OOPS

Galactic Sapper wrote:

cthia wrote:I always try to consider the human element and the foibles of man. I suppose some underfunded outfit may remove spent fuel rods before realizing they have none to replace them, or the shipment was hijacked or whatever. What do they do? Shut the plant down because they won't be able to achieve the maximum rated power output?

Also, do realize that spent fuel rods are placed in their own holding tank. See: Used Fuel Management.

I misread what you were posting and thought you were suggesting someone might build a reactor that kept the control rods in place and moved the fuel rods. Like I said, probably possible but why would anyone want to try it?

As for running a reactor short of fuel rods (but in an otherwise sensible manner, not like the above), it might be possible if they rearranged the rods to form a critical mass in the new configuration. But just pulling a quarter of the rods and expecting it to work... probably isn't going to work. Fuel rebalancing when refueling a reactor is a very ticklish issue as it's possible to make the reactor either underperform or burn too hot to control - more likely the former than the latter, thankfully.

Okay, now I understand the confusing part of your post. Which I put down as you doing a drive-by much as a couple of mine.*

Essentially, the reactors ARE often operated with less than a complete set of fuel rods. As you said, they are repositioned to evenly distribute the heat. There is no getting around that. It is an arduous process. Remember the claw at the fair trying to pick a prize? There you have it.

So, not only is it possible to do so, but necessary. What I was enquiring about is the possibility of doing so long term.

****** *

There are very good nuclear power plant simulators on the market, that have come a long way from the very good simulator I mentioned over 20 years ago. I highly recommend these. But a large screen and a good graphics card is a must. They are free to receive if you go thru the motions.

There is also the Chernobyl simulator out there. Though it needs a better installer. These simulators are true to function. They are not true to form, because there is no way you can lay out an entire operation of a NPP on a single computer screen. No matter how large the screen. I've been using them since my first visit to a simulated trip, mentioned upstream, also over 20 years ago.


*Since the Pandemic, many of my family members use video conferencing to stay connected and reduce the boredom. I am busy a lot. Family reunions are being conferenced. On top of that, the East Coast has been battered with no less than five storm systems back to back. Two tornado warnings. One very serious. The ground is soaked and trees are falling already, this short into hurricane season. So, do forgive the drive-bys.

kzt wrote:My guess is that most of the ships that are not partially dissembled for heavy maintenance would be running a reactor. Most because David has really strongly implied that the only way to start up a fusion reactor is via a bunch of plasma from an already working reactor. So if you are supposed to be able to leave port within a few hours you need a reactor running.

Only way? So a warship that is forced to scram has no way of turning them back on? Maybe the thinking is that a warship that scrammed is not the sole ship winning a contest, so whoever won (friend or foe) will come to rescue and restart the reactor.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:My guess is that most of the ships that are not partially dissembled for heavy maintenance would be running a reactor. Most because David has really strongly implied that the only way to start up a fusion reactor is via a bunch of plasma from an already working reactor. So if you are supposed to be able to leave port within a few hours you need a reactor running.

Only way? So a warship that is forced to scram has no way of turning them back on? Maybe the thinking is that a warship that scrammed is not the sole ship winning a contest, so whoever won (friend or foe) will come to rescue and restart the reactor.

Eh, he said in some posts here that the microfusion reactors on Mk16 and Mk23 missiles (and presumably also the ones Ghost Rider recon drones) had to be "jump started" with a packet of reactor plasma.

I don't recall him ever saying that full sized spaceship units were subject to the same limitation, so I wouldn't assume that a warship's reactors are incapable of started off auxiliary or stored power.

(For that matter ships are large enough that if you absolutely needed a slug of sun hot plasma to initiate the GRAVMAK reactors you'd have room for a small-craft style laser induced fusion reactor mechanism to provide that jump-start plasma. And we've seen that shuttles are capable of lighting their own reactors. So in the very worst case they seem very unlikely to need a jump-start from another ship)

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

kzt wrote:My guess is that most of the ships that are not partially dissembled for heavy maintenance would be running a reactor. Most because David has really strongly implied that the only way to start up a fusion reactor is via a bunch of plasma from an already working reactor. So if you are supposed to be able to leave port within a few hours you need a reactor running.

Only way? So a warship that is forced to scram has no way of turning them back on? Maybe the thinking is that a warship that scrammed is not the sole ship winning a contest, so whoever won (friend or foe) will come to rescue and restart the reactor.

Jonathan_S wrote:Eh, he said in some posts here that the microfusion reactors on Mk16 and Mk23 missiles (and presumably also the ones Ghost Rider recon drones) had to be "jump started" with a packet of reactor plasma.

I don't recall him ever saying that full sized spaceship units were subject to the same limitation, so I wouldn't assume that a warship's reactors are incapable of started off auxiliary or stored power.

(For that matter ships are large enough that if you absolutely needed a slug of sun hot plasma to initiate the GRAVMAK reactors you'd have room for a small-craft style laser induced fusion reactor mechanism to provide that jump-start plasma. And we've seen that shuttles are capable of lighting their own reactors. So in the very worst case they seem very unlikely to need a jump-start from another ship)

What about single reactor ships, which not only have to Scram, but jettison, because of a faulty reactor? Rhetorical question.

I suppose one of us, may as well be me, should at least project "dying by a hot plasma bath" into the 1000 Worst Ways To Die in the Honorverse thread.

Theemile wrote:So cthia, this is how this discussion always ends up. Everyone falls into the TAC update only group or the internal systems hacked group. The TAC update group focuses on what runaway weapons systems could do, The internal systems hack group focuses on scuttling charges and reactors.

