Questions tagged [nuclear-power]
Questions about generation of heat and power by nuclear phenomena, usually but not limited to radioactive decay (fission reactions). For weapons relying on nuclear phenomena, consider [weapons] and [weapon-mass-destruction] instead.
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1answer
115 views
What happens to hydrogen after burning [on hold]
With fusion on the rise we are going to have a lot of helium but what gases are limited in helium burning?
Context: my science teacher did not know the answer and I got curious
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0answers
81 views
What would happen if all humans suddenly vanished? [closed]
If the cause is irrelevant, what would happen to an average city after the sudden disappearance of all human life? What would happen to the oil refineries, power plants, piping, etc? How long would it ...
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1answer
264 views
What would happen if you went swimming in a spent fuel pool?
If one of my modern-day characters, a nuclear power-plant worker decides to take a swim in one of these pools, what will happen?
Would he die, get sick, or not much?
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4answers
285 views
What would the effects be if all power grids connected to nuclear reactors abruptly suffered catastrophic failure?
To be more specific, I mean what if every wire, every power cable and transformer on the connected grids to the nuclear power plants all ruptured at once. The transformers literally exploding, the ...
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2answers
211 views
A world where nuclear fission does not produce radioactivity [closed]
I think the title explains it, but I am interested in how a world might differ from our own if fission had no radioactivity associated with the fuel, process, or waste/byproducts. The obvious answers ...
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3answers
94 views
Repercussions of floating nuclear power station going into meltdown?
Set in an alternate 2010s/2020s, floating nuclear power station are now common as they can provide power to any city it is docked at (think along the lines of this real world example. or this ...
2
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2answers
275 views
Would it be safe to assume that solid core nuclear rocket technology advances?
Solid Core Nuclear Thermal rocketry has existed for a while and I was thinking about using it as the primary propulsion in my setting. Now most Solid Core rockets still have fairly long transit times (...
4
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4answers
295 views
Heat regulation in an asteroid base powered by a small nuclear reactor
So, I’m writing about the siege of an asteroid base. This asteroid is near the outer edge an asteroid belt at the solar radiation equivalent of Saturn’s orbit from its star (although the raw distance ...
3
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1answer
247 views
What will happen to a spent nuclear fuel pool without routine maintenance?
Assuming the human population is decimated (how doesn't matter) such that nuclear power plant maintenance is impossible. What would happen to a spent nuclear fuel rod pool? It seems to me that ...
24
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9answers
7k views
Uranium block house heating
I'm thinking of building a very long term heating system for a housing complex.
I want it not to rely on sunlight, wind or other fuels.
And I just need the heat.
The surroundings are pretty cold, so ...
3
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4answers
293 views
Lead as a nuclear fuel
On a timescale of 1e11 years, all uranium and thorium will have decayed, but planets will still exist, orbiting red dwarf stars.
Would it be possible to use lead as a nuclear fuel? In principle, the ...
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4answers
560 views
Nuclear terrorism 4 billion years ago: Was natural uranium enriched enough to create weapons without need for further enrichment?
Natural uranium (NU) is a mixture of about 0.7% $\ ^{235}U$ (fissile) and 99.3% $\ ^{238}U$ (non-fissile). To create uranium-based nuclear weapons NU has to undergo a process called enrichment in ...
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1answer
197 views
Can liquid nuclear fuel be injected and ignited like petro from a fuel injector?
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Model Lightcraft under laser power
While sadly the funding for this research has not been forthcoming, there have been proof of principle flights and open air ...
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3answers
363 views
Train-World: Storing RHUs for decades to centuries
...no, I mean, supposedly, I believe there is more about it than mere kans on our part. Installations like this one are found all along the spoorwegs, and yes, around some you should tread lightly. ...
12
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2answers
361 views
Train-World: Feasibility of radioisotope steam-electric engines
...It's paradox. They left us these technological marvels, yet with all their might and knowledge they failed to prevent their own doom...
Excerpt from a lecture by the High Historian of Berlin Falls
...
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2answers
484 views
What would happen if the world lost all electronic functionality for 24 hours? [closed]
A catastrophic event occurs that sends a disruptive wave around the globe, which renders every electronic device inoperative for 24 hours. It is not an EMP, but something else, so EMP hardened ...
23
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11answers
7k views
Why would Fission be used in a world where Fusion reactors exist?
In my world, all terrestrial bodies in the solar-system of over 900 km size have a significant human presence. Earth-moon Travel is as common as an interstate road trip, and Interplanetary travel is ...
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2answers
73 views
Repurposing a reactor from space to surface
A colony ship is sent to Enceladus. It has a nuclear reactor to provide power to life support, electric engines etc... Upon arrival, the colonists also need a reactor to melt holes into the ice and to ...
10
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4answers
2k views
How to design a zero-g nuclear reactor?
My worldbuilding involves a reasonably near-future, high-realism space station research outpost, and I'd like it to be powered by a nuclear reactor. However, I need as much detail on the actual ...
9
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14answers
3k views
Nuclear power for nomads
Is it possible to create a scenario where nuclear power is a practical option for nomads living like in Mongolia?
There's two possible applications of nuclear power. One is to just use it as a heat ...
49
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19answers
25k views
How can I build a Nuclear Reactor in my backyard?
In my world, having a nuclear reactor at your own house is legal, in fact government donates money in the form of subsidies ( So no constraints of funds). This might have been practical because of ...
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6answers
5k views
Would a civilization on a planet with no natural Uranium-235 NEED to first achieve fusion before it can build nukes?
If a much older solar system - say 10 billion years with a slow burning star - would sprout intelligent life at around that age, given the half-life of U-235 and natural Uranium reserves, according to ...
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5answers
5k views
Practicality of a thorium-powered, superheated-steam car?
