Re: Fusion energy was: SNOW JOB

"K.H.Ranitzsch" wrote:

>
>
> In the 1950's, people were much more naive about nuclear power, and I
have
> seen designs for nuclear cars and locomotives. I have heard about a
nuclear
> tank, but have never seen it in print. There were projects for nuclear
> aircraft at a fairly advanced stage.

The nuclear plane was discontinued for the simple reason of cost
effectiveness.
Unless it carried fuel for reheat (which defeated the purpose of nuclear
power),
it was no faster than a conventional bomber (and we are not referring to
the
Valkyrie or Hustler), yet many times the cost.

>
>
> The most horrendous project I have seen was "Pluto", a cruise missile
(or
> UCAV if you prefer), with a nuclear ramjet. Designed to fly low-level
at
> supersonic speed over the Sowjet Union and drop nukes along the way.
Added
> "bonus": any land under its flight path would have been uninhabitable
due to
> the fallout of the exhaust and the missile could be crash-dived to
produce a
> nice little Tchernobyl.

I question that a crashed Pluto could be anywhere near as bad as an
RBMK1000.
The TORY reactor does not burn in contact with oxygen, so the worst
vector for
the fission products is eliminated.  The engine itself does not produce
a lot of
fallout as there is not that much dust in the air.  The neutron
activation of
materials that it flies over produces short lived radiation, so it would
only be
uninhabitable for a short time (this is of no consolation for any living
thing
underneath as it flew by, but we need dosimetric data to determine the
real
hazard).  More importantly, the RBMK is rated at two times the TORY's
output
(maybe three).	TORY does not have anywhere near the same inventory of
radionucleides, and the crash will immediately scram the reactor (albeit
rather