A non-ultratech proposal for fusion power

[dsrtao]

Someone must have thought of this previously, but I'm not aware of it.

Let's say you have a technological base only slightly in advance of our own -- in particular, you can spend lots of money on engineering projects, but you don't have usable fusion as a power source. Here's a method that might work.

This technique is easier in freefall, but that's not actually required.

Start with a large stretchy balloon full of water. Very large. In the center, set off a fusion bomb. The balloon expands, as the water turns to steam. Water is a good neutron moderator, too. Now you have a large hot mass of gas under pressure. Let it out through a turbine-generator. Extract all the heat energy you can. If you don't have cheap supply of water. store the outflow in another balloon. You won't want to let it out, anyway, as there's probably a high degree of contamination.

Repeat as desired. Monitor the integrity of the balloon carefully.

Comments

[antoniseb.livejournal.com]

That is an interesting idea.
One megaton is about 10^22 ergs, and if you start off with water at about 10C, and elevate it to 205C (on average), you would need 5x10^19 grams of water to absorb the megaton of energy. This would require a starting radius of a little under 23 kilometers.

You'd probably need the entire balloon to be made of a good thermal insulator to give the whole contents a chance to mix and get up to temperature. Most of the contaminants would be pretty short lived. You'd have a few parts per trillion contamination from the bomb materials, and a little bit of Deuterium and Fluorine. I wouldn't use it for drinking.

Fusion

[robertdfeinman.livejournal.com]

One of my hobby horses is the lack of interest in fundamental fusion research. The magnetic confinement and laser induced approaches get all the money. These are in the engineering phases. What is needed is more basic research.

There have been some claims for new fusion effects. Most seem not to have been confirmed, but it is worth exploring for others. The sono-fusion effect (collapsing microbubbles) sounded interesting, but the researcher is now under review.

We spend over $1 billion per year on vitamins. I don't recall any large instances of scurvy, pellagra or rickets, so, therefore, most of these purchases are unnecessary.

Anyway if we can afford $1 billion for this how about several billion for basic fusion research? I once suggested about $300 billion worldwide. The plan could fund hundreds of small experiments. Even if 99% were a failure, we only need one to succeed. Perhaps $300 billion sounds like a lot, but we are spending $12 billion per month just in Iraq. I'm proposing an international effort.

Perhaps the world's leaders really prefer an ice-free northwest passage...