Recently reread Charlie Foxtrot- A New Past and I certainly enjoyed it again, however I wondered where the fuel for the fusion generators came from?
Presumably they'd need raw hydrogen, and helium would be a desired product for MRIs and whatnot.
Recently reread Charlie Foxtrot- A New Past and I certainly enjoyed it again, however I wondered where the fuel for the fusion generators came from?
Presumably they'd need raw hydrogen, and helium would be a desired product for MRIs and whatnot.
External hydrogen would only be needed for the first firing of a reactor. After electric production starts split some of the power off to hydrolyze water and feed the hydrogen produced back into the reactor as feed stock. Although I'm sure there will be some entrepreneurs who set up to produce hydrogen in and of itself.
Of course one could just purchase hydrogen on the open market, I'm sure that once fusion generators went commercial plenty of suppliers appeared to supply any hydrogen wanted.
After electric production starts split some of the power off to hydrolyze water and feed the hydrogen produced back into the reactor as feed stock.
Hmm, assuming we are talking about a hot fusion reactor unless you want to capture the oxygen for something else, you can probably feed in raw water. The heat in the reactor core would likely take care of splitting the hydrogen and oxygen.
I on't know. I got the impression it was a little more complex and controlled than that. Of course, this is a fusion process, so I'm assuming the main exhaust is helium, with maybe some higher order by-products as well. The focus in the story was always on getting the hydrogen hot enough to fuse, not what the resultant products were. I just know that the further up the elements table, the more energy is needed to get those hydrogen ions to fuse into higher elements. Theoretically, anything could be coming out of there, but I think the higher the atominc number the rarer. Maybe this discussion will trigger a whold new story line focussing on creating more complex elements. Hint, hint.
I just know that the further up the elements table, the more energy is needed to get those hydrogen ions to fuse into higher elements.
Which is why any sustainable fusion reactor would absolutely needs a means of siphoning/draining helium and even heavier elements out of the reactor core. Other wise either the heavier elements build up crowding out hydrogen or you get heavier and heavier elements fusing. Either way, eventually it kills the reaction.
You can't get a sustainable fusion reaction by constantly adding hydrogen but not draining out the heavier elements that result.
My suggestion wasn't for trying to fuse oxygen. Let the heat of the reactor core do the work of splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen directly, then drain the oxygen off with the helium.
Remember that every description we have in the story is that it is a flow-thru process. Hydrogen in, compressed, fusion happens, exhaust gasses out, electricity from the waste heat. None of the fixed site reactors have had a description of byproducts. Obviously, in the propulsion setups, the exhaust is used to propel the craft forward..
Remember that every description we have in the story is that it is a flow-thru process. Hydrogen in, compressed, fusion happens, exhaust gasses out, electricity from the waste heat.
In my opinion, that is irrelevant to my comment.
Even in such a flow through process, for efficiency, you would want/need to minimize the amount of unfused hydrogen in the exhaust gasses. IF you have too much of the input hydrogen flowing out with the exhaust gasses, you won't have a self sustaining reaction.
This flow through process would constitute a means of "draining" heavier elements from the reactor core.