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Fusion Power plant cooling ponds

gchuck

gchuck

SOC-12
Knight
Are 'cooling-ponds' safe to use as swimming holes?

According to what I recall, 'Fusion-Plus'(sp?) is self-contained, and therefore does not require a separate cooling system.

IMTU this is 'given', exceptions being ground based plants have auxiliary systems that provide for 'cooling' in emergency/exceptional circumstances.

Comments, concerns, or cat-calls?
 
giphy.gif


Sauna baths.
 
So it kind of depends on several things, including how strictly you define safe. As XKCD points out,
1755543800873.png
Swimming in the upper levels is pretty safe. Generally these pools shouldn't physically mix cooling media with other systems anyhow, you just run the closed pipes of the system that need cooling through the secondary pool and it sucks the heat away from the system you're trying to cool. So all you have to worry about are leaks, corrosion, and of course anything stored in your prospective swimming hole.
 
Badenov said:
So it kind of depends on several things, including how strictly you define safe. As XKCD points out,
View attachment 6680
Swimming in the upper levels is pretty safe. Generally these pools shouldn't physically mix cooling media with other systems anyhow, you just run the closed pipes of the system that need cooling through the secondary pool and it sucks the heat away from the system you're trying to cool. So all you have to worry about are leaks, corrosion, and of course anything stored in your prospective swimming hole.
Click to expand...
I believe, sir, that the illustration is not that of a fusion reactor cooling pond, but rather of a "fission hole".
 
willtron3030 said:
I believe, sir, that the illustration is not that of a fusion reactor cooling pond, but rather of a "fission hole".
Click to expand...
The drawing is vaguely representative of a range of water-based storage solutions for things that need to be stored underwater, which, admittedly, are mainly fissionable-related. It repesents 'anything stored in your prospective swimming hole'.
 
I would expect that it's quite safe, but that base safety policy would be 'no swimming', just 'in case'. Whether the policy is enforced, and on whom, would depend on the local base administration's attitude to such rule-breaking.
 
Spinward Flow said:
A reactor containing plasma at millions of degrees kelvin doesn't need a cooling pond ... :unsure:
I'm pretty sure that such a "thermally dense" reactor is going to need cooling/waste heat rejection of some variety in order to operate safely ... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Spinny has a point. Regardless of the precise details, fusion generators (and many other types) work at current TLs by generating/collecting heat, helping it move from its origin to someplace less hot, and scavenging off some of that change in entropy as mechanical or electrical energy. The receiving end of that heat flow should be as cold as we can manage. Water is a cheap and functional medium for heat transfer and temperature-induced phase changes makes it useful for exploiting the entropy to create mechanical (and eventually electrical) energy. It can cool easily from evaporation. And on Earth, it's very plentiful. The downside is that at STP if freezes at 0C and there is a limit to how hot water can get, limiting us to a temperature differential of about 2200K, which in turn limits how efficient our generators can get.

I haven't spent any time reading about molten salt reactors, so the above is not only layman-levels of imprecise, it's a decade or more out of date.

At the same time, Mike makes an unassailable point -- at TL9+ -- because RAW: FusionPlus[tm] is "cold" fusion. It doesn't exist IRL, and doesn't have to for it to be The Way Things Work in-game. Same with anti-grav and reactionless thrust, never mind jumpspace. It'd be a game-changer for human flourishing if someone made it happen.

[and seriously: "fission hole" was gold. Nobody appreciates puns around here?]
 
Fusion+ turned up at TL12+, as I recall (and only in T4, so if you're using an earlier rule-set...). It also, according to FF&S2, used a bunch more fuel, so big fixed plants would probably still be normal fusion and thus need cooling.
 
willtron3030 said:
Spinny has a point. Regardless of the precise details, fusion generators (and many other types) work at current TLs by generating/collecting heat, helping it move from its origin to someplace less hot, and scavenging off some of that change in entropy as mechanical or electrical energy.
Click to expand...
No they don't.
willtron3030 said:
The receiving end of that heat flow should be as cold as we can manage. Water is a cheap and functional medium for heat transfer and temperature-induced phase changes makes it useful for exploiting the entropy to create mechanical (and eventually electrical) energy. It can cool easily from evaporation. And on Earth, it's very plentiful. The downside is that at STP if freezes at 0C and there is a limit to how hot water can get, limiting us to a temperature differential of about 2200K, which in turn limits how efficient our generators can get.

I haven't spent any time reading about molten salt reactors, so the above is not only layman-levels of imprecise, it's a decade or more out of date.

At the same time, Mike makes an unassailable point -- at TL9+ -- because RAW: FusionPlus[tm] is "cold" fusion. It doesn't exist IRL, and doesn't have to for it to be The Way Things Work in-game. Same with anti-grav and reactionless thrust, never mind jumpspace. It'd be a game-changer for human flourishing if someone made it happen.

[and seriously: "fission hole" was gold. Nobody appreciates puns around here?]
Click to expand...
 
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