Timeline for Everything has a tiny nuclear reactor in it. How much of a concern are illegal nuclear bombs?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
36 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 8 at 7:02 | history | protected | Monty Wild♦ | ||
| Jul 7 at 20:32 | comment | added | Tony Ennis | Just pass a law so nuclear bombs are not illegal. #problemsolver | |
| Jul 6 at 21:23 | comment | added | MacGuffin | @ChristopherKing To clarify my "I'm not a nuclear engineer" comment I will point out that I studied electrical engineering, which included some studies on power systems, thermodynamics, chemistry, and physics. I do wish to be informative and scientifically accurate but I have my limits. I see examples of small and light nuclear reactors on the internet, small enough that it's been considered seriously for bomber aircraft and battle tanks, but so far proven impractical for anything that moves over land on wheels. | |
| Jul 6 at 21:09 | comment | added | MacGuffin | @ChristopherKing See my answers below about KRUSTY on how small a practical nuclear reactor could get. Also see the Aircraft Reactor Experiment and similar research. The reactor could be quite small and powerful but the shielding, power conversion, and safety systems would add considerable size and weight. Steam power would likely be out of the question but a Stirling engine or air breathing turbine might work. I'm no nuclear engineer, I just play one on the internet. It could likely be made to work but there has to be a justification for doing that than batteries or synthesized fuels. | |
| Jul 6 at 20:40 | comment | added | Christopher King | @MacGuffin what if the cars are much bigger (like monster truck sized)? | |
| Jul 6 at 19:34 | comment | added | MacGuffin | @jdunlop I agree that a nuclear powered personal car is impractical so the OP may just have to skip that part in building this world. Maybe, maybe, it could work for a mass transit land vehicle, or a kind of mobile home. Regardless, if you want to claim that a dirty bomb would leave an area a radiation hazard for decades, and have it based on real world science, then you must have some specific isotopes in mind. There's plenty of nonradioactive materials that if spread over an area would leave it a toxic hazard for decades. They also won't tip the police off from emitting gamma rays. | |
| Jul 6 at 19:09 | comment | added | jdunlop | @MacGuffin - it really depends on what these reactors are burning. As I stated above, if you want to reach criticality in something that fits in a personal auto, you're going to need something a lot more active than uranium. Californium or americium would give you a much smaller core (though the expense would be mind-boggling with current production methods) and distributing that core over a few city blocks with an explosive would result in both a toxicological and radiological catastrophe rusty nails can't really match. (Of course, you'd only have to blow up a car.) | |
| Jul 5 at 23:42 | comment | added | MacGuffin | @jdunlop Which radioactive metals would leave an area dangerous for decades? How much of this material would be needed to render a given area dangerous? How much material could be extracted per "tiny" reactor core? What is the process of extracting this material and constructing a dirty bomb? Compare that to the damage that could be done with ANFO and rusty nails. I believe if you investigate dirty bombs more closely you will realize just how little threat they pose in real life. If the goal is a story based in science then I'd suggest avoiding dirty bombs as a serious threat. | |
| Jul 5 at 22:40 | comment | added | thegreatemu | Since there is no such thing as a nuclear reactor small enough to fit in a car, you have to make up this technology, and therefore you can make nuclear bombs a problem or not depending on which is more interesting for your story. | |
| Jul 5 at 17:32 | comment | added | jdunlop | @MacGuffin - nailbombs don't tend to leave their region of detonation dangerous for decades. Radioactive heavy metals will do that, though. | |
| Jul 5 at 16:30 | answer | added | nigel222 | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 5 at 14:06 | comment | added | John | Note, nuclear bombs have a threshold below which tey will not work, the same is true of nuclear reactos you can't make them below a certain size at least with uranium. Also one of the main functions of the electric grid is to even out load, so you don't have constant brownouts and overloads, so you may not have large grids but you should have lots of small ones, around neighborhood sized. otherwise you have brown outs everytime someone turns on a new appliance. | |
| Jul 5 at 10:44 | comment | added | MacGuffin | " who needs a nuclear bomb? Just put some lightly-used fissionables around a hundred pounds of ANFO and choose a city you'd like to irradiate. " Who needs radioactive material if you have access to ANFO? Pack some rusty nails around the explosive to maximize immediate death and give those injured a bad case of lockjaw. | |
| Jul 5 at 9:29 | comment | added | ors | Exactly as @jdunlop said, the scary prospect in this world is an alternate type of "nuclear bomb" called a "dirty bomb", you just take a bunch of radioactive material and strap it to a conventional explosive, and you've irradiated a large area. | |
| Jul 5 at 4:26 | answer | added | JBH | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 5 at 0:56 | answer | added | Gray Sheep | timeline score: 1 | |
| Jul 5 at 0:29 | history | edited | Christopher King | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 5 at 0:03 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Jul 4 at 22:07 | answer | added | MacGuffin | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 4 at 17:49 | comment | added | jdunlop | (Also, as has been hinted at, a nuclear reactor small enough to power a car would have to be using some highly enriched fuel with a terrifyingly short halflife to be portable - let alone a steam cycle reactor!) | |
| Jul 4 at 17:47 | comment | added | jdunlop | Frame Challenge not worth an answer: who needs a nuclear bomb? Just put some lightly-used fissionables around a hundred pounds of ANFO and choose a city you'd like to irradiate. | |
| Jul 4 at 17:02 | comment | added | Christopher King | @MacGuffin I just mean that the reason that this world has effectively banned electric grids is based on one terror attack, not objective measures of how risky electric grids are. So of course over-regulating the electric grids will seem irrational as pointed out by @g s. | |
| Jul 4 at 16:45 | comment | added | MacGuffin | @ChristopherKing Is that supposed to be sarcasm about no terror attacks involving water distribution or cars yet? If it's a terror attack then it is not a "car accident" since it would be deliberate. | |
| Jul 4 at 16:37 | answer | added | MacGuffin | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jul 4 at 15:42 | comment | added | Christopher King | @g s there have been no famous terrorist attacks involving the water distribution system or ordinary car accidents yet | |
| Jul 4 at 15:35 | answer | added | Richard Kirk | timeline score: 4 | |
| Jul 4 at 15:35 | comment | added | Mike Scott | What do you mean by a “nuclear bomb”? Actual fission bombs will still be very tricky to make, but “dirty” bombs using conventional explosives to scatter radioactive substances will be very easy. | |
| Jul 4 at 15:29 | history | edited | Christopher King | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 4 at 15:25 | comment | added | g s | Even neglecting the catastrophic ecological consequences of ordinary car accidents and structure fires, nuclear reactors are thirsty, thirsty machines. All these unfortunates have done is replace one vulnerability (electricity distribution) with another (water distribution) - only this time disrupting the system will cause the city to immolate itself and drown in toxic radioactive smoke, instead of just causing minor disruptions. | |
| Jul 4 at 15:24 | answer | added | o.m. | timeline score: 2 | |
| Jul 4 at 15:16 | answer | added | Vesper | timeline score: -1 | |
| Jul 4 at 15:12 | answer | added | kenod | timeline score: 10 | |
| Jul 4 at 14:56 | history | edited | Christopher King | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Jul 4 at 14:34 | answer | added | David R | timeline score: 15 | |
| Jul 4 at 14:23 | comment | added | Jon Custer | Highly likely, and impossible to stop. | |
| Jul 4 at 14:17 | history | asked | Christopher King | CC BY-SA 4.0 |