Ask X about Nuclear Power

[CallMeIshmael]

OP,

Do you like the simpsons?

[cwsiggy]

Will Mankind ever harness Fusion power? In how many years? Is it the answer to Earth's power needs?

[Exsubmariner]

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BTW, I understated the damage/day from cosmic rays. It's about 10k/day per cell, not per organism.

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Per cell? Are you sure? I'd be interested in reading that research if you have a link.

[Exsubmariner]

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OP,

Do you like the simpsons?

[/ QUOTE ]

I do. In fact, I had the same job as Homer, once.

[Exsubmariner]

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Will Mankind ever harness Fusion power? In how many years? Is it the answer to Earth's power needs?

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Maybe. Present efforts involve magnetic bottle type reactors or supercolliders. Trouble is that the magnetic fields required generate so much heat loss as to be a loosing proposition. Energy in > energy out.

Superconducting magnets are the key to the technology. It is really more a question now for chemistry than for physics.

How many years, I couldn't say. 20 years ago, I was reading about superconductor research and thinking "wow." Not much has happened since.

Will it solve the Earth's power needs? You bet.

[Exsubmariner]

This has been tried. There was a big accident in the history books from the 60's when the government was trying to make a nuclear ram jet. Unfortunately, the control system had a design flaw which allowed for a certain set of circumstances which would result in a positive feedback loop. The tests found that circumstance and the engine turned to slag.

The best bet would be to employ an engine which could be started on an aircraft in the upper atmoshpere and then propell it into space. Propulsion in space, however, would require something like an ion engine, and not the ram jet.

If you could figure out a way to get electrical power out of the ram jet nuclear engine, then you would have something, because it could power the ion drive.

But, at this point in history, all that arrangement is too heavy, too expensive, and too dangerous to put onto a working aircraft. Maybe one day, but not real soon.

[Exsubmariner]

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what percentage of a nuclear weapon's full destructive power have we been able to unlock so far?

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Not really a question about nuclear power, per se. All I know is that it is enough that I wouldn't care if one went off next to me.


The largest nuclear weapon ever detonated was in the USSR. It was something like 155 Megatons and was a hydrogen bomb.

[Tom1975]

What's the going rate for plutonium on the black market?

[JMa]

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OP,

Do you like the simpsons?

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I do. In fact, I had the same job as Homer, once.

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cool. what kind of education programme did you enroll in to become a nuclear ..."technician"?

[MrWookie]

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BTW, I understated the damage/day from cosmic rays. It's about 10k/day per cell, not per organism.

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Per cell? Are you sure? I'd be interested in reading that research if you have a link.

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I got this from a professor here at the University of Rochester who works on DNA damage from ionizing radiation. It's also in line with the wiki article on DNA Damage. He works on hole formation (in the semiconductor sense of a hole) in DNA due to radiation. The good news is that about 90% of those 10k DNA damage events that occur per cell per day are resolved w/o your cellular machinery having to do anything. The free electron that got kicked out by the radiation, leaving the hole, usually finds its way back and fills in the hole without any adverse effects. If it stays away too long, that the 10% of time, you can end up with base excision or a single strand break due to downstream chemical reactions.