A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell.
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen >fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after
many decades.
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell.
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition
Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks.. That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen
fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
[...]
On 11/29/24 16:27, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell. >>>
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition
Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks..
That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen
fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
238Pu and its decay daughters are predominantly alpha emitters,
which is easy to contain. An important problem would be to make
it fool-proof: Not an easy task. I wouldn't want it in a car,
for example.
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:51:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 16:27, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman >>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees >>>> K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell. >>>>
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces >>>> a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition >>> Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks..
That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons - >>>> if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen >>>> fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
That woud warm up the planet nicely. You can't turn it off.
238Pu and its decay daughters are predominantly alpha emitters,
which is easy to contain. An important problem would be to make
it fool-proof: Not an easy task. I wouldn't want it in a car,
for example.
Sounds like the "universal solvent", hard to contain.
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
On 11/29/24 20:52, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 20:51:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 16:27, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman >>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees >>>>> K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times >>>>> hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got >>>>> lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell. >>>>>
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces >>>>> a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition >>>> Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks..
That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons - >>>>> if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen >>>>> fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
That woud warm up the planet nicely. You can't turn it off.
Pretty negligible, I think. Assuming about 3e9 homes on this earth,
it would add about 0.1% to the heat budget of the whole earth.
As a side effect, it would reduce CO2 emissions by a whole lot,
so the overall result may well be a drop in global average
temperature.
238Pu and its decay daughters are predominantly alpha emitters,
which is easy to contain. An important problem would be to make
it fool-proof: Not an easy task. I wouldn't want it in a car,
for example.
Sounds like the "universal solvent", hard to contain.
It's *easy* to contain. It's the fools that are a problem. We
have no shortage of those, unfortunately.
That is not to say it would solve all problems. Producing
enough 238Pu cheaply enough would be a problem. There would be
lots of red tape too. There would be hard-to-predict economic
effects. I think the technical problem of designing a compact
package producing 15kW or so of electricity and enough heat
for hot water and space heating would be comparatively minor.
Jeroen Belleman
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
Jeroen Belleman
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell.
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition
Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks.. That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen
fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
Anyways after WW3 all will radiate, so who cares.
As to ITER, it is a political job creation project of and for Albert E parrots.
The only thing that will come of it is that they find to make it work they will need an ever bigger one...
I like the Farnsworth fusor, fusion any kid can do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell. >>>
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition
Not much coming from that at all.
The US national ignition facitility was mainly intended to work out
whether nuclear bombs would go off. The nuclear fusion stuff is just
done to keep the scientists happy.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks..
That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen
fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Of course it would.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
Terrorist can't get at them to take them apart and use the Pu-239 to
make an atomic bomb.
Anyways after WW3 all will radiate, so who cares.
With any luck, there won't be a WW3.
As to ITER, it is a political job creation project of and for Albert E parrots.
All big science projects make work for scientists and engineers. That
doesn't make them worthless.
The only thing that will come of it is that they find to make it work they will need an ever bigger one...
In your ever-so-expert opinion.
I like the Farnsworth fusor, fusion any kid can do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor
Of course you do. It's much too small to generate more energy than you
have put into it to get the fusion to take place at all.
Being big isn't a virtue. Being big enough to do something useful is.
On 11/29/24 16:27, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
A nuclear fusion startup just reached a milestone
in its bid to commercialize unlimited clean energy :
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/11/29/climate/nuclear-fusion-openstar/index.html
ITER inside out :-)
You really can't read, can you. It's got its plasma to 300,000 degrees
K, and ITER have got theirs to 150,000,000 degrees K, about 500 times
hotter. It maybe some kind of milestone for OpenStar, but they've got
lot of milestones to go before they'll have a product that they can sell. >>>
And they are still trying to fuse hydrogen or deuterium, which produces
a lot of neutrons.
https://hb11.energy/
Looks a bit like that thing Larking was making stuff for, laser ignition
Not much coming from that at all.
Just playing stuff for kids/ training stuff for aspiring nuclear fishisicks..
That was discussed here last year or so.
is trying to fuse hydrogen and boron, which doesn't produce neutrons -
if the machine ever works it will last a whole lot longer than hydrogen
fusion machines, which will be damaged by the stray neutrons they
produce, if they ever work.
