing the deuterium in 1 litre of seawater is equivalent to that released by burning 30 litres of gasoline.

Tritium is unstable and decays into helium with a half-life of 11 years. So there is no natural tritium. It can be produced within the fusion reactor by installing a blanket of lithium around the fusing plasma. When hit by the neutron generated in a fusion reaction, lithium breaks into tritium and helium. The tritium is rapidly extracted from the blanket and sent into the plasma to be fused. So overall, the lithium is consumed and turned into helium. Lithium is an abundant, inexpensive metal.

The fuel for fusion is therefore deuterium and lithium, both abundant and inexpensive. The final by-product is helium, a safe, stable and environmentally friendly gas.

However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Creating the conditions for the fusion reactions to happen is extremely difficult.

The difficulty is that both nuclei are positively charged and therefore repel each other. In order to bring the nuclei close enough to fuse, they must be hurled at each other at high velocity. Also, the nucleus is very small, so the probability of a good head-on collision is low. The hotter the gas, the faster the atoms travel. The velocity needed to overcome the repulsion corresponds to a temperature of 150 million degrees C. At that temperature, the collisions between the atoms are so violent that the electrons are knocked off their nuclei. You obtain a soup of free electrons and free nuclei called a plasma. It takes a considerable amount of energy to heat the deuterium-tritium mixture to that temperature. You therefore need to make enough fusion reactions happen to produce more energy than initially invested to heat the gas, which is a condition called break-even. The denser the plasma, the more often head-on collisions will happen. The plasma must also be kept hot long enough for the fusion reactions to produce the desired energy.

Keeping together a dense, 150 million degree C plasma for any period of time is the big problem.

[ghostryder]

I guess another question to add to DeathHammer's - since the Valks have air intakes, I suppose on earth the fusion reaction is used to superheat air to create thrust, much like a jet engine does with kerosene combustion. I'm not sure if this is more efficient than relying on the reaction alone.

Does the mechanism change in space? I suppose the inlets shut in space and thrust is generated purely by the reaction energy release.

[azrael]

So I suppose the products release during a Valk explosion could be deuterium, lithium, tritium, and helium?

We don't know.

I guess another question to add to DeathHammer's - since the Valks have air intakes, I suppose on earth the fusion reaction is used to superheat air to create thrust, much like a jet engine does with kerosene combustion. I'm not sure if this is more efficient than relying on the reaction alone.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Does the mechanism change in space? I suppose the inlets shut in space and thrust is generated purely by the reaction energy release.

It would have to since there's no air....unless it has different kind of engine.

Edited October 25, 2005 by azrael

[Mr March]

*snip*

Some innacuracies here.

It's possible to get safe elements out of fission. In fact, given enough time, all radioactive elements fission into stable elements. It's just not easy or efficient, because the bigger atoms are far easier to split than the smaller ones. Once your nucleus gets smaller than the effective reach of the storng force, inducing fission becomes nearly impossible, and you have to let natural emission decay take it's course.

And fusion does not NECESSARILY emit neutrons.  But it can. Of course, they'll all be dumped into the reactor, so there's no fuel or waste products to worry about storing later.

*snip*

This is basically right. There's a few possible nitpicks, but they're minor, and excessively technical for the discussion at hand.

Only notable one is that you'd get your fuel and reaction products belched out, but these are not necessarily hydrogen and helium. In fact, pure H reactions have been abandoned in the real world, as I understand the issue. Partially because it's a dirty reaction if you aren't using pure deuterium, and partially because other reactions offer more bang for the buck.

339503[/snapback]

First of all, the explanation I provided is a simplistic example in laymans terms which is technicially correct given most cases of fusion/fission. Like I said, I'm no engineer or scientist; I can only discuss the subject from the basic understanding of an amateur. Discussion into what can or can't happen is not answering the question concisely; it creates more complexity than is needed to answer the questio. Fusion/Fission are complex subjects, but the answer to this particular question need not be so.

Also, the idea of the fusion/fission reaction as it applies to this discussion is to create a small, fighter-sized device which safely produces more energy than that which is needed to ignite the fusion process (we want gain, not loss). Some fusion reactions actually require more energy to create than they produce and fission reactors are not able to be miniturized like fusion reactors. Do we really care about all these POSSIBILITIES in the context of this discussion? No.

For more in-depth analysis, it's best to self-educate. There are several Fusion FAQ's on the internet and websites devoted to the discussion of fusion theory.

Edited October 25, 2005 by Mr March

[JB0]

I guess another question to add to DeathHammer's - since the Valks have air intakes, I suppose on earth the fusion reaction is used to superheat air to create thrust, much like a jet engine does with kerosene combustion. I'm not sure if this is more efficient than relying on the reaction alone.

The fusion reaction alone CAN'T provide thrust.

...

