Could We Retrofit Nuclear Saltwater Rocket Technology To Be a Powerplant?

[Spacescifi]

An easy way is to use the exhaust to push turbines and shelter the powerplant with enough mass to contain the radiation.

Meanwhile a steady stream of uranium salts and water is pumped into the facility until you wish to pause it

Or are nuclear reactors already better for power generation? Does using NSWR technology modified as a powerplant on Earth offer any advangtages over nuclear reactors, coal, and oil/gasoline as a power source.

There are likely better ways to modify NSWR technology to be a powerplant, but I am counting on the forum to reveal that.

Thoughts? Thanks.

Edited Tuesday at 07:38 PM by Spacescifi

[darthgently]

25 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

An easy way is to use the exhaust to push turbines and shelter the powerplant with enough mass to contain the radiation.

Meanwhile a steady stream of uranium salts and water is pumped into the facility until you wish to pause it

Or are nuclear reactors already better for power generation? Does using NSWR technology modified as a powerplant on Earth offer any advangtages over nuclear reactors, coal, and oil/gasoline as a power source.

There are likely better ways to modify NSWR technology to be a powerplant, but I am counting on the forum to reveal that.

Thoughts? Thanks.

I think the main challenge would be materials and safety.

It’s going to be the same amount of heat energy per unit of fuel either way

[Spacescifi]

5 minutes ago, darthgently said:

I think the main challenge would be materials and safety.

It’s going to be the same amount of heat energy per unit of fuel either way

 

So no advangtages of power generation over other methods? I was thinking it might produce power at a faster rate for a given period of time than other methods minus energy lost to heat that is not converted to power production somehow.

[RCgothic]

My initial thoughts are that this creates vast quantities of irradiated effluent, compared to conventional reactors where the fuel and fission products is contained within cladding, so it's going to be comparably horrible to deal with.

It's also not an inherently safe fuel, and a leak outside of the reactor could lead to a critical geometry forming, which would be a bad problem and you will not generate power today.

Finally, nuclear saltwater is a solution to the question "how do we accelerate a low-mass propellant to become high-velocity low-pressure rocket exhaust?" "How do we efficiently turn a turbine to generate power", is a different question entirely that probably isn't satisfied by a similar solution.

Edited Tuesday at 08:24 PM by RCgothic

[darthgently]

35 minutes ago, Spacescifi said:

 

So no advangtages of power generation over other methods? I was thinking it might produce power at a faster rate for a given period of time than other methods minus energy lost to heat that is not converted to power production somehow.

From 10k feet I don’t see any.  Unless your proposal harnesses the energy better in some way but my gut says it wouldn’t because the energy release would be faster and capturing energy faster is generally going to have more losses given the limits of technology.

Now if you need a bunch of electrical energy very fast proposed approach may be best.  Smarter people will surely chime in and I’m looking forward to what comes up

[farmerben]

The nuclear saltwater rocket is best suited for interstellar spaceships, not spinning turbines on Earth.

[Spacescifi]

30 minutes ago, farmerben said:

The nuclear saltwater rocket is best suited for interstellar spaceships, not spinning turbines on Earth.

 

Yep... Star Trek taught me wrong. Just cause a warp core can power everything does not mean a super duper nuclear rocket also can efficiently.

[AckSed]

There's always the Issac Arthur, 'landbound Project Orion' approach: Make a massive water/molten salt-filled containment vessel; stick a high-flow turbine on the outside; drop small fission-fusion bombs inside, and reap the power.

No idea how effective or practical it would be, but he always brings it up in his videos on energy and fusion as things we could do now.

Slightly closer to the topic are nuclear gas-core 'lightbulbs'. These eye-opening devices are supposed to start off at 22,000 deg. C, contained in an actively-cooled quartz tube so that the nuclear plasma can be both contained and radiate in the UV spectrum, both heating the flow of hydrogen and illuminating UV-tuned photovoltaic elements.

The Soviet Union at the very least devoted a paper or two to making this into a viable reactor, and slightly saner gas-core fission reactors that used MHD generators and helium doping.

[RCgothic]

With a few further thoughts, there are designs of molten salt reactors where the fuel is dissolved in the coolant. They're under-moderated outside the core, so fission only happens during that portion of the circulation. I believe they're somewhat similar to what you're considering, but use molten metal/salts to convey the fuel instead of water. Therefore they can safely operate at higher temperatures/lower pressures. 

And irradiation of the primary circuit is indeed a big problem that outweighs the simplification of the secondary circuit, which at higher temperatures can be gas-gas instead of steam/water with a phase change.

So molten salt, not saltwater.

 

Edited Wednesday at 11:00 AM by RCgothic

[Nuke]

On 2/4/2025 at 12:28 PM, Spacescifi said:

 

Yep... Star Trek taught me wrong. Just cause a warp core can power everything does not mean a super duper nuclear rocket also can efficiently.

star trek, at least in the classic sense, bothered to flesh out its technology to the point where it seemed plausible. the tng technical manual borrowed heavily from the fusion research that was going on at the time, theoretical concepts like the bussard ramjet (he have probibly got his polywell reactor working had he not been a chain smoker), a fair bit of hard scifi among other examples. here is still a fair bit of handwavium in there, maybe a dash of unobtainium. but at the end of the day, its a lot of space magic.

also i should point out that nuclear as a propulsion technology does not need the same safety margins as a power plant does. even in submarines most of the shielding is actually provided from seawater (in space distance would do the same job, you just need to be careful near stations and docking approaches). partial shielding is sufficient in propulsion situations, where in reactor settings you want full shielding, containment, and a nice calm reliable reaction. nobody cares if your exhaust is a little hot because space is already full of all kinds of nasties.

Edited Friday at 12:48 PM by Nuke