Would be nice to have small portable power sources, for in the home and cars etc etc.
Plutonium is dangerous, but the Viking spacecraft are still working after many decades.
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
238Pu and its decay daughters are predominantly alpha emitters,
which is easy to contain. An important problem would be to make
it fool-proof: Not an easy task. I wouldn't want it in a car,
for example.
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman >>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Being big isn't a virtue. Being big enough to do something useful is.
I have posted many times:
'If you cannot do it with those small particles on the table top,
then you cannot do it in a machine the size of the universe.'
As to that Farnsworth Fusor, they complain the grid gets too hot
Nice, why not use thermocouples as grid, convert voltage up,
get break even or better?
I'd like to try, need a good lab and a good mechanical man, funding of course :-)
It is nice several projects are now looking for fusion, who knows?
Someone may hack it!
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman >>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
<snip>
Being big isn't a virtue. Being big enough to do something useful is.
I have posted many times:
'If you cannot do it with those small particles on the table top,
then you cannot do it in a machine the size of the universe.'
The fact that you post the same assertion repeatedly doesn't change the
fact that it is wrong.
Stars are a lot smaller that the universe, and they manage to fuse
nuclei on a very large scale. We would be here if they didn't.
As to that Farnsworth Fusor, they complain the grid gets too hot
Nice, why not use thermocouples as grid, convert voltage up,
get break even or better?
Thermocouples don't convert much of the heat energy available into heat.
I'd like to try, need a good lab and a good mechanical man, funding of course :-)
Even a venture capitalist would have enough sense to avoid investing in you.
It is nice several projects are now looking for fusion, who knows?
Someone may hack it!
Perhaps they will.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
open it.
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement,
if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the
whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
Jeroen Belleman
If it lost cooling, it would melt through anything. Then you'd have
plutonium slag and vapor all over your garage. The neighbors might
complain.
That's interesting: if you could confine some mass of 238, what would
its ultimate temperature be?
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:02:25 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vienrs$1l2a8$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman >>>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
<snip>
Being big isn't a virtue. Being big enough to do something useful is.
I have posted many times:
'If you cannot do it with those small particles on the table top,
then you cannot do it in a machine the size of the universe.'
The fact that you post the same assertion repeatedly doesn't change the
fact that it is wrong.
No it is right ;-)
But think about it for a moment, anyways Farnsworth fusor shows it is true.
Stars are a lot smaller that the universe, and they manage to fuse
nuclei on a very large scale. We would be here if they didn't.
That has nothing to do with it.
As to that Farnsworth Fusor, they complain the grid gets too hot
Nice, why not use thermocouples as grid, convert voltage up,
get break even or better?
Thermocouples don't convert much of the heat energy available into heat.
I'd like to try, need a good lab and a good mechanical man, funding of course :-)
Even a venture capitalist would have enough sense to avoid investing in you.
That is why there still is no break even small fusion home power box.
It is nice several projects are now looking for fusion, who knows?
Someone may hack it!
Perhaps they will.
Well, we have global warming in case humans fail.
Or we can dig deep enough into the ground for some heat.
But the question remains if you CAN make break even - get positive energy out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
endless babble about Albert E...
But, my solar panels work great!
On 30/11/2024 10:11 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:02:25 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vienrs$1l2a8$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
<snip>
Being big isn't a virtue. Being big enough to do something useful is. >>>>I have posted many times:
'If you cannot do it with those small particles on the table top,
then you cannot do it in a machine the size of the universe.'
The fact that you post the same assertion repeatedly doesn't change the
fact that it is wrong.
No it is right ;-)
But think about it for a moment, anyways Farnsworth fusor shows it is true. >>
Stars are a lot smaller that the universe, and they manage to fuse
nuclei on a very large scale. We would be here if they didn't.
That has nothing to do with it.
It has everything to do with it, but you are too dumb to see the connection.
As to that Farnsworth Fusor, they complain the grid gets too hot
Nice, why not use thermocouples as grid, convert voltage up,
get break even or better?
Thermocouples don't convert much of the heat energy available into heat. >>>
I'd like to try, need a good lab and a good mechanical man, funding of course :-)
Even a venture capitalist would have enough sense to avoid investing in you.
