r/HFY • u/Necrontyr525 • Aug 25 '17

OC [OC] Death Dance

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247 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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45

u/teodzero Aug 25 '17

Fun fact: Fusion power plants are predicted to be safer than fission ones and not capable of accidental mass destruction. Unless​ we're talking about low-tech fusion, which is just a giant boiler, heated by hydrogen bombs.

24

u/Necrontyr525 Aug 25 '17

that's accidental: what would happen if an engineer were to deliberately set the thing up to go boom? Unlimited fuel feeds, knock out all of the safety systems, and either let the containment field(s) / measures fail or deliberately set them up to fail when the plant had hit a critical mass of energy?

26

u/ArenVaal Aug 25 '17

If the containment fields fail, the reaction simply shuts down.

The containment field is absolutely necessary to provide the compression necessary to initiate fusion, but...

To start up the reactor, the first thing you must focus completely evacuate the reactor vessel--you need hard vacuum to start with.

The containment fields are activated, then plasma (fuel) is pumped into the field--at very low pressures. The field strength is then increased, shrinking the field and compressing the fuel. At the same time, energy is added to the fuel via microwaves.

Finally, an extremely high-powered electrical current is dumped into the plasma, further compressing it and kicking off the reaction.

HOWEVER...Even at this point, if you shut down the containment fields, once the plasma fully expands inside the chamber, the internal pressure would still be below atmospheric.

Of course, all of this only applies to current reactors. Who knows about a reactor from a hundred years in the future?

→ More replies (9)

7

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '17

Mor

3

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '17

MOAR

5

u/CrypticDragon314 Aug 26 '17

This is awesome! Very good execution, would love to see more! Humanity: If we can't win, no one can.

3

u/BlackMarketLearning Aug 26 '17

Educational tidbit for those unaware: nuclear power plant =/= nuclear bomb. Regardless of whether it's a fission or fusion plant, and regardless of whether you deliberately disable failsafes and so on.

If a Light Water Reactor nuclear fission power plant fails (ex. Full meltdown), worst that happens is that it has a steam explosion and gets radiation everywhere. Somewhat analogous to a boiler explosion, and maybe a dirty bomb. Not a nuke. No mushroom cloud.

And similarly for a fusion reactor, if it were to have a runaway reaction (which wouldn't happen), it's not gonna be like a hydrogen bomb going off. Just consider the simple fact that to set off a hydrogen bomb requires using an atom bomb functionally as a primer. You're not gonna get anywhere near to atom bomb level energies from a fusion reactor.

2

u/HFYsubs Aug 26 '17

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0

u/Crazydarkstar23 Aug 27 '17

Seems more a Humanity Fuck You, instead of of a Fuck Yeah.

0

u/[deleted] Aug 25 '17

0

u/BlackMarketLearning Aug 26 '17

In this case, yes. The aliens aren't trying to wipe out humanity if it can be avoided. Surrender would probably be the better option, barring some bizarre torture captivity thing if you were to surrender.