[TML] RTT FGMP

[Jerry W Barrington]

On 7/13/08 10:25 PM, "Grimmund" <grimmund at gmail.com> wrote:

> Once the plasma cools and stops fusing, so does the radioactivity.

Not entirely.  Other atoms that absorb the neutrons may thus become unstable
isotopes.

> Fusion produces relatively little radioactivity, mostly fast
> particles.

Again, fusion tends to emit a lot of neutron.  See above.

> But if you pick your fuel carefully, fusion doesn't produce ANY
> radioactive isotopes.  It produces fast particles while the fusion
> reaction is happening, but when it stops, so does the radioactivity.
> The classic example is hydrogen fusion, which produces helium.

Likely, most of the criteria for a fusion power reactor will apply.  Plus we
don't want the neutrons mentioned.  That doesn't leave many good choices:
H-2 + He-3; He-3 + He-3; after that you start getting into heavier elements
like Li and B.

If you mean the proton-proton chain or CNO cycle, only in stars.  Even in
stellar cores (15,000,000 K, 160g/cm^3), the energy production per volume is
only a quarter of that of the same volume of a *resting* human.  Hardly
weapon-level energy.

There's lots of other complicating factors.  But if we look too hard at
them, PGMP & FGMP will be show to simply be impractical as weapons.