That is why there still is no break even small fusion home power box.
That's the explanation you like. There are others.
It is nice several projects are now looking for fusion, who knows?
Someone may hack it!
Perhaps they will.
Well, we have global warming in case humans fail.
It's anthropogenic global warming. If we stop digging up fossil carbon
and burning it, that extra warmth will go away eventually - but it is
likely to take a few centuries.
Or we can dig deep enough into the ground for some heat.
But the question remains if you CAN make break even - get positive energy out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
endless babble about Albert E...
But, my solar panels work great!
But they rely on that big fusion reactor hanging there in the middle of
the solar system. It's been there for about 4.5 billion years. Nobody >realised that it was nuclear fusion reactor until quite recently, and
the message still doesn't seem to have got through to you.
On 11/30/24 03:23, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
Jeroen Belleman
If it lost cooling, it would melt through anything. Then you'd have
plutonium slag and vapor all over your garage. The neighbors might
complain.
That's interesting: if you could confine some mass of 238, what would
its ultimate temperature be?
This isn't a nuclear reactor! It'd be only a few tens of kilowatts,
about the power level of a car engine. Those don't melt down, do
they?
As for the ultimate temperature of a quantity of 238Pu, make up the
balance of heat in over heat out. A fresh load releases about 560W/kg.
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked,
it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:47:25 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 03:23, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
Jeroen Belleman
If it lost cooling, it would melt through anything. Then you'd have
plutonium slag and vapor all over your garage. The neighbors might
complain.
That's interesting: if you could confine some mass of 238, what would
its ultimate temperature be?
This isn't a nuclear reactor! It'd be only a few tens of kilowatts,
about the power level of a car engine. Those don't melt down, do
they?
They do when the water cooling system fails.
As for the ultimate temperature of a quantity of 238Pu, make up the
balance of heat in over heat out. A fresh load releases about 560W/kg.
By "confine" I meant no heat loss. Half-life is 88 years, and there
will be additional heat from decay products.
560 watts for 100 years is about 2e12 joules. That gets it up to 55
billion K, if my math is right.
(US billions)
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc
that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination.
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>> open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
On 11/30/24 18:10, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:47:25 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 03:23, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>
Jeroen Belleman
If it lost cooling, it would melt through anything. Then you'd have
plutonium slag and vapor all over your garage. The neighbors might
complain.
That's interesting: if you could confine some mass of 238, what would
its ultimate temperature be?
This isn't a nuclear reactor! It'd be only a few tens of kilowatts,
about the power level of a car engine. Those don't melt down, do
they?
They do when the water cooling system fails.
As for the ultimate temperature of a quantity of 238Pu, make up the
balance of heat in over heat out. A fresh load releases about 560W/kg.
By "confine" I meant no heat loss. Half-life is 88 years, and there
will be additional heat from decay products.
560 watts for 100 years is about 2e12 joules. That gets it up to 55
billion K, if my math is right.
(US billions)
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Jeroen Belleman (Wearing his Twain coat)
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of >>>>>> diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set >>>>>> fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister?
There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>>> open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for
centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities
we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's
*very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable >explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>>>> open it.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for
centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities
we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's
*very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 19:05:11 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:10, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:47:25 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 03:23, john larkin wrote:
On Fri, 29 Nov 2024 23:30:22 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
560 watts for 100 years is about 2e12 joules. That gets it up to 55
billion K, if my math is right.
(US billions)
There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale
returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.
Jeroen Belleman (Wearing his Twain coat)
It's like electronic design. Splatter your brain all over the solution
space and invent things.
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>>>>> open it.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for
centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities
we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's
*very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>>>> open it.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out.
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was >>>>>>> injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built >>>>>>> on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air >>>>>>> explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for
centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities
we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's
*very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
On a sunny day (Sun, 1 Dec 2024 00:12:31 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vif30a$1o4ji$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 10:11 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:02:25 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vienrs$1l2a8$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
Well, we have global warming in case humans fail.
It's anthropogenic global warming. If we stop digging up fossil carbon
and burning it, that extra warmth will go away eventually - but it is
likely to take a few centuries.
Or we can dig deep enough into the ground for some heat.
But the question remains if you CAN make break even - get positive energy out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
endless babble about Albert E...
