How far away are we from portable nuclear power?

[ReadyAndWilling]

ok, so i was thinking about this earlier.

say, we're looking at those semi-trucks or those monster bobcats that work in the mines. those things guzzle petrol like water. instead of using petrol, would it be possible to use a portable nuclear power generator?

 

[Admiral_Young]

I think you've got the wrong forum. Probably would be better answered in the science forum.

 

[Neroon]

I think you've got the wrong forum. Probably would be better answered in the science forum.

Yes, that is correct.

 

[KJbushway]

I don't think we should put nuclear generators in monster bobcats, when we can't even have secure and safe nuclear generators. The only time you would see a portable nuclear device is when fusion becomes the number 1 energy source and we become experts and find a way to make the working generator smaller. but you also won't see this technology for the public sector. carrying around what could be a a very powerful weapon, isn't something the U.S is going to do anytime.

Its safer to ask when there is going to be a kick-ass powerful electric engine for those machines.

 

[Jadzia]

If/when fusion is invented, I expect it will quickly become miniaturized (and portable), with the miniaturisation work probably being done by amateurs. It's one of those technologies that doesn't need hard to obtain materials, so it will become highly fashionable kitchen sink science.

University students with an engineering and physics background will certainly be building them in their free time, much like they were building computers in the late 1970s. Designs will be distributed on the internet, and lots of questions will be bounced back and forth related to these designs... "why did you put this field coil here?", "why did you add 2% more lithium-5 vapour to the reactant mix?", "why are you passing a 23.5MHz frequency across the reaction tubule, when everyone else uses 47MHz?"

The information age will take second place to the new energy age.

 

[KJbushway]

I don't see what you're saying to be what will actually happen. Its one thing to build a computer(which I could do) and building a working fusion generator with materials you can pick up from the store. Not only that but I would bet that the U.S government will have laws against people making their own, due to the fact that it could be turned into a bad weapon.

If simple university students with backgrounds in Physics and engineering could simply build one for the science fair that achieved ignition, you would most likely see a working one today, which doesn't exist as far as we know.

 

[Jadzia]

I don't see what you're saying to be what will actually happen. Its one thing to build a computer(which I could do)

I expect you can plug together ready made computer parts, but what I'm talking about is making a computer from scratch out of a bag of resistors, some integrated circuits, and a soldering iron. There is no instruction manual, so you have to design/invent the whole thing yourself. Students would ask "Are you using a Harvard architecture or a Neumann architecture?", "Why did you connect the clock wire at this point in the circuit?", "Why are you addressing your memory across two separate buses, and flip-flopping between them?"

and building a working fusion generator with materials you can pick up from the store. Not only that but I would bet that the U.S government will have laws against people making their own, due to the fact that it could be turned into a bad weapon.

Laws take time to come about. There would have to be a serious incident before governments would look twice at banning fusion power. At this stage, I don't think we can predict whether or not it would have weapon potential, but my instincts say it would not have explosive potential.

If simple university students with backgrounds in Physics and engineering could simply build one for the science fair that achieved ignition, you would most likely see a working one today, which doesn't exist as far as we know.

They don't because fusion power is still a dream. Dreamers chase dreams, and they're few in number. But to take a working prototype and endeavor to perfect it is a realistic ambition. Once we have a feasible prototype, it will make the headlines, and ambitious students across the globe will flock to it in a bid to perfect it.

 

[JarodRussell]

Portable nuclear power is pretty easy. But nobody wants random people running around with radioactive material.

 

[KJbushway]

I don't see what you're saying to be what will actually happen. Its one thing to build a computer(which I could do)

I expect you can plug together ready made computer parts, but what I'm talking about is making a computer from scratch out of a bag of resistors, some integrated circuits, and a soldering iron. There is no instruction manual, so you have to design/invent the whole thing yourself. Students would ask "Are you using a Harvard architecture or a Neumann architecture?", "Why did you connect the clock wire at this point in the circuit?", "Why are you addressing your memory across two separate buses, and flip-flopping between them?"

and building a working fusion generator with materials you can pick up from the store. Not only that but I would bet that the U.S government will have laws against people making their own, due to the fact that it could be turned into a bad weapon.

Laws take time to come about. There would have to be an serious incident before governments would look twice at banning fusion power. At this stage, I don't think we can predict whether or not it would have weapon potential, but my instincts say it would not have explosive potential.

If simple university students with backgrounds in Physics and engineering could simply build one for the science fair that achieved ignition, you would most likely see a working one today, which doesn't exist as far as we know.

They don't because fusion power is still a dream. Dreamers chase dreams, and they're few in number. But to take a working prototype and endeavor to perfect it is a realistic ambition. Once we have a feasible prototype, it will make the headlines, and ambitious students across the globe will flock to it in a bid to perfect it.

I see your point. and I should have thought about how the u.s handles things. Bad things do have to take action before somebody pays attention to a problem. But I still think it will be years from the first working generator to a students working generator. We have been trying since the 1920's and haven't unfortunately accomplished any different results really.

 

[Jadzia]

I see your point. and I should have thought about how the u.s handles things. Bad things do have to take action before somebody pays attention to a problem. But I still think it will be years from the first working generator to a students working generator. We have been trying since the 1920's and haven't unfortunately accomplished any different results really.

