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But you are talking about volumetric efficiency - the portions of the sun where fusion is actually taking place are far more efficient than that surely? I alwa
by Sapient 14y ago
But you are talking about volumetric efficiency - the portions of the sun where fusion is actually taking place are far more efficient than that surely?
I always believed they were trying to duplicate the suns core, not the whole ball of gas.
- ars 14y agoThat's easy enough to calculate. You end up with 46 cubic miles. That's equivalent to 100 foot building 50 miles on each edge. Much smaller - still pretty large, but doable. Your energy output in comparison to capturing solar energy is now 3 times as much rather than 1/20 as much.
- Sapient 14y agoIn which case, I can only assume we are aiming for greater efficiency than the sun. Thanks for your answer!
- Retric 14y agoJet is 1980's technology and it's already produced 16 megawatts from 200 cubic meters in 1997. http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/JET.aspx http://www.ccfe.ac.uk/JET.aspx Compared to "the center of the sun, fusion power is estimated by model to be about 276.5 watts/m3" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_core Which works out to 290x the energy density of the core. Direct comparisons of the Continent vessel vs the volume of the sun are even higher.
- arethuza 14y agoNot to mention getting 5.4 yottawatts from roughly the same volume, if not for the same amount of time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba