Re: Fusion energy was: SNOW JOB

----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian Bilderback" <bbilderback@hotmail.com>
> Bell, Brian K Wrote:
>
> >Another reason for lower tech, local, manufacture.
> >
> >Ubertech lands for a quick consolidation and mop of a minor
incursion,
but
> >gets sucked into a guerrilla war. 3 weeks into the campaign, they
have
> >exhausted their fuel cells (HMT & Fusion) and look to the locals to
supply
> >more. The locals explain that everything they have runs off of
biodiesel,
> >and they do not have the correct chemicals to recharge the fuel
cells.
>
> Suppose said FGP's run off of hydrogen.  High Tech force's support
echelon,
> who has a forward-thinking CO, has brought along a H20 to H converter
that
> runs on electricity, supplied by a CFE-powered generator.  The CFE CAN
use
> the local biodiesel.	Unit suffers a slow-down in refueling, but not
as
bad
> as being left high & dry.

You don't seem to be aware of the ratio of the energy outputs of
chemical
(CFE, HMT in DSII lingo) and nuclear reactions (FGP).For any given mass
of
fuel, a fusion or fission plant produces humongous amounts of energy
compared to a chemical reaction.

As an illustration: The effect Nuclear weapons is measured in Megatons,
that
is a million (10^6) tons of conventitional explosives. In fact the
ratio, in
energy output is more like a billionfold (10^9) , because you only need
kilos, not tons, of nuclear material.

If you have a fusion reactor, it will run for a looooooooong time on
small
amounts of hydrogen. Even if you run out of hydrogen eventually, you
would
use part of the reactors output to split H2O to pure hydrogen rather
than
use a CFE to produce the hydrogen. In fact, you would get more energy by
splitting the hygdrogen off the biodiesel and feeding the fusion plant
with
that than by burning the biodiesel.

Greetings