No one sells anything to anyone else due to lack of solid facts and just enough side evidence that their explanation is plausible, and just enough side evidence that the others... arn't.

Well, there is one other plausible, believable theory.

Shannon jettisoned all of the ships' coffee stores. Instant destruction. LOL

Really makes you wonder about the plasma source is for the shoulder-launched anti-vehicle impeller missiles. Plasma-in-a-can, perhaps? Can you buy that in the Honorverse equivalent of a 7-11?

Galactic Sapper wrote:Really makes you wonder about the plasma source is for the shoulder-launched anti-vehicle impeller missiles. Plasma-in-a-can, perhaps? Can you buy that in the Honorverse equivalent of a 7-11?

That's more of a Hardware Store kind of thing, over between plumbing and furnace parts.

"Plasma Source" TM soda found at 7-11 stores is really just another sugary soda - though with 3 times the sugar and caffeine found in normal sodas.

cthia wrote:What about single reactor ships, which not only have to Scram, but jettison, because of a faulty reactor? Rhetorical question.

The only single reactor warships I'm aware of are the LACs. Even Destroyers (and I presume Frigates) have at least 2 fusion reactors. (And freighters, which do have single reactors don't have emergency jettison systems for them)

DDs don't have enough power redundancy to power everything for combat if they lose one, but they'd still be able to maneuver or sail home.

But if a fusion powered LAC jettisoned its reactor (assuming it had the systems to do so) it'd be reduced to whatever emergency back-up power it might have - but it's not going anywhere or powering anything major. Though if nothing else each crewman's skinsuit would keep them alive for a while. If it's got a lifepod or (like the prototype Shrikes) shuttle you could use that to abandon ship. But the LAC isn't going to self-rescue itself. (And a DD that ejected all reactors would be in the same boat; exept we know those definitely do carry lifepods, shuttles, and pinnaces)

Galactic Sapper wrote:Really makes you wonder about the plasma source is for the shoulder-launched anti-vehicle impeller missiles. Plasma-in-a-can, perhaps? Can you buy that in the Honorverse equivalent of a 7-11?

Presumably those are capacitor powered - rather than a microfusion power plant. Even the full up extended range Mark 14 and Mark 36 ERM and LERMs are still capacitor powered because even in a full anti-ship missile with a 11+ million km range the capacitors are more compact than a microfusion plant plus fuel would be. It's only the even larger DDMs where you switch.

Yes I know RFC has claimed that various things are powered by "plasma capacitors" but however the capacitors work they'd need a pretty good shelf-life in their charged state - so they shouldn't need a fresh slug of plasma just before launching.

Galactic Sapper wrote:Really makes you wonder about the plasma source is for the shoulder-launched anti-vehicle impeller missiles. Plasma-in-a-can, perhaps? Can you buy that in the Honorverse equivalent of a 7-11?

Jonathan_S wrote:Presumably those are capacitor powered - rather than a microfusion power plant. Even the full up extended range Mark 14 and Mark 36 ERM and LERMs are still capacitor powered because even in a full anti-ship missile with a 11+ million km range the capacitors are more compact than a microfusion plant plus fuel would be. It's only the even larger DDMs where you switch.

Yes I know RFC has claimed that various things are powered by "plasma capacitors" but however the capacitors work they'd need a pretty good shelf-life in their charged state - so they shouldn't need a fresh slug of plasma just before launching.

Clearly not micro fusion, as there is one used in Haven in The Short Victorious War and another used in Flag in Exile before their invention.

I think that UH talked about the Silver Bullet lasting about a month with a solar panel providing a trickle charge, but that would be a very much larger system.

For that matter what is the power source for a pulser side arm? It needs a tremendous amount of power to accelerate the projectile to the described speed and there is never any talk about putting one into a recharging stand at night.

I have mentioned the problem of containing a plasma, that requires energy which in this scheme is only supplied by the plasma itself; so it does not seem that the power should last long.

Jonathan_S wrote:[
Presumably those are capacitor powered - rather than a microfusion power plant. Even the full up extended range Mark 14 and Mark 36 ERM and LERMs are still capacitor powered because even in a full anti-ship missile with a 11+ million km range the capacitors are more compact than a microfusion plant plus fuel would be. It's only the even larger DDMs where you switch.

Yes I know RFC has claimed that various things are powered by "plasma capacitors" but however the capacitors work they'd need a pretty good shelf-life in their charged state - so they shouldn't need a fresh slug of plasma just before launching.

Plasma capacitor powered. So as it cools down from 50,000,000K where does the heat go?

tlb wrote:

Loren Pechtel wrote:The center of the sun is about 150 g/cm^3. The most logical material for an h-bomb is lithium deuteride at .83g/cm^3. Thus it's 180x compression to the density of the sun. That yields a temperature of about 54k K--nowhere near hot enough. (Even worse for reactors--the fuel is 1/10th the density so you need 10x the compression--but it's 15x colder, so the end result is an even lower temperature.) They're using gravity for the compression and something else for the heat.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Temperature doesn't really matter if you compress the matter so much that the nuclei do interact despite their EM repulsion. Heat in a star's core is not a cause of fusion, it's an effect. Sure, once it's there, heat causes more fusion to happen, positively feeding the cycle back, but at the same time causes nucleai to traval further, reducing density and thus negatively feeding back.

Loren Pechtel wrote:That's going to require incredibly more force.

That is clearly not a problem in the Honorverse: consider the enormous amount of energy needed to create a wedge.

I'm not questioning the available power, I'm questioning if it can be applied.