Well, it could provide a small amount if you sprayed your waste products out the back, but not a signifigant amount due to the small masses involved.

Does the mechanism change in space? I suppose the inlets shut in space and thrust is generated purely by the reaction energy release.

If I recall, the inlets shut and reaction mass is injected into the jet engine for propulsion.

Reaction mass just means matter that's thrown off a space ship to create an acceleration, and has nothing to do with nuclear reactions. The large objects Hikaru was throwing around in his "fishing expidetion" early on in the series were reaction masses, albeit cumbersome ones.

Term comes from Newton's 3rd law of motion, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Because of this law, the action of throwing matter out of a thruster pushes the thruster back, and the ship with it. Without the 3rd law, space travel would be impossible.

*snip*

Some innacuracies here.

It's possible to get safe elements out of fission. In fact, given enough time, all radioactive elements fission into stable elements. It's just not easy or efficient, because the bigger atoms are far easier to split than the smaller ones. Once your nucleus gets smaller than the effective reach of the storng force, inducing fission becomes nearly impossible, and you have to let natural emission decay take it's course.

And fusion does not NECESSARILY emit neutrons.  But it can. Of course, they'll all be dumped into the reactor, so there's no fuel or waste products to worry about storing later.

*snip*

This is basically right. There's a few possible nitpicks, but they're minor, and excessively technical for the discussion at hand.

Only notable one is that you'd get your fuel and reaction products belched out, but these are not necessarily hydrogen and helium. In fact, pure H reactions have been abandoned in the real world, as I understand the issue. Partially because it's a dirty reaction if you aren't using pure deuterium, and partially because other reactions offer more bang for the buck.

339503[/snapback]

First of all, the explanation I provided is a simplistic example in laymans terms which is technicially correct given most cases of fusion/fission. Like I said, I'm no engineer or scientist; I can only discuss the subject from the basic understanding of an amateur. Discussion into what can or can't happen is not answering the question concisely; it creates more complexity than is needed to answer the questio. Fusion/Fission are complex subjects, but the answer to this particular question need not be so.

Fair enough.

I tend to point things out just because there's so many misconceptions about the technolgy(as the existence of the thread indicates).

[phoenix01]

Some info on radiation from my Navy days.

What we commonly think of as radiation takes several forms which are designated as alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron.

Alpha radiation is radioactive helium that is to say a helium ion. Alpha radiation must be ingested/inhaled to be harmful. Alpha radiation is particulate and can be stopped by the layer of dead skin on the body.

Beta radiation is free electrons. Beta radiation can penetrate the dead skin layer, but since it is relatively low energy cannot penetrate a thicker material such as clothing. Again, beta radiation is commonly a inhalation/ingestion hazard as long as you don't go running around in your underwear in the radiation zone.

Gamma radiation is photonic radiation. Low to high energy photons or gammas can pass through the body. High density material, such as lead, can shield from gamma radiation, but not completely.

Neutron radiation is simply that: free neutrons. Fast neutrons actually do less damage than thermal neutrons since fast neutrons tend to pass through very quickly whereas slower thermal neutrons "stumble" through the body. Nuclear fusion exhibits neutron radiation, although I can't remember if it is fast or thermal. Nuclear fission exhibits both fast and thermal neutron radiation.

If radiation was cookies, you'd hold the alpha cookie in your hand, put the beta cookie in your pocket, eat the gamma cookie (because it'll pass right through anyways so you might as well enjoy the taste) and throw the neutron cookie as far away as possible then run the other direction.

On a side note: IIRC, the Air Force experimented with a nuclear fission powered aircraft back in the late 1950's, but after the deadly SL-1 accident in January 1961, along with the weight of the lead shielding and the fact that the plane had the potential of radioactive emissions in an accident, it was abandoned.

[Knight26]

Actaully the fission generator on the plane never powered the plane, the plane still ran on old fashioned piston props. The point of the experiment was to see if they could take a reactor up and then later see if they could use it power the plane. As you stated of course the radiation it emitted and the amount of lead shielding required shut the whole thing down though, fission is just too impracticle to use to power an airplane.

[big F]

If I remember for the old days and some long since lost info.

In Battletech the jump jets are powered by the venting of fusion reaction mass mixed with the then super heated air mix. air was drawn into the jump jet and the forcibly mixed with expended reaction mass which super heated it expanding the air molecules to near plasma like temperatures which then vented throught the thruster nozzels causing lift. Also if I remember they used water a a fuel as it is cheap and "safe" simple chemical reactions were used to break it into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen for the reactor and Oxygen used in the Jumpjets. Apply this to a normal ish Jet engine and you could run it quite nicely. In Space away from gravity masses and in a near airless environment less effort is needed to push stuff arround. Veriner thrusters are needed for course corrections and a smaller amount of thrust is needed for directional travel.