But, my solar panels work great!
But they rely on that big fusion reactor hanging there in the middle of
the solar system. It's been there for about 4.5 billion years. Nobody
realised that it was nuclear fusion reactor until quite recently, and
the message still doesn't seem to have got through to you.
Oh well, and the sun will burn up eventually or so I'v read.
Not so much is known about the inner nuclear workings of the sun.
Is the fusion part caused by enormous pressures from the rest of the sun?
It does not have to be break even or positive at all.
I will not even mention Le Sage (oops) and possible other theories
dark matter, what not.
Would be nice if we could look ahead a few thousand years to see the theories then.
If humanity still exists, Dinos ?
We are just like ants, a few neurons wanting - looking for - a theory of everything.
And yet, everything is connected...
There is nothing you can know that is not known:
https://www.thebeatles.com/all-you-need-love-0
On 1/12/2024 12:45 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sun, 1 Dec 2024 00:12:31 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vif30a$1o4ji$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 10:11 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:02:25 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vienrs$1l2a8$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>>>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>: >>>>>>>>
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
<snip>
Well, we have global warming in case humans fail.
It's anthropogenic global warming. If we stop digging up fossil carbon
and burning it, that extra warmth will go away eventually - but it is
likely to take a few centuries.
Or we can dig deep enough into the ground for some heat.
But the question remains if you CAN make break even - get positive energy out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
endless babble about Albert E...
But, my solar panels work great!
But they rely on that big fusion reactor hanging there in the middle of
the solar system. It's been there for about 4.5 billion years. Nobody
realised that it was nuclear fusion reactor until quite recently, and
the message still doesn't seem to have got through to you.
Oh well, and the sun will burn up eventually or so I'v read.
Not so much is known about the inner nuclear workings of the sun.
Quite a lot is known, if not by you.
Is the fusion part caused by enormous pressures from the rest of the sun?
It's temperature rather than pressure that makes the difference.
It does not have to be break even or positive at all.
Of course it has to. Gravitational compression created the pressure and
the heat that eventually started the nuclear reaction. It takes about
100,000 years for a photon from the reacting core of the sum to make it
out to emerge as sunlight.
I will not even mention Le Sage (oops) and possible other theories
dark matter, what not.
That's a relief. You mostly ventilate your idiocies non-stop.
Would be nice if we could look ahead a few thousand years to see the theories then.
Not really. We wouldn't understand them.
If humanity still exists, Dinos ?
Most species last about 10 million years. We might completely wreck the
earth and kill ourselves off in the process, but we've survived several >ice-age to interglacial transitions.
We are just like ants, a few neurons wanting - looking for - a theory of everything.
Just a bit bigger than ants, with rather more technology.
And yet, everything is connected...
Another one of your mindless assertions.
There is nothing you can know that is not known:
https://www.thebeatles.com/all-you-need-love-0
There is plenty you can "know" that isn't known to other people.
You produce more nonsense than most, and most of what you think you know >strikes other people as largely unoriginal nonsense.
"It does not have to be break even or positive at all."
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:54:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
Googling has many references and some papers, all around 10 Kg
unshielded, half that with a good neutron reflector.
I suppose something that doesn't normally emit neutrons can still
fission, from a cosmic ray or something.
All 5 plutonium isotopes have a critical mass, at which point I assume
that Something Bad happens.
On a sunny day (Sun, 1 Dec 2024 14:13:55 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vigk9v$22pt7$3@dont-email.me>:
On 1/12/2024 12:45 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sun, 1 Dec 2024 00:12:31 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vif30a$1o4ji$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 10:11 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:02:25 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman >>>>> <bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vienrs$1l2a8$1@dont-email.me>:
On 30/11/2024 5:37 pm, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 14:12:42 +1100) it happened Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vidvrl$1d62d$1@dont-email.me>: >>>>>>>> On 30/11/2024 2:27 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
On a sunny day (Sat, 30 Nov 2024 01:15:15 +1100) it happened Bill Slowman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote in <vici9s$13umg$1@dont-email.me>: >>>>>>>>>
On 30/11/2024 12:00 am, Jan Panteltje wrote:
<snip>
Well, we have global warming in case humans fail.
