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 8 hours ago 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 7 hours ago 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.