Where I said above that only dreamers chase dreams, they're also firing shots into the dark.

When you fire shots into the dark, you don't necessarily hit anything. You can try for decades and never hit anything. But one day you get lucky, and from that day forth, you know exactly where to aim.

For example, it took over a thousand years for mariners find the Americas, but once they knew where to point their boats, and how far they had to sail, they could find them no problem.

Creating the prototype is the dream. It can take a long time, because it's a lot of guess work, trial and error. But once you have a prototype, you can understand how and why it works, and at that point, it's no longer a dream.

 

[KJbushway]

Right. but to get such a pure reaction, you need pure materials. you might need some steady cash to buy these items. as you said once you know where to point your ship. Buisnesses giving out those items will make some serious profit.

Right I am one of those dreamers, plenty of different walls hit, just none that I aimed for.

 

[sojourner]

There's also the fact that fusion power plants won't equate to weapons the way fission plants do. Fusion doesn't go into a "runaway reaction" mode if something breaks, it just stops fusing. Fusion doesn't require radioactive fuel nor does it create radioactive waste. There is no real way to "make a bomb" out of a fusion powerplant, portable or not. The most immediate danger from fusion is running an unshielded reactor. Which would be detected pretty quickly and not very deadly to very many people in such a short amount of time.

Explosives made from fertilizer would be much more effective as a terrorist weapon.

 

[scotpens]

There’s a nuclear-powered car in your future!

 

[Jadzia]

There is no real way to "make a bomb" out of a fusion powerplant, portable or not.

With the current experimental designs this is true, but those designs don't work properly. The sun and hydrogens bombs do work properly, and they are both pretty deadly.

As I said above, I doubt that a fusion power plant could be engineered into something explosive, but sometimes my instincts are wrong. It may be that working and deadly are not mutually exclusive.

If fusion generates enough heat in a small enough space in a short enough time, could it accelerate nearby reactant to high enough velocities to cause a cascading chain reaction?

 

[Mr. B]

For portable applications, wouldn't a radioisotope thermoelectric generator be preferable to a full blown reactor? You could probably get enough wattage to run an electric vehicle.

 

[FPAlpha]

If/when fusion is invented, I expect it will quickly become miniaturized (and portable), with the miniaturisation work probably being done by amateurs. It's one of those technologies that doesn't need hard to obtain materials, so it will become highly fashionable kitchen sink science.

University students with an engineering and physics background will certainly be building them in their free time, much like they were building computers in the late 1970s. Designs will be distributed on the internet, and lots of questions will be bounced back and forth related to these designs... "why did you put this field coil here?", "why did you add 2% more lithium-5 vapour to the reactant mix?", "why are you passing a 23.5MHz frequency across the reaction tubule, when everyone else uses 47MHz?"

The information age will take second place to the new energy age.

It's not that there's a lack of knowledge but a lack of crucial materials or a cost factor.

Any physics student worth his weight knows the laws and principles to build a nuclear reactor/nuclear bomb.. that information is freely available and has entered common knowledge. Obtaining the materials, especially fissionable and weapons grade plutonium is the hard part and this is where nations trying to develop their nuclear weapons hit the biggest bump.

So depending on the technology and engineering needed for fusion reactors i doubt that this can be done as a garage project anywhere in the immediate future or you may need one hell of a deep pocket to obtain some exotic materials needed.
Another problem would be that you are working with tens of millions of degrees celsius.. you make a mistake and you are about to burn up the entire neighborhood. Governments and local authorities generally frown upon that.

 

[Jadzia]

It's not that there's a lack of knowledge but a lack of crucial materials or a cost factor.

My point is that until we have a working prototype (as opposed to one of the current experiments that don't produce a net output) we don't really know what a fusion generator will consist of. Hot fusion may be the way to go, or it may not. These big plasma toroid experiments may not yield anything useful.

If cold fusion happens to be the way forward, it may be possible to recreate it with common materials, and I really hope it is, because that would be an exciting decade.

 

[KJbushway]

No matter the way it happens the real problem is ignition. Now I agree with FPAlpha on what he says. The real problem is materials and money factor. This won't be a garage or individual project. Not to mention the energy bill alone someone would recieve trying to create an already working mini-generator. This is likely to happen though inside a school as a end of the year final for the students of a physics major class.

 

[KJbushway]

It's not that there's a lack of knowledge but a lack of crucial materials or a cost factor.

My point is that until we have a working prototype (as opposed to one of the current experiments that don't produce a net output) we don't really know what a fusion generator will consist of. Hot fusion may be the way to go, or it may not. These big plasma toroid experiments may not yield anything useful.

If cold fusion happens to be the way forward, it may be possible to recreate it with common materials, and I really hope it is, because that would be an exciting decade.

Wasn't cold fusion thought to be used for a shield of some sort, like star trek?

 

[sojourner]

Kids are already building home reactors.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2007/03/high_school_stu/
http://www.element14.com/community/...ege-student-builds-fusion-reactor-in-basement
http://www.hudsonhubtimes.com/news/article/5007043

It's not that hard.