When a reactor of this type breaches the masive magnectic field needed to hold this mini star in its caged enviroment is lost for an instant the star is free to do what it wants but in the miliseconds that follow it is not fed any sustaining matter. As it is very small it own gravity is not enough to hold it together. Thus it disperses in a hot plasma jet of unused and used matter.

One must remember that these technologies used in Macross Gundam and Battletech while not atainable in todays sciences are all based on sound scientific facts.

Edited October 26, 2005 by big F

[JB0]

Some info on radiation from my Navy days.

What we commonly think of as radiation takes several forms which are designated as alpha, beta, gamma, and neutron.

Alpha radiation is radioactive helium that is to say a helium ion. Alpha radiation must be ingested/inhaled to be harmful. Alpha radiation is particulate and can be stopped by the layer of dead skin on the body.

Beta radiation is free electrons. Beta radiation can penetrate the dead skin layer, but since it is relatively low energy cannot penetrate a thicker material such as clothing. Again, beta radiation is commonly a inhalation/ingestion hazard as long as you don't go running around in your underwear in the radiation zone.

Gamma radiation is photonic radiation. Low to high energy photons or gammas can pass through the body. High density material, such as lead, can shield from gamma radiation, but not completely.

Neutron radiation is simply that: free neutrons. Fast neutrons actually do less damage than thermal neutrons since fast neutrons tend to pass through very quickly whereas slower thermal neutrons "stumble" through the body. Nuclear fusion exhibits neutron radiation, although I can't remember if it is fast or thermal. Nuclear fission exhibits both fast and thermal neutron radiation.

If radiation was cookies, you'd hold the alpha cookie in your hand, put the beta cookie in your pocket, eat the gamma cookie (because it'll pass right through anyways so you might as well enjoy the taste) and throw the neutron cookie as far away as possible then run the other direction.

And to add to that, that there's lots of things dubbed radiation that aren't even particle radiation.

I bring it up up because I recently heard someone confusing EM radiation with particle radiation.

Related: I thought gamma radiation was only applicable to the x-ray side of photons. Am I mistaken?

If I remember for the old days and some long since lost info.

In Battletech the jump jets are powered by the venting of fusion reaction mass mixed with the then super heated air mix. air was drawn into the jump jet and the forcibly mixed with expended reaction mass which super heated it expanding the air molecules to near plasma like temperatures which then vented throught the thruster nozzels causing lift.

Less impressive than it sounds, really. Plasma comes in relatively low-energy forms as well as the high-temperature plasmas we know and love from fusion reactors and sci-fi.

Fire is an example of a low-energy plasma.

Also if I remember they used water a a fuel as it is cheap and "safe" simple chemical reactions were used to break it into Hydrogen and Oxygen. Hydrogen for the reactor and Oxygen used in the Jumpjets.

Makes sense, though I don't know of a chemical reaction that can break water apart.

But you'd just fill up with H2O, and crack it on the way to the reactor. No mucking about with pressurized fuel tanks or carrying high explosives.

...

Hell, could use it in a conventional internal-combustion engine too. Just crack the water, pump the H and O into the cylinder, fire the spark, and when it burns you'll get water back out and send it back into the fuel tank.

Sounds like a perpetual motion machine there, but you've got losses going on. Not all the H and O will recombine when you burn it. And you've pr'ly got consumables at the crack stage, but even if you don't, again it's not 100% efficiency.

Apply this to a normal ish Jet engine and you could run it quite nicely. In Space away from gravity masses and in a near airless environment less effort is needed to push stuff arround. Veriner thrusters are needed for course corrections and a smaller amount of thrust is needed for directional travel.

Sorta true.

The mass and inertia is all still the same, you just have a hell of a lot less friction eating away at your momenteum once you start moving.

On the other hand, you have to spin around and apply opposite thrust to slow or stop. And while you aren't constantly fighting gravity, every up/down motion requires a further expenditure of reaction mass, because there's no lift. In an atmosphere, once you get your speed up going down is free, and any direction but up takes a lot less fuel.

Hence why unpowered flight is possible on Earth, but not space. Sure you're always going down(unless you catch a thermal), but you can still maneuver.

To add to that that, the "reaction mass" in an atmosphere is air. In space everything has to be carried onboard, because you can't use a vacuum for propulsion.

It's not a clean and simple advantage.

When a reactor of this type breaches the masive magnectic field needed to hold this mini star in its caged enviroment is lost for an instant the star is free to do what it wants but in the miliseconds that follow it is not fed any sustaining matter. As it is very small it own gravity is not enough to hold it together. Thus it disperses in a hot plasma jet of unused and used matter.

It's not a "mini-star" except in the loosest sense possible. Exception is made for singularity-driven generators(I think it'd be possible to use a singularity to drive a fusion reaction).

