4 ms·
Since these fusion reactors generate heat, you still need the steam turbine and generator. So the capital cost ($/watt) can't be noticeably less than oil burner
by tlb 11y ago
Since these fusion reactors generate heat, you still need the steam turbine and generator. So the capital cost ($/watt) can't be noticeably less than oil burners. For weapons, fuel cost hardly matters because it's operating for such short periods. So thermal fusion reactors don't enable rail guns.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoNot necessarily. See [1] although there are better sources out there. But one of the things that makes fusion much more interesting is that it is theoretically practical to do direct energy conversion. This is much much harder in fission systems as the only thing fission generates is massive amounts of heat, whereas fusion can generate massive amounts of magnetic flux. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_energy_conversion