It's anthropogenic global warming. If we stop digging up fossil carbon >>>> and burning it, that extra warmth will go away eventually - but it is
likely to take a few centuries.
Or we can dig deep enough into the ground for some heat.
But the question remains if you CAN make break even - get positive energy out
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
endless babble about Albert E...
But, my solar panels work great!
But they rely on that big fusion reactor hanging there in the middle of >>>> the solar system. It's been there for about 4.5 billion years. Nobody
realised that it was nuclear fusion reactor until quite recently, and
the message still doesn't seem to have got through to you.
Oh well, and the sun will burn up eventually or so I'v read.
Not so much is known about the inner nuclear workings of the sun.
Quite a lot is known, if not by you.
Is the fusion part caused by enormous pressures from the rest of the sun? >>It's temperature rather than pressure that makes the difference.
It does not have to be break even or positive at all.
Of course it has to. Gravitational compression created the pressure and
the heat that eventually started the nuclear reaction. It takes about
100,000 years for a photon from the reacting core of the sum to make it
out to emerge as sunlight.
I will not even mention Le Sage (oops) and possible other theories
dark matter, what not.
That's a relief. You mostly ventilate your idiocies non-stop.
Would be nice if we could look ahead a few thousand years to see the theories then.
Not really. We wouldn't understand them.
If humanity still exists, Dinos ?
Most species last about 10 million years. We might completely wreck the
earth and kill ourselves off in the process, but we've survived several
ice-age to interglacial transitions.
We are just like ants, a few neurons wanting - looking for - a theory of everything.
Just a bit bigger than ants, with rather more technology.
And yet, everything is connected...
Another one of your mindless assertions.
There is nothing you can know that is not known:
https://www.thebeatles.com/all-you-need-love-0
There is plenty you can "know" that isn't known to other people.
You produce more nonsense than most, and most of what you think you know
strikes other people as largely unoriginal nonsense.
"It does not have to be break even or positive at all."
Well since you have not designed build and published even a picture of something as simple as a flashlight here
logic suggest possible jealousy or 'grootheidswaanzin'
But then so did Einstein, he never did an experiment in his life and his only design was a bad Fridge.
Him being youwish made him their hero, god almost, as he wrote that letter to suggest committing genocide on Japanese civilians with nukes.
His squared lightbulb masses are the biggest obstacle to science advancing as are global warming witch hunts.
Look at fusion like a spring
A srping can be compressed and drive a clock or a toy car
But it never will power anything by itself.
There will always be a net loss between compression and using it to do something.
Table top will confirm that (Farnsworth Fusor).
ITER has confirmed that, but misguided politicians keep falling for the einstein brainwashed,
pooring in ever more money for no result at all.. EVER.
ITER will always ask for bigger and more.
Sure some suppliers of magnets and what not now make a living from your tax money there..
At the same time US agents like Germany's Merkel killed the real power generating nuclear plants.
Human species... decline, dark ages repeating itself, dummies produced by the millions
zero understanding mamaticians doing a divide by zero, multiple uni-verses (do they sing there).
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to >>>>>> open it.
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite >>>>>>>>> is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect
anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for
centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities
we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's
*very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:54:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect >>>>>>>> anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>>
open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for >>>>> centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities >>>> we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's >>>> *very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
More sophisticated bomb design likely requires less plutonium.
Joe Gwinn
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:54:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist >>>>>>>>> knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect >>>>>>>> anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>>
open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for >>>>> centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor
plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed,
there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities >>>> we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's >>>> *very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his
hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
More sophisticated bomb design likely requires less plutonium.
Joe Gwinn
On Sun, 01 Dec 2024 12:46:26 -0500, Joe Gwinn <joegwinn@comcast.net>
wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:54:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect >>>>>>>>> anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>>>
open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for >>>>>> centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor >>>>> plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed, >>>>> there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities >>>>> we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's >>>>> *very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his >>>>> hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
More sophisticated bomb design likely requires less plutonium.
Reflectors and tampers reduce critical mass, as does explosive >supercompression.
A bit of tritium in the pit helps too.
I think the minimal nuke used
about 1 Kg of p239.
p238 would be a terrible bomb material. Might work, though, in an
implosion bomb with a neutron injector to kick-start things.
p238 isn't "fissile", namely doesn't capture slow neutrons well.
