Timeline for How big of an explosion can you make with a fusion reactor?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
31 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 9, 2023 at 13:20 | comment | added | Hobbamok | @SamKitsune yes, if Tokamaks completely fail to deliver on their expectations we might see such a development | |
| Feb 9, 2023 at 13:19 | comment | added | Sam Kitsune | @Hobbamok innovation is pushed by necessity. If you need fuel pellets for space travel, and billions of tonnes of materials are shipped across the solar system, then of course there will be enormous innovations in fuel pellet production, to the point where a pellet is worth its weight in diesel, or less. | |
| Feb 9, 2023 at 13:14 | comment | added | Hobbamok | @Mark we're still talking about a purified gas vs precisely machined object. Sheet metal will always be far cheaper than nanotubes. The difference will shrink, yes, but there will always remain a huge gap. | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 19:51 | comment | added | Mark | @Hobbamok, I'd hesitate to make any sort of estimate of the cost of mass-produced fuel pellets based on current prices. For a couple of historic examples of million-fold price drops, look at the cost of carbon nanotubes or high-purity silicon. (The price of aluminum also dropped dramatically, but only by a factor of about 10,000.) | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 9:22 | comment | added | Hobbamok | @Mark with Tokamak you also might be able to get something commercially viable so I'd favor that reactor type for a story anyway | |
| Feb 8, 2023 at 9:22 | comment | added | Hobbamok | ICF reactors genereally hold little commercial value or potential. You are burning multi-million-dollar pellets every second for continuous generation. Even if you bring that down to "just" high thousands: ICF is by design not meant for commercial use. That's why the whole thing was funded by the military. | |
| Feb 7, 2023 at 13:44 | answer | added | Criticizing Israel not allowed | timeline score: 1 | |
| Feb 6, 2023 at 23:19 | comment | added | Mark | I'm not familiar with the failure modes of ICF reactors, but with a tokamak reactor, you might be able to get a big enough explosion to scuff the finish on the reaction chamber. | |
| Feb 6, 2023 at 19:00 | comment | added | Austin Hemmelgarn | @jdunlop Indeed, fusion reactors are not particularly good bombs, but my point is more that in-universe there are likely all kinds of other things around that could be used for that purpose that don’t involve trying to smuggle in a nuclear warhead or weaponize a fusion reactor directly, though I will admit I could have worded my comment better to convey that point. | |
| Feb 6, 2023 at 18:27 | comment | added | jdunlop | @AustinHemmelgarn - but all of those are situations where an enormous amount of stored energy were released all at once. Fusion reactors have to create very precise conditions to convince their fuel to give up its energy, so they make very poor bombs. | |
| Feb 6, 2023 at 16:16 | answer | added | FluidCode | timeline score: -2 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 23:03 | answer | added | Jim Witte | timeline score: 0 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 21:46 | answer | added | Robert Rapplean | timeline score: 5 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 21:29 | answer | added | Douglas | timeline score: 2 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 5:09 | answer | added | JBH | timeline score: -1 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 2:36 | comment | added | Austin Hemmelgarn | Define a ‘proper bomb’. Texas City, Beirut, Lac-Mégantic, and Oppau were all devastated by explosions of things that were by most people’s definitions not bombs. You don’t need something specially designed to make a big boom, you just need the right circumstances (often as a result of questionable choices on the part of people who should know better). | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 1:47 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Feb 5, 2023 at 0:58 | comment | added | Sam Kitsune | @BMF Per Holden's words, and on the wiki page: “That means they’ll blow the core rather than let that happen, right?” “Yep,” Alex replied. I mean, the author might've left a discrepancy, but I interpreted "core" as in fusion reactor core, as it has been referred to regularly in the series. | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 0:31 | comment | added | BMF | @SamKitsune Martian ships in the expanse have a failsafe called condition zero which detonates explosives in/near the areas of strategic value (CIC, engineering) during hostile boarding. AFAIK it doesn't involve the reactor (which makes sense because if the reactor is damaged and can't restart, the sensitive data can't be obliterated). | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 0:27 | answer | added | Christopher James Huff | timeline score: 13 | |
| Feb 5, 2023 at 0:11 | history | edited | Sam Kitsune | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 4, 2023 at 23:58 | answer | added | lupe | timeline score: 9 | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 22:02 | answer | added | Willk | timeline score: 2 | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 19:40 | comment | added | AlexP | The thing with nuclear fusion reactors is that nuclear fusion reactions absolutely cannot proceed in conditions where humans could even dream to survive. If anything bad happens to a nuclear fusion reactor, the inside of the reactor is immediately exposed to normal human conditions and the nuclear fusion reaction instantaneously shuts down. The only amount of energy which can escape is the amount of energy which was being produced at that very moment, which is about the same as the power rating of the reactor. If we could ever make them work they will be extremely safe power sources. | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:35 | answer | added | Gary Walker | timeline score: 16 | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:19 | history | edited | Sam Kitsune | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:18 | comment | added | Sam Kitsune | @Willk Maybe they had conventional explosives mounted on the reactor, as real maritime warships have them too, but instead they are fixed all across the hull to sink the ship. BTW how is my big-web-o-questions looking? I practically wrote a story with them all. | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:13 | history | edited | Sam Kitsune | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:12 | comment | added | Sam Kitsune | @Willk maybe they had explosives built into the reactor... somehow, as in the books they explicitly say it was the fusion reactor. IIRC. | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 18:06 | comment | added | Willk | I assumed that the Donnager used a fission type nuclear explosion, not some hack of their reactor / warp core breach dealy. | |
| Feb 4, 2023 at 17:47 | history | asked | Sam Kitsune | CC BY-SA 4.0 |