Comment on logs are for quitters

• Shayeta@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  It is perfectly fair in the context of “fuel”, a resource used to produce energy. Whether energy is generated via chemical or nuclear reaction is irrelavent in this case.

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  • exasperation@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    Yup. If, for example, you’re designing a deep space mission, where every gram counts, there’s a conversation to be had about whether it’s cost effective (and appropriate risk) to send nuclear reactors and fuel aboard those spacecraft.

    Or using modern engineering, whether an aircraft carrier should be powered by nuclear fission or internal combustion of hydrocarbons.

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    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Usually space craft have relatively light power needs so why bother with a whole-ass nuclear reactor when an RTG is smaller, lighter, and has no moving parts? They’re a pretty common choice for space probes, for example.

      imgs.xkcd.com/comics/plutonium.png

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      • chaogomu@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

        We’re actually running into shortages of Plutonium 238. Which is seriously compromising deep space missions.

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• Gladaed@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

  Coal still has carbon in it. Carbon does have a lot of excess energy per nucleus. Just gotta turn it into iron.

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  • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

    That’s true, but there is far more energy to gain by fusing hydrogen compared to carbon. I’m not sure how it compares to uranium though. I suspect it might be similar. (I mean, obviously in practice you wouldn’t / couldn’t actually get the energy from fusing carbon - but we can still compare hypothetically. … also, I’m sure we could get a clear answer by looking it up; but this is one of those things where thinking about it is probably more interesting than knowing the answer.)

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    • Gladaed@feddit.org ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

      Carbon and uranium are pretty comparable. Look up binding energy per nucleon.

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