At the beginning of the 1900s, the Doble Steam Motors Company built steam cars. Their engineers solved many of the problems steam cars had until then by using superheated steam and a condenser to ...
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2answers
396 views
Could an entire continent runs on a single fusion reactor plant by 2100?
Affected continent is Asia, the world is running out of coal and natural gas. A major mega structure project is underway, its goal is to provide electricity across the continent with a single fusion ...
5
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4answers
264 views
World governments shutting down their nuclear power plants after Chernobyl?
What if in an alternate universe after the Chernobyl incident, the world governments decide to shut down their nuclear power plants and if so how would that affect society?
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8answers
3k views
Extremely compact nuclear reactor?
Realistically, how small can a nuclear reactor get (fission or fusion)?
Truck sized? Table top? Mr. Fusion? AAA Battery?
Are there other physical limits when we include human safety issues?
Let'...
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4answers
18k views
What would happen if all 433 nuclear reactors had meltdowns? [closed]
NOTE: This was adapted from another question that I asked recently.
Apparently, a 30km radius around Chernobyl will not be safe for humans for another 20,000 years. The more recent 2011 Fukushima ...
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3answers
369 views
When and how would Earth's history diverge if uranium/plutonium weren't present?
Let's imagine an Earth clone devoid of naturally occurring fissile materials—and, for comprehensiveness' sake, also devoid of fertile materials like thorium and americium that could be used to produce ...
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11answers
3k views
How would a pure fusion bomb change modern warfare
Currently most Nukes are actually thermonuclear fusion bombs ignited by a fission (uranium or plutoniom) bomb.
The fission bomb is like a lighting match that s needed to trigger the more powerful ...
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4answers
455 views
How can nuclear power produce -electricity- in space when energy must be converted differently?
Hear me out before you downvote; It's not as simple as it seems.
On Earth, nuclear reactions produce heat energy. This is used to heat water, creating steam, powering turbines connected to generators ...
6
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3answers
200 views
an artificial fission star
A K2+ civilization wants to build a fission star, a huge mass of fissile material which doesn't collapse due to the radiation emitted by its fission decay. I know there are reactors like the aqueous ...
2
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4answers
626 views
How big/powerful would your fusion reactor need to be to power the engines of a 32km long starship?
Let's assume the reactor takes up about 4 vertical kilometers and has the same radius as the ship (4km). This gives you a volume of about 2.01e11 m^3, which given about 3-5% of the reactor's estimated ...
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4answers
517 views
How to detect North Korean fusion plant? [closed]
I have a story where world finds out that North Koreans have built a fusion power plant that produces 4 gigawatts of electricity (*) and they don't reveal it's existence, for unknown reasons they don'...
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6answers
2k views
What would it take to make thorium a prominent energy source?
Thorium power plants were a thing that was researched and ultimately abandoned; however, for all intents and purposes, it's safer than any power source we have today.
In our timeline, the first such ...
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4answers
133 views
What political/historical factors could create acceptance of peaceful nuclear explosions?
I have been poking at the idea of an eventual re-emergence of the PACER concept, where energy is obtained by detonating nuclear explosions... but not exactly in the same form. After humans become ...
47
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10answers
39k views
Will unattended nuclear power plants actually cause damage to their surroundings?
Scenario: Deadly virus wiped out 80 - 90% world population and it did it pretty quickly (in 2 months)
Although it is plausible that among these 10 - 20% of survivors will be people who actually know ...
3
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1answer
214 views
Teleport and detonate 5 small atomic bombs that cause maximum panic and societal collapse? [closed]
Suppose an evil scientist has a teleportation device and 5 atomic bombs, each one only as powerful as the one dropped on Hiroshima. What would be the best targets to create maximum panic to the ...
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5answers
999 views
Is helium 3 lucrative enough to justify the mining of the moon?
I've been trying to come up with a scenario in which space stations and lunar bases are established but are considered controversial. I sort of figure that if corporations started mining the moon that ...
2
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2answers
368 views
A modern or near-future civilization without nuclear technology?
Would it be possible for a fully modern civilization (i.e. quite like our own, perhaps slightly more advanced, with near-future tech) to arise on an Earth-like planet devoid of uranium, plutonium, ...
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3answers
2k views
Can nuclear reactor explode like a nuclear bomb? [closed]
A nuclear reactor exploding like a bomb is an element of many stories ("Pacific Rim", etc). From some of these stories it looks like at least some reactors can be blasted just by sending a command ...
3
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3answers
625 views
North Korea invents nuclear fusion; world domination?
If North Korea developed nuclear fusion, and had essentially unlimited energy, how could it leverage this advantage into world domination? How long would it have to be kept secret, and how could the ...
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15answers
3k views
Convert radioactivity directly into electricity: Possible or not?
Is it possible to directly convert radioactivity to turn it into electricity?
If yes, then what is the conversion rate?
2
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5answers
429 views
Portable nuclear reactor that can be brought to medieval age
A hero travels to another world that is like the medieval age of Earth.
He needs a portable power generator. Is there any portable, low maintenance, at least 10 MW, reactor or energy producer that ...
13
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8answers
975 views
What would it take to make a modern(ish) nuclear reactor release fallout?
I'm trying (failing) to write a story set within the exclusion zone around a nuclear power plant incident set in the near future. The 'incident' that leads to the exclusion zone being set up isn't the ...
71
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12answers
18k views
Can Average Joe reboot the nuclear power plant?
Setup: The year is 2018. Malicious virus escaped secret lab and managed to kill 99% of all humans between January and April 2016. Not-so-average Joe spent his last two years of basic survival with the ...
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6answers
1k views
Is it possible for an organism to evolve to generate its own nuclear power?
Is it possible for an organism to evolve to biologically generate its own nuclear power? If so, how would this evolution occur?
