Hello Ray,
How would an atmospherically confined nuclear engine work?
I would have no idea whatsoever. I could write a bunch of BS to sound intelligent on the subject, but the truth is so much less pressure on me... <ggg>
What I have heard... I have some friends (acquaintances might be a better term) that work in the airline industry, and they are, to a person, worried about the high (and higher) cost of jet fuel. They were swapping stories that they'd been told by their employers about how the higher costs of jet fuel is affecting the airlines and their bottom lines.
Their conjecture (based on real knowledge) was that the airlines are desperately seeking alternative sources of fuel. At the moment, they are held hostage to the current sources of jet fuel.
One of these folks was telling a story about how the military had developed (or was developing) a miniature, self-contained nuclear "reactor" capable of powering military aircraft for great distances, or long periods of time without refueling or maintenance. (Apparently the military is worried about being held hostage to a source of oil in order for the military to function during wartime. I would presume that if the military is looking at this for airplanes, it might be logical to conclude that they are also looking at the same solution for tanks, small naval craft, motor vehicles, etcetera.) As the story goes, the initial problems were not with aerodynamics or miniaturizing the process. The main problem was in keeping the whole thing cooled to the proper temperature. Apparently that problem was solved (our guess was that they somehow used liquid nitrogen, but it was a guess), and the military went on to address other problems in the proposal.
Has this thing ever come to pass (or production)? Not that any of us knows of. What we do know is that, as a general rule, most major technological advances in the commercial airline industry have come by way of the military.
We foresaw other problems using nuclear fuel to power commercial aircraft, not the least of which was having a potential nuclear bomb flying over your house several hundred times daily. And the biggest problem we foresaw was how and where to dispose of the spent fuel.
As an interesting sidelight, I was amazed at how little radioactive material would be needed to power a huge jet. In theory, if we could successfully harness the energy of cold fusion, even less material would be needed. But just plain old radioactive rods, less than a foot long, several per plane is all it would take, and those rods could last a long, long time before they decayed and needed to be replaced.
Another side note... One of the guys apparently knows some stuff regarding NASA and rocketry, and he was saying that NASA already has nuclear capability to send small satellites hundreds of millions of miles in deep outer space before they lose the fuel source. Somehow they (NASA) can augment the nuclear energy with solar energy to extend the life of the nuclear fuel source and the solar batteries.
Now, I have no idea what the cost might be to commercialize all of this stuff and put it out in the public domain, but it is interesting to speculate on it. And that's exactly the basis of my "wager" that we might soon see nuclear powered commercial aircraft. The industry has to bring fuel costs under control, and nuclear energy is one area that they're likely to explore.
And that, in a nutshell, is my extremely limited speculation on the subject.
KJC |
