Timeline for How much of the energy from 1 megaton H Bomb explosion could we capture to do useful work?
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| Feb 26, 2012 at 14:35 | comment | added | mmc | @RonMaimon Naively scaling the PACER project design, a 1 MT design would require a cavity with a diameter of approximately 800 m at a depth of 3.2 km. I'm not sure about the feasibility of doing a cavity of that size, though it doesn't seem impossible. Megaton range shots also start having substantial surface effects, though they can be partially decoupled (Cannikin - 5 MT at 1800 m). | |
| Feb 26, 2012 at 14:26 | comment | added | N. Virgo | I imagine the scalability would be somewhat limited by being able to build a container strong enough to contain the blast, and by being able to absorb enough of the neutrons to avoid damaging its walls. From the Wikipedia article it sounds like you need some pretty hefty engineering to contain kiloton-sized blasts, so I doubt megaton ones would be feasible. | |
| Feb 26, 2012 at 14:08 | comment | added | mmc | @RonMaimon Essentially all the thermal energy of the bombs was extracted, but the conversion efficiency to electricity was relatively low (~30%) (though it's not much better in current nuclear power plants). This was limited by the need of a secondary circuit to avoid running the turbines with radioactive (and salty) steam. | |
| Feb 26, 2012 at 5:41 | comment | added | anna v | This is a foolhardy project, imo. Contemplate this map of known fault lines in the earth printable-maps.blogspot.com/2009/04/… . Earthquakes happen because stress is built up and they are triggered by a straw that brakes the camel's back. Megatons underground would be a very useful trigger. And note the "known" faults. There can always be inactive faults for centuries that may suddenly activate. Can any sane government undertake such research, particularly in California? | |
| Feb 26, 2012 at 2:25 | comment | added | Ron Maimon | Reading the linked papers, I get that it is possible to use the breeder aspects of the PACER using a Uranium or Thorium casing for each bomb which acts to convert U and Th to fissile material, which can then be bred in a regular fission reactor to produce Plutonium, which can then drive a PACER system. The whole PACER cycle might allow a complete utilization of all fission resources, plus a certain fraction of the fusion resources. It's a pity this project is abandoned. Who can people write to suggest a second look? Which congressional committee is responsible for this stuff? | |
| Feb 26, 2012 at 1:46 | comment | added | Ron Maimon | +1: Is it possible to scale up pacer to megaton-range devices? Aren't the bombs in the 10 kiloton range only 80% fusion, and so reliant on the non-renewable production of plutonium? A megaton range device can be 99.9% fusion. Also, do you know how much of the heat is wasted in the PACER? If you are 20% fission and waste 80% of the heat, you might as well use a normal nuclear power plant, so I hope that you can actually extract most of the energy from fusion. I think this is a terrific idea that might get a different reception today, now that cold-war fears have abated. | |
| Feb 25, 2012 at 23:21 | comment | added | Matt Luckham | Awesome answer! Thank you mmc! Full marks from me! | |
| Feb 25, 2012 at 23:19 | vote | accept | Matt Luckham | ||
| Feb 25, 2012 at 17:56 | history | answered | mmc | CC BY-SA 3.0 |