On 12/1/24 18:46, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 23:54:54 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 22:59, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 21:12:23 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 18:19, john larkin wrote:
On Sat, 30 Nov 2024 11:57:50 +0100, Jeroen Belleman
<jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/30/24 10:34, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 23:03, Liz Tuddenham wrote:There's always an idiot (or a terrorist) who would challenge themself to
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
On 11/29/24 21:04, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
Jeroen Belleman <jeroen@nospam.please> wrote:
[...]
It would be lovely to have 50kWTh or so of PU238 in the basement, >>>>>>>>>>>>> if it could be made cheaply enough. Power for a lifetime for the >>>>>>>>>>>>> whole house and then some.
...but the lifetime might not be very long if any got out. >>>>>>>>>>>>
If, if. Such arguments can be used to prove anything.
I've got a diesel-powered car in the basement garage. Fully tanked, >>>>>>>>>>> it contains 60kg of fuel, good for 2.4GJ or so. Imagine the havoc >>>>>>>>>>> that could cause, if it got loose. For reference, a stick of dynamite
is about 1MJ.
I've seen what happened when builders accidentally set fire to a tank of
diesel far bigger than that. It burned slowly and steadily until it set
fire to the roof of the house - then the house burned down. Nobody was
injured or killed, the mess was easily cleaned up and a new house built
on the site.
It wasn't like the sudden release of energy you would get in a fuel-air
explosion (quite difficult to initiate with diesel without specialist
knowledge) and there wasn't a lot of residual toxic contamination. >>>>>>>>>>
OK. Now back to small 238Pu fuelled units. Why would you expect >>>>>>>>> anything to go wrong if the Pu was contained in a hermetic canister? >>>>>>>>
open it.
Yes, probably. There have been similar incidents in the past.
I'm convinced it can be made safe enough for widespread normal
use, but there will always be some fool somewhere. If we let
that stop us, no technology is safe enough.
Jeroen Belleman
A kilogram, properly distributed, would make a city uninhabitable for >>>>>> centuries. Imagine such an active alpha emitter in a water supply.
There are myriad ways to create havoc, if we wanted to. I have castor >>>>> plants in the garden. They are very decorative. Properly distributed, >>>>> there is enough ricin in them to kill tens of thousands of people.
Nobody cares. Weaponizing noxious substances isn't so easy.
It would make some cool glow-in-the-dark gadgets.
Critical mass is around 10 Kg. Kids could make nukes.
238Pu doesn't sustain a chain reaction, at least not in the quantities >>>>> we talk about. Nukes use 239Pu, the fissionable isotope. That's the
isotope that has a critical mass in the 10kg ballpark. Even then, it's >>>>> *very* hard to keep it together for long enough to create a sizable
explosion. No kid is going to pull that off, even if he could get his >>>>> hands on 239Pu in sufficient amounts.
Jeroen Belleman
Wiki claims
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium-238
10 Kg critical mass. Are they wrong?
I think so.
Jeroen Belleman
More sophisticated bomb design likely requires less plutonium.
Joe Gwinn
Making bombs with plutonium is complicated. Anyway, that was not
our interest. The subject was using 238Pu to generate heat to
provide enough energy for a single, or a small number of households.
Some sources claim that 238Pu has a critical mass of about 10kg,
which is odd, because it's not listed as fissile. It's predominantly
an alpha emitter.
As a rule, only isotopes with odd mass numbers are fissile. Of course
Pu has an exception: 240Pu fissions even without being provoked. Oh
well. Incidentally, that's what makes Pu difficult to use for bombs.
Anyway, it's relatively straight-forward to get isotopically pure
238Pu, that is, if anything can be called straight-forward in this
area. Even if it could be provoked to fission, it shouldn't be
too hard to distribute it such that that doesn't get supercritical.
Alloy it with 50% of Al and shape it into long rods, dope it with
boron, or something else yet, I haven't really looked into that
much detail.
So, in summary, the problem is producing enough 238Pu cheaply,
containing it safely for widespread use, and combining it with a
compact device to produce electricity and domestic heating.
I don't truly believe this has any chance of happening, except
maybe for a few special cases, like lighthouses in remote Siberia,
or deep space probes, or something.
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