Science Memes

hideshow 4 child comments

parent

[–] partial_accumen@lemmy.world 1 point 9 months ago

Well, you'd then have another problem. Unlike coal/wood/oil fuel, you can't turn off radioactive decay.

You'd have megawatts (gigawatts?) of thermal energy boiling off all your water pretty quickly, and likely eventually melting down your steam engine firebox, and it would be that hot for decades!

parent

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 1 point 9 months ago (2 children)

You can boost it by hollowing out the middle and filling it with tritium, but plutonium is dense, so 80 tons will probably fit in the firebox just fine.

hideshow 2 child comments

parent

[–] zarathustra0@lemmy.world 1 point 9 months ago (1 child)

but plutonium is dense, so 80 tons will probably fit in the firebox

I feel like there's a thing that will happen when I put that much in such a comparatively small place.

parent

hideshow 1 child comment

[–] AnyOldName3@lemmy.world 1 point 9 months ago

It'll heat up the firebox, which is exactly what the firebox wants to happen. It's not like we're using precisely-timed explosives to briefly make the mass much more than critical and counter its desire to blow itself apart for long enough that it blows other things apart, too.