Questions tagged [nuclear-power]
Questions about generation of heat and power by nuclear phenomena, usually but not limited to radioactive decay (fission reactions). For weapons relying on nuclear phenomena, consider [weapons] and [weapon-mass-destruction] instead.
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Can Average Joe reboot the nuclear power plant?
Setup: The year is 2018. Malicious virus escaped secret lab and managed to kill 99% of all humans between January and April 2016. Not-so-average Joe spent his last two years of basic survival with the ...
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How can I build a Nuclear Reactor in my backyard? [closed]
In my world, having a nuclear reactor at your own house is legal, in fact government donates money in the form of subsidies ( So no constraints of funds). This might have been practical because of ...
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Will unattended nuclear power plants actually cause damage to their surroundings?
Scenario: Deadly virus wiped out 80 - 90% world population and it did it pretty quickly (in 2 months)
Although it is plausible that among these 10 - 20% of survivors will be people who actually know ...
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What would cause a nuclear power plant to break down after 2000 years, but not sooner?
What would cause a nuclear power plant to break down after 2000 years, but not sooner?
The setting is a society in a dark age. Their ancestors were considerably more advanced than earth currently is....
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Extremely compact nuclear reactor?
Realistically, how small can a nuclear reactor get (fission or fusion)?
Truck sized? Table top? Mr. Fusion? AAA Battery?
Are there other physical limits when we include human safety issues?
Let'...
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Nuclear Piston Engine - Is it possible?
While researching unique methods of nuclear energy generation and propulsion, I encountered many things, both in rocketry and aerospace. For instance, the nuclear thermal jet engine. However, I found ...
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Uranium block house heating
I'm thinking of building a very long term heating system for a housing complex.
I want it not to rely on sunlight, wind or other fuels.
And I just need the heat.
The surroundings are pretty cold, so ...
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Practicality of a thorium-powered, superheated-steam car?
At the beginning of the 1900s, the Doble Steam Motors Company built steam cars. Their engineers solved many of the problems steam cars had until then by using superheated steam and a condenser to ...
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Would a civilization on a planet with no natural Uranium-235 NEED to first achieve fusion before it can build nukes?
If a much older solar system - say 10 billion years with a slow burning star - would sprout intelligent life at around that age, given the half-life of U-235 and natural Uranium reserves, according to ...
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Why would Fission be used in a world where Fusion reactors exist?
In my world, all terrestrial bodies in the solar-system of over 900 km size have a significant human presence. Earth-moon Travel is as common as an interstate road trip, and Interplanetary travel is ...
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Could a steam-age civilization trial-and-error their way to a nuclear reactor if they had access to enough fissile material?
I think this boils down to a question of how much fundamental understanding is needed to build a very basic nuclear reactor to boil water.
If fissile material was readily available to an otherwise ...
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Is it possible for an organism to evolve to generate its own nuclear power?
Is it possible for an organism to evolve to biologically generate its own nuclear power? If so, how would this evolution occur?
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Could I build a nuclear reactor based on Bernoulli's principle?
So I was recently inspired by the answers that I saw on this stack exchange to the following question: Feasibility of H.G. Wells' Continuously-Exploding Atomic Bombs
And it occurred to me that ...
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Train-World: Feasibility of radioisotope steam-electric engines
...It's paradox. They left us these technological marvels, yet with all their might and knowledge they failed to prevent their own doom...
Excerpt from a lecture by the High Historian of Berlin Falls
...
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What would it take to make thorium a prominent energy source?
Thorium power plants were a thing that was researched and ultimately abandoned; however, for all intents and purposes, it's safer than any power source we have today.
In our timeline, the first such ...
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