Not only is the gravity not enough to hold it together against the energy released by the fusion reaction, it's not enough to CAUSE a fusion reaction.

It takes a constant, and typically LARGE, injection of energy to start and sustain the reaction. Which is part of the problem we've had with fusion.

Using the tokomak reactor design(this is the only one that makes extensive use of magnetic fields), the plasma's not even in a sphere. And I've never seen a donut-shaped star.

One must remember that these technologies used in Macross Gundam and Battletech while not atainable in todays sciences are all based on sound scientific facts.

Only loosely.

Gundam, for example, makes extensive use of a fictional "minovsky particle" emitted by He3-He3 fusion to explain away any problems.

Macross hasn't even dealt with the technological issues. It uses thermonuclear reactors based on alien technology, and that's all that's been said. They originally chose that power source because it sounded cool.

</nitpicks_part2>

[big F]

Well JBO certainly know his stuff. Kinda filled in the holes in my typing there didnt mean it was actually a star ( I read in a science journal once it was refered to as a "mini star". Most experimental reactors are Torus based so like you say unless somebody finds a dougnut shapped star then then it not star shaped ( may be they could find one in Star Trek). I had forgotten about the Inertia thing in space. Yes Gundam uses the Star trek affect ( make up something so you dont need to explain it).

I cant remember where I read about cracking water to use in fuel cell/reactor applications but it mentioned chemicals and electricity to break the molecules. I have forgotten too much of my Phys/chem days to remember it all now.

All this fusion tech will all come to light once we run out of fossil fuels and the Petroleum indusry gets all the energy saving pattens it has out of its big secret vault.

Would be nice to have a car powered by tap water. Although the price of Evian would make it more expensive than Petrol/Gasoline. Probably better running it off moonshine or Vodka.

[JB0]

Well JBO certainly know his stuff.

Yah. Too bad none of it's useful to me...

Kinda filled in the holes in my typing there didnt mean  it was actually a star ( I read in a science journal  once it was refered to as a "mini star". Most experimental reactors are Torus based so like you say unless  somebody finds a dougnut shapped star then then it not star shaped ( may be they could find one in Star Trek).

I shoulda let that one slide. But I was on a roll.

Yes Gundam uses the Star trek affect ( make up something so you dont need to explain it).

Minovsky particle = dilithium crystals.

I cant remember where I read about cracking water to use in fuel cell/reactor applications but it mentioned chemicals and electricity to break the molecules. I have forgotten too much of my Phys/chem days to remember it all now.

Yah. Electricity will work in the real world. Drop a 9-volt battery underwater, and bubbles of O and H start growing on the terminals.

Don't think you can split it fast enough to power a reactor without using most of your reactor to split water, though.

All this fusion tech will all come to light once we run out of fossil fuels and the Petroleum indusry gets all the energy saving pattens it has out of its big secret vault. 

Nah. It's the anti-nuclear protestors that hold back nuclear power.

There's some issues with fusion currently, but we could make MUCH better fission than we do now.

I think I mentioned breeder reactors recently.

Would be nice to have a car powered by tap water. Although the price of Evian would make it more expensive than Petrol/Gasoline. Probably better running it off moonshine or Vodka.

To the BenderMobile!

[Syngyne]

And fusion does not NECESSARILY emit neutrons.  But it can. Of course, they'll all be dumped into the reactor, so there's no fuel or waste products to worry about storing later.

Well, except for the reactor structure itself, if it's ever decomissioned, but it won't stay radioactive anywhere near as long as fission waste will.

[JB0]

And fusion does not NECESSARILY emit neutrons.  But it can. Of course, they'll all be dumped into the reactor, so there's no fuel or waste products to worry about storing later.

Well, except for the reactor structure itself, if it's ever decomissioned, but it won't stay radioactive anywhere near as long as fission waste will.

340016[/snapback]

Yeah. The reactor itself.

And how long the fission byproducts are an issue depends greatly on the fission reaction.

While uranium byproducts are an issue for several thousand years, it's possible to reduce that to a couple hundred by running them through another reactor. Could pr'ly run that through a THIRD reactor to reduce it further, but it would stop becoming feasable after a certain point.

The series of reactors is essentially a forced acceleration of decay. Though the reactors approach it diffrently.

[phoenix01]

And to add to that, that there's lots of things dubbed radiation that aren't even particle radiation.

I bring it up up because I recently heard someone confusing EM radiation with particle radiation.

Related: I thought gamma radiation was only applicable to the x-ray side of photons. Am I mistaken?

339937[/snapback]

I brain-dumped most of that stuff when I got out and that was five years ago. I'm glad I remember that much.

Thanks Knight26 on the correction on the history. One of those "you hear it once ten years ago and try to remember it now" kind of things. I'm surprised I got that much right.